It's been almost a week now that I have posted a new entry; evidence that our final days of the first module of the training was really quite brutal.  Meditation didn't actually get easier; I've realized that though the breath through Pranayama exercises and an increasingly supple body through Asanas does not necessarily make Meditation easier on their own; the Mind must quiet before the experience can progress.  So each day; like rolling dice, had just as many probable outcomes to how hard it would be to sit there for the entire session.  On our final day with Lance, the day we did 108 Sun Salutations, I managed to sit quiet quite comfortably for 40 mins with no aches, pains, breathing malfunctions or excess brain chatter--it was so nice to reach (and sustain) a level of calm that I could recognize and not only graciously notice in passing as it came in the past.  Much of this achievement has nothing to do with me al all, but the presence of others to reach that continuity of calm.  I find yoga so much easier to do in the presence of others; as if you are being carried by a cloud of moving energy that lifts you through the postures.  I've developed a high (dare I say an attachment!!) to our group "Om" and chanting sessions; literally feeling the healing vibrations in the room to carry you through, elevate your own voice, recognize that we're not all in this alone.  I'm dedicating this piece to the Partner Yoga we did and all the other people who were part of this training; and their energy that catapulted me through some more difficult times and supported me through some other fearful ones.  It was a nice reminder that whatever meditation we are working on, it's nice to have witnesses who support or recognize our dedication; and that without them, the journey is too much of an internalized search rather than a externally reflected beam inwards, aware of our surroundings, partners and possibilities to be who we truly are...and be of service to them as well.
Namaste...which, by the way, means "I honor the place in you which is of love, of truth, of light and of peace; the place in which the entire universe dwells.  When you are in that place of you and I am in that place in me."

I'm adding a bit of a ridiculous photo here to give you a glimpse of the slight delirium (and exhaustion-here my partner Benoit takes an after lunch snooze) where my friend Olivia and I have fun with the ceiling mirror in a dead quiet room.  I'm dedicating this entry to "Clarity and Release"--which is also what I'm doing today; my day off in our 6 day/week training program. 
Throughout the week, we've obviously been pushing our limits a little: using more strength, flexibility and balance we ever thought we had.  The determination to do this is incredibly rewarding, particularly when you receive the result: often a moment of clarity or release.  I've spent plenty of time reading and hearing personal recounts about yoga, the integration of mind/body/spirit, the power of the mind, overcoming fear limits, yadda yadda; but it is through practice in which this really sinks in.  And what's brilliant about that moment of release and clarity is that, once learned and mastered, can it be applied to any aspect of your life.  I know this is a bit of an eye-rolling "no kidding" moment but it's been a bit of a rebirth for me in actually feeling this again after many years of working in a system that tends to fuel stress, angst, competition, aggression, ambition, ego and societal merit rather than nurturing true intention and progression in understanding the body and mind and how they intertwine to not only move forward but to just sit there and 'be'.  I had three moments like this already in this first week (it doesn't take much to pull ourselves out of illusion does it?);  one morning during our meditation sessions where my thoughts eventually melted away (a huge task for my chatter brain) and time both stood still and flew by in a moment as what felt like 2 mins was actually over an hour.  Another time in Prasarita Paddotanasana (when you stand feet a meter apart and hands clasped, elbows straight behind your back and bend forward towards the ground as you push your clasped hands to the floor).  During my adjustment, Lance pushed me to the point where I thought he was going to rip my arms out of their sockets; my breathing accelerated, my heart feared, and my mind immediately said "nope, can't do this."  Once I surrendered to his adjustment (and gave him the adequate counter resistance so that I indeed would not be injured [note: 80% of injury in yoga is from stretching without turning on your muscles; a common misconception about yoga.  it's not stretching, it's counter-resistance and the interplay of antagonist/agonist muscle action to build flexible, tensile strength]), my hands went straight to the ground.  My focus took me through it and though I surrendered to his adjustment; I was still relying on his support to get me there.  It wasn't until 5 minutes later, I did it with a less experienced partner (doing it ourselves) that my hands went straight to the floor and the unfathomable was achieved.  It's such a mind game what we think we cannot do...  However, this taught me the importance of self-surrender.  Guides can take us there but we unnecesarily rely on their guidance and wisdom without grasping our own experiences; only then can clarity and release happen.  The third (and actually another fourth) time this happened was during a nice hip opener (Supta Baddha Konasana; think a bad Jean Claude Van Damme movie where he lies on blocks, knees bent in either direction, feet together, letting gravity and a little force with straps pull your knees to the floor for a deep hip opening); 15 mins of this and silent tears of not physical pain but something deeper release (the rest of the day I was totally relaxed).  Also during Hanumanasana (you know the giddy monkey god? this is the "splits" move) for 15 mins (and trust me, I don't do splits, so this is a struggle where you're on blocks holding yourself up), I completely lost it when we finished with "Om x3" at the end and started laughing uncontrollably for no apparent reason; just shits and giggles all day.  There was no corresponding thought or intellectual resistance to any of these: they were all about surrender, release and an onset of clarity like, "wow, its so simple once you have the right intention and the focus to get through it all."  Its amazing the obstacles we put in our minds that become our realities.
Highlights of the last three days:
* Really understanding the P.N.F Stretch and how it works mechanically (Proprioceptor Neuromuscular Facilitation: a combo of static passive stretching and isometric stretching, so you're resisting and releasing at the same time to build muscle strength on one side along with flexibility on the other, without the dangers of ripping and tearing muscles and ligaments (remember: ligaments stretch muscle, tendons tug on bone).
* Meeting with my friend Elsie Tsui for lunch and talking about her work in NLP and higher consciousness; releasing emotional pain bodies and working with her clients on a deeper level to understand attachments and fear in their psychological make-up; intellectually processing a method of flipping their perspectives on the world. 
* Hearing the amazing stories of Claire (our female instructor, former corporate lawyer turned anatomy specialist and yogi; mother of 2 and looking 25 at 43) and the delivery of her kids.  She was doing yoga (like inversions and backbends--note: not recommended for non professionals) the day before her delivery.  Beastly!

