yoga! Day 7!

Another breath workshop today. This time it was conducted by a yogi named Yogi Ish. I get a kick out of his name every time I say it! He was one of those esoteric yogis who come and go like the wind, who offer us something in their fleeting time with us, then leave it up to us to decide how we are getting to let it effect ourselves.

Something that Yogi Ish said is something that I think I'll keep with me and use in my own practice and in teaching others. He told us that some yogis believe that we are only allotted a certain number of breaths per lifetime, so if we breath longer, deeper, and fuller breaths then we'll live longer, deeper, and fuller lives. Whether or not this is true really doesn't concern me...I think it's a great way to practice your yoga and live your life. I never really understood the importance of breathing. The beautiful thing about these breath workshops is that they are drawing awareness to this aspect of our beings. We breath from the day we are born until the day we die. It is the prana force that guides us through our lives, the force that allows us to live in the first place, so we might as well embrace, live, deepen, learn about, bring awareness to, and realize the potential of this sacred, sacred aspect of our beings.

Yoga Ish had a very subtle, light, beautiful presence. He wasn't forceful at all. He was completely peaceful and you could just tell that he had spent a considerable amount of time in nature, getting in touch with his inner self. He gave a small talk in the beginning about the power of your breath and made us laugh a deep, deep belly laugh that felt so, so sweet. Laughter is always sweet. Sometimes I think it's the only reason worth living!! Well, maybe not the only one, but an extremely important, refreshing, beautiful one. Then we went ito some of the same breathing techniques that Yee-Ching had shown us, except with Yogi Ish we weren't allowed to move.

This breath workshop was extremely different then the last one. Last week was like a roller coaster of emotions. I laughed, I cried, I was sad, happy, nostalgic, (not really angry), etc.etc.etc. In the end, I laughed it all away and ended up in a beautiful place. During this breath workshop, I felt frusterated the entire time. I felt like I wasn't connecting with my breath in the way I wanted to be. Then we laid down in savasana and that whole spectrum of frusteration and loneliness that i was feeling just melted away. I don't even remember falling asleep and I don't know if I did, but when i awoke Lauren and Kristin were rubbing my back. I really really thought they were angels (both blonde, smiling, beautiful, kind, just what I needed. it was really REALLY perfect that they were there and I really had no desire to be anywhere else in the world but with them, talking, laughing, and being.

Yogi Ish didn't cover us with blankets. He didn't ask us to circle around him at the end and talk about our experience. He didn't name his breath workshop or make us sign waivers. He just was. And then, at the end, he was gone, like the wind. Gone with the wind.

I loved him. I loved Yee-Ching. Both breath workshops were so different, but so so beautiful in their own unique ways. Yee-Ching was there from start to finish and even the day after when she called each one of us on our self phones to ask us how we were doing. Yogi Ish's presence was enough. He wsa there to guide us and make sure we were moving in the right direction and then he let us be governed by ourselves, by our senses. He was like the wind. Yee-Ching was like a mother. i loved them both. No expectations.

In love,
Leila