Thank You Mala Community
As you may know by now, community is something we at Mala feel very strongly about. Since we opened our doors, we have been committed to raising money for and donating food to many different charities and not-for-profit organisations locally and nationally . All this could not be done without the amazing compassion of the Mala Sangha (community).We are grateful to all those who contributed to extending our sangha out to Haiti in their time of need. We have raised over $200.00 and will be donating the proceeds to Partners in Health.
Thank you for all you do,
Christina, Stephanie & Angela
Raising Funds for Haiti
Mala Yoga is reaching out beyond the Brooklyn community.
Monday, Jan 18th – 12:30pm
We’re raising funds to help out those in Haiti. All money raised in the 12:30pm basics class will go to the cause. You can still donate money to the cause even if you do not attend the 12:30 class. Simply place your change in the tin on the desk.
All proceeds will go to Partners in Health – Thank You!
New Years Meditation Reflection
It had been awhile since I sat down in a long guided meditation and so I decided that I would attend the New Years Meditation led by Ricki Jean. I’ve been to Ricki Jean’s meditation sessions before and knew that this would be good for me but I didn’t really understand what sort clarity it would bring.
We started the session off by going around the room and introducing ourselves then we gave a short explanation of what drew us to come to a 2 hour, new years meditation class. I didn’t really know why I was there, other than to get some guidance but as I listened to others it became very clear to me that we all seemed to have missed the “new year.” That all of the running around we did in 2009, all the stresses we felt, we were still carrying in 2010. We had missed the opportunity to stop and contemplate what we went through in the past year and what were are aspirations for the year already at hand.
The session unfolded with a short sit, a good stretch, then we had a brief exercise followed by a discussion, and finally we had the big sit which was only about 35mins, but still. After the long guided meditation we were encouraged to write or doodle in our journals. Of course, what do you write after be asked to contemplate the joys and sorrows of the past year? Of being asked to look ahead and see what your desires are for this year? After drifting in and out of a 35-minute meditation? What do you write? Well…
“Hmmmm… Long sit… “
That is exactly how my journal entry started and as I continued to (what seemed like) force myself to write I started to gain clarity of what my intention is for this moment. Maybe for the year or the decade I don’t really know. But the idea that what I’ve been saying to myself for weeks in a thousand different ways finally came through in this session of meditation and writing was the reminder I needed to slow down and listen. It doesn’t always come out that way, and it takes a skilled teacher to guide you through something so big.
After reading what I wrote in my journal there was a certain lightness I felt when I saw clearly my intentions and aspirations. The confusion and hectic, rushed feeling that I was having, that seems to come with the holidays and new beginnings, finally seemed to quiet down. That evening I felt really present with everyone I spoke to and confident in my new findings.
Of course it is a new day and my printer is still speaking a different language to me and my ipod will not sync with my newly downloaded, upgrade, itunes but hey… It’s all a practice.
Food Drive Success!
Thank you to all who participated in giving food and money for the Red Hook Health Initiative food drive class. I’m not surprised but still always in awe of the amazing kindness and compassion that the Mala Sangha (community) provides, not to just each other but to people they may never meet as well.
We gathered approximately 200 items of food as well as a very generous check of 50.00 for the Health Initiative. We at Mala Yoga and Jill Eisenhard, director of the RHHI, are truly grateful. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
May you be happy, may you be healthy, may you find peace and joy, and may you be free from suffering…
Gratitude………
When you are grateful, fear disappears and abundance appears.
Anthony Robbins
As the holidays arrive, and we enter into the season of giving thanks, and presents and spending time with family and friends, can we use our practice to remind us of what we are grateful for; to help us let go so we can give more, with no attachments to what we give; and to encourage us to really sink into the spirit of gratitude and abundance?
And as we loosen and open to our generosity of heart, spirit and time I want to share with you ways in which our amazing community at Mala, has this last year, done just that: been incredibly open of heart, spirit and time…….
Wow what a lot to be grateful for.
The community classes, taught by our talented and committed assistants have so far raised over $1,600. This year we will be distributing over $1000 to Right Rides, Kiva, Lineage Project and City Harvest.
Many teachers contribute their time, expertise and love of yoga to volunteer organizations: Britt, Jennifer and Jyl (before she went back to Austin) work with Bent on Learning bringing yoga to the most underserved school populations in New York City; Jennifer and Ann (one of our new assistants) are setting up a program with the Gay & Lesbian Center of NYC to bring yoga to homeless, gay, young men; Julie Dohrman volunteers with Karma Krew, and I have taught 9 yr old girl scouts uptown!
The classes held in honor of Global Mala Project raised over $850 for the DOVE organization at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital (if you haven’t had a chance to, please read the lovely letter of thanks they sent us, posted in the hall bathroom).
Every year as we head into the holiday season, Angela teaches a “Food Drive” class where students can “pay for class” with canned, non-perishable food items, or by donating cash to local food banks that are struggling at this time of year, to feed the many underfed families in our neighborhoods. This year will be our third!
