Right Now & Moving On~

4 days left in Kaua'i. Damn I'm gonna miss this place. People have said, "why don't you just stay?" I say, "I don't know, my home is in New York (or New Jersey)." Sure the air will be dirtier, the food not nearly as fresh, the people a little more aggravated and the pace A LOT FASTER. But, it's my home, so that's where I will be, for now.

Moving on, this blog will serve as a place to learn about alignment and yoga, and the humor and wonder of taking the philosophy of yoga (remember it's not just postures) out into the world with our people in our lives.

BUT, I promise you I will continue making videos of smoothies and fruits and foods that serve the yogic lifestyle of simplicity and wholeness, as well as other fun ones, just because. AND, I will be in California and Oregon until May 13th, so you will get to see more adventure and fun along the way, and hopefully some videos of me working with, I don't know, you!?

Let me know if YOU would like a session to check out the amazing benefits that YogAlign provides for feeling light and free in your body. It really is the bomb. We'll work out the details later.

Right now I am teaching a man for 4-days who has been a yogi for longer than I have been alive! He knows a lot, but what I am finding is that just because one practices yoga doesn't mean one doesn't have pain. It's amazing teaching Roberto, hopefully he will write in on this post and share. I'm almost in as much disbelief as he is witnessing his quads opening more than he has ever felt. Ever! Or seeing his face as he experiences his psoas (or hip flexors) opening up, he seems as though he is in shock! This work really does work, wow.

Mahalo for reading, B~

Echo The Dolphin, Echo's of Sharks.

As I look down the barrel of my final week here many emotions surface. One of them is and has been fear. As a yoga teacher in the making, or a yoga teacher already being, fear is part of our vocabulary to overcome. One of the fears I overcame today was that of swimming with sharks. My teacher Michaelle, Cree, her boyfriend Kabien, Heidi and myself along with Captain Brad (who was awesome, thanks Brad) took a boat to the Nepali Coast today. Wow. Just getting into the water and going out into the bay in the very small, but humble vessel had me worry about the ocean, the great unknown, right?

That quickly passed but as we talked about swimming with dolphins my fear of sharks showed up, it was right there. 'To get into the ocean, not near a beach and swim in it!? Really!??' It just scares me. So, of course we're about an hour into the trip, about 8:00 am and a huge pod of dolphins are swimming our way. Everyone gets so excited, Heidi is freaking out ecstatic. I'm the last one in the ocean. I almost didn't make it in. I actually thought for a second, "it's not a big deal to swim with them, I can see them fine from right here and this alone is amazing."

But one of my mantras of late has been "go towards the fear." Once I brought that into my being, well-that was it. I couldn't let this opportunity go by. Brad dug out the last pair of goggles sans snorkel and I could only do what there was to do: jump in. Once I was in, fear left and the excitement of experiencing a new opportunity came over me in, well-a wave. It was amazing. I mean, first of all- the sharks.Tthere were no sharks of course or I would be talking about that WAY along time ago. But of course the presence of them was there, but only for a minute, and it wasn't fear. I was more like a peaceful awareness. 'The sharks have the WHOLE ocean to swim in and it's not like every time I get into the water they will be there.' That was one thought. The other was, 'sharks don't like to eat people,' and it's true, they don't. I have a myriad of information on this which I won't tell you about now, but ask me later because it's super interesting. 

Looking under the Persian Blue waters and seeing Blue Dophins play and make their way along the coast was as connected to the ocean and its' life I have ever been a part of. Well, second best. Diving the Great Barrier Reef 25 feet under takes the cake. But this experience was different. It was more raw. It was about me swimming in the ocean with the newly discovered fear of sharks that I noticed since coming to Hawaii. There were only 6 of us and no gear, no guns or spears to protect us. It was us and them: them being the everything else that exists in marine life. This pod of dolphins was huge. Maybe 50 dolphins coming in droves of 10 and 12 at a time. It was a rare encounter, one only hopes for. I can still see them swimming together so gracefully together, so peaceful. The sharks in my mind have left. And I can fully own that my relationship with the ocean has forever transformed. 

Fitting too, because on this last week of yoga teacher training a transformational experience occurred as only they can when practicing yoga. Yoga happens off the mat, not just in the studio. Take what you learn in class or in any arena of practice you gain spirituality in, and take it out into the world. For yourself and others.

Becoming a Teacher.

I will be a yoga teacher in one week, kinda'. So many things to say about this. I knew in 2006 at Burning Man that I was a yoga teacher, it came to me in a tent of 50 or so yogis practicing in the desert of Nevada. I just knew it then. It's been 3 and half years since that moment of incarnation and now, after that period of time searching, listening, practicing, procrastinating I have reached a point where I can say; I want this, and I did it, almost...

Sure, I may have been a yoga teacher all along, a Michaelangelo's 'David' so to speak, stone carved around the 'not yoga' teacher so I can envelop and embody the being of yoga teacher. And now, this week, I get to practice on real live human beings!

Starting tomorrow we will have our own clients coming into the studio to work with over a 4-day practicum period as we transfer, download and upload what we know into the consciousness of another, for the sake of healing and making a difference for them.

This yoga is a combination of traditional asana-tweaked in some cases to support the natural alignment and curvature of the spine and 'sipping breath' naturally aligns the body with therapeutic stretching and PNF (proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation) breathing to heal their aches and pains. It's the best of both worlds. I promise I'll show you. 95% of pain comes from misalignment according to Cedar Sinai Spinal Institute in Los Angeles.

