My teacher, Gelek Rimpoche, is giving an online retreat through Tricycle Magazine. It is an 8 week course about the Four Noble Truths. I am going to take it and I highly recommend it. Go to tricycle.com and join as a sustaining member ($30) and then you can take the retreat which starts tomorrow. I have heard Rimpoche teach on this subject before and it is not to be missed!
We started with an orientation in the yoga room.
This is the entrance to the yoga room. It is on the top floor and has a spectacular view on two sides of the ocean and infinity.
This is Steven Michael Pague singing and sharing with us the native Indian way of expressing gratitude for all of nature.
Nudgie gives a dharma talk.
...while I mixed my mind with space, ie., stared off into space. And I saw these vultures flying in formation. Can you see them?
Maybe you can see them better in this picture.
This is the view from the bar where I will be found later, either drinking an organic Costa Rican cappuccino or organic wine...or both.
Whew! We made it. It was about 10 degrees when we left our apartment at 6:30am Saturday. Everything went smooth as pie, the plane was even on time. But when I pulled out my Kindle, my wonderful Kindle that I LOVE SO MUCH, my treasured Kindle that I had loaded up with books because one of my most happiest things ever is to read, read, read on the beach — well, that very Kindle was broken. It got smushed in my computer case because I put too much stuff in there, specifically a big knitting project. So there I was on a five hour plane ride with not much to read. The thing is that the plane ride was soooo bumpy due to weather (winter storms and I heard, a tornado) that I did pranayama for about three hours non-stop. It does help. Inhale, 4, exhale, 4. Then I chanted to myself, “It’s just like going on a bumpy, gravely road.” Finally, I fell asleep and when I woke up we were in Costa Rica. We got into the Blue Spirit van and drove for three hours on a very bumpy, gravely road.
We flew into Liberia, not San Jose, so we were in the countryside right away. Nice, huh?
Two hours and a car sickness remedy stop for ginger ale and corn chips outside the oldest cathedral in Costa Rica built by the Indians and a long, insanely bumpy dirt road later...our first glimpse of the Pacific Ocean.
We made it!
Jeffrey unloads the luggage from the roof rack.
Then we sat down and let my molecules realign and met new friends. It is great here! Hurray! Dinner was next: guacamole, incredible tomato salad and more good stuff including bread pudding, Costa Rican coffee and organic Costa Rican chocolate with ginger.
Every year at our party some or one of the awesome OM yoga teachers does a Pose of the Month dance which gives us a fun review of all the poses we’ve worked on during the months that year. But this year we did something a little bit different. I combined some of the elements of our practice: the fact that everybody at any level can work on any pose, because you can always work on one element at a time or make the seed actions of a larger position, such as internal rotation instead of a full bind. And…the other element that I love is a Pop Quiz in yoga class. So I asked everyone to get up and walk around and look at each other while we did that. That already was fun. Then I began to call out the poses — only in Sanskrit (that’s the pop quiz part, but it is important to know the Sanskrit names, right?) and this is what happened!
Eka Pada Prasarita Padotanasana
Jeremy helps Jonathan do Nadi Shodanam Pranayama.
Titibhasana -- not so easy in party clothes and tight jeans.
Dhanurasana with Patty in the middle.
Ardha Uttanasana aka Uttanasana 2 aka The Pose Formerly Known As Flat Back
Do you think it is important for yoga teachers (and yoga students) to know the Sanskrit names of yoga asanas? Yes? No? Why? Why not?
Saturday night was our birthday party. #12! It was a big affair — as always. Lots of people, a little show, schmoozing and then our raffle which this year went to benefit the people of Haiti. Thank you to all that donated to the raffle, including the OM yoga teachers who offered privates and in-class adjustments and lots of great yoga companies such as Be Present, and a cut and color from Cherie at Aveda and more! We raised over $600!
Dave and his buddy and great guitar player, Jon Scholle, practicing in the OM yoga office.
Beautiful, excellent OM yoga teacher, Christine Sandifer and Sarah Clarke.