And lastly, so many of our students are involved in wonderful local schools and charities. We support their commitment by donating class cards to their auctions and events, including this year: Plymouth Day School, The NY Choral Society, The Cobble Hill Playgroup, Starting Artists, Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, The International School of Brooklyn, Right Rides, Red Hook Health Initiative, Project Exalt, Brooklyn Public Library, Small Planet to name a few!
Reflecting on all these efforts I am humbled by the generosity of our community. I realize how lucky I am to be surrounded and supported by such open hearts, and I am reminded that so much of the sense of connectedness and love that I feel is because we are in service to each other……….
Feeling a little stressed and overwhelmed these days? Meditation can help…..
Ricki Jean is leading a special meditation class this Sunday Nov 15th
Here’s what she says to entice you to come join us……..
“This Sunday we will explore the effects of our state of mind on the body, on health and wellbeing. Going into the winter, the holidays, and the flu season, we can all use a little extra self care. Working with the breath, body scanning, and developing a sensitivity and awareness to the body, we can curb and reduce harmful levels of stress, sleeplessness, and anxiety, lower our cortisol levels and create an all around healthier experience. We will utilize bio-dots that monitor our stress/calm levels, getting unmistakable and direct feedback from our body’s own intelligence. Come learn techniques of meditation and mindfulness to address physical and mental stress.”
3:30-4:45pm, $20
Substitutes
by Pat Manchester
We’ve all done it. Your teacher announces that she’ll be away at a workshop the next weekend, or you check the website and see the sub’s name in pink italics. Suddenly you decide that this is just the morning you need to sleep in or the evening you can eat dinner before nine o’clock. Or maybe you’re more forthright and you say you just don’t like taking class with a teacher you don’t know – or, perhaps more relevantly, a teacher who doesn’t know you. Maybe it will be too fast. Maybe it will be boring. Maybe the teacher will do all the poses you hate. For sure she won’t know about your knee injury/favorite assist/love of ardha chandrasana.
And we probably all have unhappy sub stories. My personal favorite took place several years ago, when I hurried from work to get to class. I had just started to venture beyond basics classes, and the substitute was one who ran class at breakneck speed. You know those scenes in movies when the hero has to catch up to a moving train? That was me. The teacher called out poses like a ballet mistress calls out steps, “Inhale up dog, exhale down dog, inhale ardha chandrasana, exhale trikonasana, inhale grab your right big toe, exhale pull your leg behind and take the bind.” For me, it was, “Inhale, don’t panic, exhale try not to keel over, inhale why the hell doesn’t she give any modifications, exhale I bet only ten minutes have passed, inhale you could leave, exhale no way.” We ended with a pose I’d never seen before called bird of paradise: the people who did it actually looked like the exotic, angular, long-stalked flowers the pose is named for. Wilted dandelion would have been a more apt name for my pose.
But the fact is, I have quite a few happy substitute stories, too. Just as many years ago, one night Christina substituted in Stephanie’s basics class. She made everyone back off in janu sirsasana in order to root our sit bones back and find our breath and our side bodies– an instruction that has served me well ever since. As I walked out of class with another student, he remarked that her instruction about the occipital ridge (who knew?) was exactly the information he’d needed to understand a pose. We both had a new teacher. More recently, when they substituted for absent teachers, Jen has gently nudged me towards much-needed new learning in headstand and Lindsay has made me recall the beginner’s amazement in discovering the joys of flow.
I’m not Pollyanna. I still have the occasional time when someone’s teaching doesn’t work for me, and I have to fight the impulse to get caught up in the storyline of complaining and criticizing in my head. This happens off the mat, too, of course. It’s when we have to deal with unexpected pain or sadness that the urge to resist, to protest, to avoid looking at the teacher in front of us is strong. But we are lucky that our yoga practice – and our classes – provide us a safe place to learn to open our minds. If you can only practice with your teachers, how will you find out who your teachers are?
MUSINGS ON AN ASHTANGA YOGA PRACTICE
13 years ago I began practicing the primary series of asthanga vinyasa yoga as taught by the late Sri K Pattabhy Jois. I practiced pretty much 6 days a week, at 6 am. When I was far from an asthanga school, I practiced on my own. I practiced through my Om yoga training, Iyengar training in India, and Anusara training. Asthanga started my love for yoga…… I progressed to the intermediate series, and then I had two kids, and there went my consistent asthanga practice!-
If you have ever heard of this practice, which by the way has laid the foundation for all vinyasa yoga that has evolved in the West the last 30 years, you may know that this is not a practice for everyone. It is often said it’s not a practice for anyone older than 35 (!) or even for women. (Was it really designed as a practice for the teenage boys entering the service of the maharajah of Mysore as part of their training?)