So now on Sunday, my day of rest and reaching a conclusive release and clarity for the past 6 days, I must say that it's been both illuminating and rewarding; everyone needs some kind of medium like yoga to really discover (not therorize) the self and the connectedness of life; something we all think we know about but pretend to meditate on but just get caught up with what we've made important in life.  Maybe one day, we'll even greet each other with questions that revolve not so much around "Where do you work?" or "What do you do for a living?" but rather "What's your meditation?". 

I thought I'd dedicate this post to a book I'm simultaneously reading on top of the yoga stuff (title as above).  The essence of the book describes this intrinsic feeling we all have about our bodies: that it indeed has a mind of its own, and more than a vehicle for the brain to cruise on, is deeply interwoven with our neuro frameworks.  This science has been explained in more divisive approaches by explaining the brain, the nervous system and then the anatomical body itself; but only now is the science of "body maps" emerging to answer those questions we had trouble with in the past like:
* how is it that a samurai seems to handle his sword as an extension of his body?
* why do amputees get phantom limb syndrome?
* how do you touch your nose perfectly with your finger in a pitch dark room?
* how does reiki really work and how do healers see auras?
* why do golfers get "the yips" (a twitching syndrome that only affects their perfect swing and nothing else that has to do with that part of the body under other circumstances, unrelated to 'choking').
* why do our hips store anger? why after a tough workout do some people cry? (release of the 'pain body').
Its all been fascinating stuff to understand along side a deeper introduction to the body and all this conditioning that I'm going through.  For instance, Lance Schuler is 52, he operates his body with more mobility and understanding than most 25 year old athletes.  It's not only been a 30 year career in yoga which has conditioned his body but an upbringing around a spiritually-intelligent Judo teacher father, an athletic, disciplined youth in sports and military which has given him the foundation in his mind and neuro pathways which prepared his body for easy adaptation of yoga in its physical and psychological challenges.  There's an interesting example in the book about this: mothers from Mali apparently rub their infant's legs vigorously daily, some times hanging them upside down dangling from the feet, as they view crooked legs as extremely ugly.  Most Mali babies have the motor skills of other 2/3 year olds at only 6/7 months, running around like toddlers.  On the flipside, orphans (paricularly from poor Eastern Block nations) are often subjugated to 3-4 in a crib and usually spend the first year (if not adopted) in there with little time outside.  Though very socially-oriented, when conducting average motor-skills tests on these perfectly healthy orphaned childen as young adults, many of them can not stand on one leg or walk a straight beam without toppling over.  Early conditioning at infancy is highly important for the development of those body maps related to your motor skills and ability to understand movement and connections in the body.  Now, yoga works through this but depending on how you were brought up; that's how much harder you have to work.  Especially when starting at 30.  (Perhaps breaking my femur at 18 months was a good thing, giving me bodily awareness and making me learn to walk twice.  And thank god for those dance classes....I just should have kept it up!).
Highlights of Today:
* Learning about the bizarre Hyoid Bone: the only bone that is unattached to any other bone in our body...it floats in our larynx area attached to our thyroid glands and surrounding muscles!  Not only responsible for the human ability to vary speech but it is suspected to assist in Jalandhara Bandha.
*Doing a Menstruation sequence and seeing among 48 female students, only 3 of them were on hormone contraceptives; amazing statistic in modern society (and also, most of them were on the moon cycle).  I said the question that should have been asked in China was not "how many of you are on the pill?" but "how many of you have had an abortion?" (a little cynical but true for China...).  Interesting insight into how hormone contraceptives are viewed as harming health.
*Learning about Lance's life and traveling the road less traveled...understanding where character comes from.