We were so thrilled that my mom could come to the party. Here she is with Indrani, who brought her from her home on 80th St. and with her granddog, Leroy!
Here is Kathryn, AKA St. Kathryn with Millie and Indrani. Kathryn is an amazing painter and just the kindest, sweetest person in the world.
Jon, Joe and Nudgie! Party down, dudes.
Janna and her friend.
Then it was time for the show to begin! As the official MC, I welcomed everyone. It is all our birthday since OM yoga is us — it’s people. I especially wanted to welcome and say thank you to three women who were there that night. 1) Alison West, my dear friend, who suggested that she and I rent space together at the Shambhala Center and teach classes back to back. That turned out to be a good idea and was the seed syllable beginning of OM yoga. 2) One of very best and long time friends, Mary Perillo. When OM yoga opened in 1998 we had a big party, like this one, did some chanting and purifying with juniper, a yoga class together and then popped champagne! What a great beginning. It was on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and I felt like I, too, had a dream. The next day was the first official yoga class and there were only two people there — Mary and my other friend, Kathy. Yikes. So, thanks to Mary for having faith in me even back then. I also remember the first OM yoga birthday party and after everyone had left at about 3am in the morning there was Mary pouring the left over ice down the toilet and helping us clean up the joint. 3) The most important, of course, my mom. She has always been supportive and both of my parents were never anything other than kind, supportive, fun, encouraging, loving — I am grateful to them both and grateful for my good fortune in having such loving people for parents. Let the show begin!
The first act was a hilarious spoof on meditation by our own Matt -- OM yoga tt grad, OM yoga front desk guy and member of the Upright Citizen's Brigade. Jonathan, Krista and Hilary were also the inner voices of the meditator.
Jon and Dave have been playing together since they were in college at Columbia. By then, Jon had already been winning guitar playing contests. They played 4 tunes including some great bluegrass and David's songs: On My Heart and On My MInd, and his big hit Midnight At the Oasis.
The show was enjoyed by all ages: Millie who is 84 (with her nurse, Indrani) and Fin who is almost 1 (with his mommy, Margi).
This is Jordan and Amanda Hirsch. I just met Amanda last week and she has only been coming to OM yoga for a month, since they moved to NYC. But as soon as I found out she was a comedy improv performer, I signed her up. They were so funny! They asked the audience to call out a pose and someone said, Downward Dog! They started on dog biscuits and it went from there!
OM yoga teachers, Edward and Maja, did three terrific duets by the Rolling Stones, Maja and the Beatles. Really, George Harrison and they got us to sign along with Jai Guru Deva or at least the last part, OMMMMM.
Richard and Patty liked this!
So did everyone!
There is one more really fun part to the party but I gotta go so stay tuned and check back in soon.
Margi invited me and Christie and Sarah for dinner last week. Sarah didn’t feel well and had to go to Durham early the next morning to do the OM yoga tt there (which she liked doing, by the way – a great group of tt peeps this year!) and so we missed her. But it was very fun and delicious. She made a farmer’s market chicken because big chickens are too sad after seeing Food Inc., and she made a yummy salad and an amazing vegetable tart. It was hard to control ourselves and not devour it all immediately. Then we had cookies and homemade grapefuit sorbet. YUMMMMMM!
This vegetable tart recipe can be found at dashandbella.blogspot.com
Then, we retired to the living room. What did we talk about? Everything and nothing. Did we talk about yoga? No, but Margi did yoga. Restorative supta virasana supported by a bolster and Fin’s stuffed animals.
Who says a stuffed cat can't be used as a restorative yoga prop?
We had an open house for people to come and learn about the OM300 teacher training program which is launching the first weekend of March. A bunch of awesome people in addition to these guys are going to be doing this course and we are all quite excited! If you want to learn more, go to www.omyoga.com and there is a link on the home page. Any questions? Email me!
In attendance: Kendra, Jenny, Abby, Natalie, Eli, Angel, Laura and the lovely Sarah Trelease and moi. We had a lively in-depth discussion about the training. They are especially excited about developing their own OM yoga thesis - like doing a yoga PhD.