It is rigorous. The poses themselves are hard, and once 10 sun salutes have been completed, and 16 standing poses, one moves through 27 poses with a vinyasa between each, finishing with a shoulder stand, a headstand and a short meditation, before savasana. Traditionally this is a 6 day a week practice, preferably done between 6am & 8am.
But I have gone back to my asthanga practice, though I have two small kids and am pushing 43….. I haven’t gone back to 6 days a week, nor can I practice at 6am anymore (!) but I’m back to Mysore practice, and this is why:
I love practicing with a gifted teacher who has shown up to teach consistently the past 13 years (Eddie Stern); And I love practicing in a temple to Ganesh. I love practicing at my own pace. I can get into the rhythm of my breath; listening to it rise and fall, watching where it gets stuck, where it eases up. I love that noone is “talking” to me as I practice, so that I can really watch all the crazy, mostly unrelated thoughts that appear over and over again. And try, over and over again to let them go. I love that’s it’s a moving meditation and every day I practice I see more clearly the physical patterns, the mental patterns, the energy patterns. I love that I no longer care where I am in the series and whether I make it back to the second series; I love doing the same sequence every time as I really notice the subtle shifts and changes taking place. I love that this practice is like a mirror.
I also love to change it up and do a different kind of practice on the days I don’t get to Eddie’s.
If you’ve ever been curious about this practice, or did it years ago and fancy trying it again, come join me on Saturday (Nov 7), 4-6pm, for 2hrs of exploration, challenging asana and hopefully lots of fun.
* Mysore practice: All levels of students show up and practice at the same time at their own pace. Students learn the sequence one-on-one from the teacher and practice the series by heart, only advancing to the next posture when ready. Teachers give individual instruction and assists.
not absolute
A little over a week ago my teacher, Tias Little, was in town and teaching a weekend intensive at The Shala. Of course I attended and, as always, left the weekend feeling rejuvenated, inspired, and a bit overwhelmed. There was so much information and much of it was in the subtle details. What kind ofteacher am I going to be now?
In my past four years of studying with Tias it’s very clear that he is constantly refining his teaching. In fact, things he wouldn’t have us do years ago, he’s now inviting us to experiment with. This fact got me to thinking about something Robert Thurman talked about when translating a the text Spirit of Enlightenment (by Nargajuna). He said, “Anything that is relational is not absolute.” Our asana practice is very much something we can relate to; we sometimes joke it’s the longest relationship we’ll ever have. There are days the body will cooperate with what we ask of it and days when we feel like we hit a brick wall. Ok, maybe a little exaggeration there, but maybe not.
Instructions are the same way, they are given to us at a certain time in our practice, and although they might serve us for years, it doesn’t mean that same instruction will serve us forever. It is our choice to try on an instruction, see how it fits, like a pair of shoes –if they are too tight, they restrict movement but if they are too wide we continue to slip out and trip. Once the shoe fits…(sorry couldn’t resist saying that) It is then our responsibility to pay close attention to how our practice grows and evolves, to see if that same instruction still fits, or have you worn out the shoe’s heel so much it reveals you collapse to the outer foot as you walk, which then makes the shoe no longer supportive to the frame of the body. We have to keep a close eye on our practice.
And although having to pay constant attention to our practice can seem challenging, doing this without the critical mind is way more supportive. How will it help us if we curse our half moon pose (Ardha Chandrasana) every time we fall out of it? I’ve been reading from the Jack Kornfield book, “After the Ecstasy the Laundry.” He’s got a section in the book titled, Beyond Praise and Blame where he calls these self-criticisms and judgments “second had opinions about our experience.” I love that! It’s an opinion, it’s not absolute.
And speaking of absolute – I mean things not being absolute
– keep your eye out on the schedule page and workshops page for updates on
classes, subs and some pretty amazing workshops!
The Heart
The chambers of the heart are porous and as such, we come to
realize that the heart is more of an amalgam of experiences and feelings. The
heart has an amazing ability to feel joy and sorrow in equal weights, often at
the same time. Perhaps we need the
wisdom of sorrow to feel joy in its full capacity and to appreciate its
lightness.
When there’s ease in the body, we begin to appreciate that
suppleness needs constriction, like peanut butter needs jelly or hot cocoa
needs marshmallows. I had a
teacher that often said that stress in the body was a good and necessary thing
– without it, we’d be a bag of bones and skin on the floor! We come to the mat
so often looking to stretch, to open, to expand. Over time, we sometimes feel
that we’ve overstretched a hamstring, a shoulder, the low back. At that point, we look to strengthen,
to pull back into ourselves. Balancing the inner scales – like where joy and sorrow live in the heart
– can help us better define the boundaries and spaciousness of the physical
body. Ultimately, the practice can
guide us past the rigidity of black and white states – I am stiff, I am sad, I
am flexible, I am joyous – to those where our multiple feeling states can
co-exist. Perhaps they aren’t
always in balance, but by sharpening our powers of observation through mindful
asana and breath, we can constantly tinker and recalibrate.