It's also my final week here in Kauai. Hm. Not sure what I want to say about this whole experience so far. So much of it is touching me on a deep personal level. People in Kauai are here to do the real work on themselves. The same game I played in NJ/NY doesn't work here. I'm learning to live from my heart and the island is showing me to overcome fears and avoidances in a way I didn't expect. That's all I'll say for now, I gotta keep this post somewhat short. Tune in tomorrow for my brush with sharks and dolphins, all in the water, without a beach anywhere close by.

 -Mahalo, B.

The Language of Judgement, The Language of Love.

What comes out of our mouth is 100% consistent to how we view our world. I have to acknowledge my lack of foresight on my last post. I really have no idea if the subject in the picture doing wide legged standing forward bend felt constrained. While it doesn't support the natural flow and alignment of the sacrum and spine, maybe it works for the person doing it? Maybe she feels good? I don't know?

Irregardless, the point of this post is that my language noted something different. As a yoga teacher, and as a person, I don't want to say someone else's way of doing things isn't worthwhile to them on their journey. Yesterday I was at a coffee shop in Kapa'a (getting coconut water). I met some people and we all started talking about consciousness through music and sound vs. how music is taught in theory. Anyway, it was a good conversation-not for now. What is for now is that Kristen said something that really made sense.

"I think judgement is confused love." Wow. What a statement. I couldn't agree more. Anytime we react to a situation or certain people that does not support what we want (I piggybacked on the comment) is us being judgmental. Think about it for a second before you react.

So, is our judgement really just confused love? Because if we could give up judging everything- all the time, and totally accept the moment, would we be open to love as something that's possible for us? From that I agree that all judgement stems from a place where we either weren't loved before or weren't taught to accept.

This is all very new processing, what do you think?

Getting back to my language, I have to watch it. Because by me saying this is the way, even though those weren't the exact words that came out of my mouth, Alicia-a yoga teacher trainer from YogaWorks, saw it as that. Did she see it as judgement? I don't know, maybe? It doesn't matter to argue or question. If we are going to be good yogis in the world, we have to all get along and see each other's points-of-view. I'm in a teacher training program, and it takes a village. All yoga stems from the same source and in my opinion can lead to source.

By openly looking at our language, we have the divine power and opportunity to enable ourselves to transform who we are now, for who we want to be. Which I believe are loving, peaceful people on the planet who do good for each other.  However, we have to be willing to look at ourself first, and really be honest, because despite thinking we may be right, our words impact people.

That's all I have to say about that... for now.

Mahalo~ Brandon.

Kauai Is Fruity

Now, a post solely dedicated to the funky exotic fruits of Kauai. Eating local produce is one of my top pastimes here on island. On this page I will be bringing you up close and personal to these tasty morsels which I heart to devour as often as possible, and the people who provide them.

12 bananas, 3 guavas, 3 chico sapotes, 2 avocados, turmeric, an orange, lemon and an egg-fruit.

What's Yoga? What's Yogalign?

  Let's get to the yoga shall we. I figure it's time to share the style of yoga that I'm learning vs. the yoga I have been practicing for the last 6 and half years.  First. What is yoga? Basically, and I mean, REALLY basically (b/c my blog would run on forever just defining what yoga is with all the metaphors and interpretations I can come up with) yoga literally means "union."  Satchidananda Ashram, the editor of Patanjali's Yoga Sutra's describes yoga as "the understanding and complete mastery over the mind" and later says yoga is the study and science of the mind to master its reactions and behaviors, or to become one with what is going on outside of us so we are connected to each other and what is-is in the moment. 

  Most people think yoga is just a bunch of physical postures to become more flexible or strong or limber, what have you.  This blog is about yoga being on the mat and off of it, which is why I practice, so I can be happy and with my body in any pose (situation) without trying to control it or wish it was different or wish I was different, etc.  Instead of being in two places at once, you know-my mind is in one place and my body is someplace else. Make sense? The physical practice is a practice for living.  Ok, moving on.

  Yogalign, the method of yoga I am studying is going to give some people a real test to what they think yoga is. For instance, the traditional yoga posture, pictured here, Prasarita Padottanasana is supposed to benefit the spine, knees, back, hamstrings, etc. according to Yoga Journal. But how is it doing that? Because in this picture the knees are hyper-extended and the sacrum is rounded and possibly crunched. This is not supporting natural alignment and doing this will train the body to move out of it's natural integrity. And, for most people, they'll never get here, but they'll try really hard, and that's not good. 

  Michaelle always says "You can't get comfortable by being uncomfortable." And, "You can't get in alignment by being out of alignment."  So, why are we doing it this way when thousands of years of traditional yoga says otherwise?  Here, you will see our variation, which Michaelle calls 'Surfers Stretch.'



  We bend the knees to keep the curve in the lower back so our sacrum isn't getting crunched which can cause all sorts of injuries like nerve problems and disc problems. We are consciously breathing and feeling how the ribs and diaphragm move too. Because we are in this variation of wide legged forward bend we can also laterally stretch the side channels of fascia and lattisimus dorsi (the lats). It feels so good, I have never felt that whole lat muscle stretch this way before, its a real side and back opener-all in body integrity. 

  We are literally training our brain to put our body in or out of alignment, might as well do it correctly, right? If we are more aligned in our body, we are more aligned in our life, more able to pay attention to details and can be more attentive to the subtleties in our life, so we can pick up on the messages and signals and become more powerful human beings. And also so we can feel good! So many of us are in pain. 

  When you practice yoga next time, think of your spine, think of your sacrum, think of how you're breathing and ask yourself, "do I feel good right now?" "is my body supposed to be here?"  If your answer is something different than your yoga teacher has been telling you, ask them about the anatomy of the body. And if you are hurting or want to try something different, then I'll be home soon to help!

-Brandon.