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.