And one more to be thankful for: Kapalabhati Pranayama is going to improve my diving breathing!

You hear about them once in a while at your occasional yoga class but today I learned the true importance of the three bandhas (and discovered there were 6 more!): Mula Bandha (Pelvic Floor or "Root" Lock), Uddiyana Bandha (Abdominal or "Flying" Lock) and Jalandhara Bandha (Throat Lock).  All three (and ultimately 9) are all energy locks in the body mostly at joints or epicenters/intersections of important muscle groups that, once engaged, are responsible for the support needed to perform postures safely and of course, allow for the supreme Kundalini (serpent) energy to rise through your chakras for nirvana.  But for those of us still figuring out how to root ourselves to the earth, the bandhas really provide the counter resistance to gravity that is going to get you through a sequence with all the support needed without expending too much energy.  Try it: particularly Mula Bandha (which has the double-benefit of improving your sex life): now imagine contracting your pelvic floor, anus and (if you have one), vagina and transverse abdominals everyday, all the time.  It's amazing to have this level of intuition and constant awareness of the body...whilst preserving good health as it is a great preserver of energies as well.  80% of yoga-related injuries have to do with coming out of postures improperly and not having this support system of locks in place when releasing or transitioning from a pose...note that, along with the way it will definitely enhance your performance.

Today marked the beginning of my first day of a 320-hour yoga teacher's training program; an intrigue I have had ever since embarking on yoga more full-time and feeling the immediate benefits of my practice during a compromising time with my health in late 2007. 
Understanding ourselves and our place in this world is obviously a life's journey  and we all experience this through various mediums (some chosen, some forced, some accidental) to gain more self-awareness.  The first step in that journey usually happens with the body and as teenagers, where we begin to feel drastic physical changes in our physical bodies; the first layer of the onion in understanding the outer vehicle to our souls.  However, that understanding is often not complimented with a science or knowledge that's personally-geared (I went through confusing growth phases, shooting up to and unrecognizable height, with these massive feet I was tripping over, with no knowledge on how to 'motorically' support the change).  Our famed yoga teacher, Lance Schuler, offered insight into this today when reading a poem by his 14 year-old daughter at the time describing her first yogic adjustment where she felt at "home" in her body--can you imagine if yoga were an educational mandate at a young age?  The self-awareness we'd gain so early on before losing, not only awareness of our bodies, but also creative bravery, confidence; and substituting it with living in our minds and understanding limited frameworks of the world--treating our bodies like transportation systems for our brains.  It would be a different world...weren't our parents hippies?!? Why didn't this happen??!
Regardless, it's happening now to me.  Every morning rising at 4:30am and finishing early evening (disruption is the mother of all innovation and you could say I am innovating or designing a new level of consciousness), I am working with the breath (Pranayama) and Meditation to deepen my awareness, open myself up and create the Foundation, Alignment, Movement, Openness, Understanding and Support (FAMOUS) needed to truly shift things.  I highly recommend it.

Highlights of today:

• Riding my electric scooter down tree-lined Fuxing Lu in the Shanghai French Concession at 5am to get to class (picture).

• Really feeling my Mula Bandha and Transverse Abdominals and realizing they would change my practice (once I could flex them longer than 5 seconds).

• Really believing, not reiterating, that yoga is a science and a philosophy that has the ability to change human behaviour and change the course of our former actions with brand new intent for a better world.  Always thought similar idealist doctrine was flighty, but in drastic times, we don't need philosophy....we need actionable change and yoga is a realized practice of genius thinking. 
  

I look forward to doing what my title this post implies: speaking with real intent from the heart...not just from the mind...and putting all my effort into this journey into health and the body that I started two years ago; ready to be of service to others with this knowledge.  Namaste.