They all think of OM yoga as an Ivy League school and in fact, that is a quote from one of our grads that we use in our tt materials. It is interesting to see that another yoga school/chain has decided to call themselves that, too. Hmmm…ok. I am getting used to some of our good ideas get borrowed…..maybe I shouldn’t say that….oops
I was so delighted to have some surprise visitors this week in my classes!
Leroy and I are a sandwich between Naomi and Kyoko. They are OM yoga teacher training students in my program in Tokyo. They are here at the OM yoga mothership and are taking 2-5 classes a day! Strong girls! What a treat to see them and share practice together at OM yoga NYC,
Another delightful surprise -- Lizzie Lasater! She is the daughter of my dear friend and beloved yoga teacher, Judith Hanson Lasater. Lizzie is finishing up her last semester in architecture at Columbia and popped in for a class between returning from a month in India and going back to school. She said she needed some good grounding and knew she could get that at OM yoga!
This was how the sunrise looked outside my window the other day.
An urban morning but the rising sunlight is still beautiful reflecting off the branches of the barren winter tree.
That was last week. This was this morning.
That's our city at work, folks.
Yes, when Nudgie and I came home on Tuesday night there was a big sign on our front door informing the residents of our building that NYC was turning off our water at 8:30am the next morning. sigh. I don’t know why but I think it might have something to do with a big, schmancy new hotel that is opening on the new block. So I got up early to relate to this non-water situation. The thing is that I normally do get up early. But I don’t do anything interactive with others, except Leroy. As you know, I am around many people all day long, and I love it, but I need my quiet alone time, too, and that is the morning. I like to stay in my jammies and read and be quiet. But I got up and jumped in the shower, brushed my teeth, made the coffee, made the oatmeal, freshened Leroy’s bowl — did all things water that needed to happen before 8:30am. During the process I became grumpy. I was definitely out of my normal rhythm and I dropped the top of my moisturizer bottle in the toilet (icky) and I spilled my coffee and stubbed my toe. But I also was developing a nice resentment about the whole situation. It was out of my control and that made me resentful. I guess. But then, guess what? The water never did get turned off and so there I was in a bad mood with nothing to blame it on. But by then it was so big and solid that I didn’t want to let it go. So I ended up so crabby that I actually gave myself a headache. Finally, at a certain point, I relaxed and figured out what I was doing and it made me laugh. Whew! I guess in the end that could be called analytical meditation but it sure took me a while to get there. I guess I need to practice more. Does anybody resonate with this kind of scenario?
Elizabeth Gilbert sent me an unbound copy of her new book a few years ago. It was called Eat, Pray, Love and she accompanied it with a nice note saying that she hoped I would enjoy it. I am an avid reader so that weekend I hunkered down on my couch, opened up that book and basically didn’t get up until I finished it. By then I was in love with the book, the author, her story and her writing. She sent me the book because the yoga studio that she talks about in the beginning of the book was none other than OM yoga. Anyway, we all know that Eat, Pray, Love has been a huge success — which it rightfully deserved — and now Liz has written a new book called Committed. Which she sent to me recently and which I have been joyously devouring.
Last night she did a reading and book signing at Barnes and Noble at Union Square. I got there half an hour early so I could be a geeky fan and sit in the front row. This is where I ended up.
At least I got to be in the first row of the standing room area.
Liz did a reading of the first chapter of Committed, which was very fun to hear. Then she took questions. One person said, “I’m a New Yorker and it was fun to try to guess where you were going to yoga at the beginning of Eat, Pray, Love. Can you tell us?” And Liz said, “Yes, I went to OM yoga and sometimes to Integral” I swear I did not plant that person but it was a wonderful shout out for OM!
Afterwards she gave me a hug and it was lovely to see her again. After I read Eat, Pray, Love I emailed Liz and naively asked her if she would come to OM and do a reading for our little OM yoga book club and she immediately said yes! So it was the first reading for that book which then became huge! A smaller affair than last night. I am so happy for her success! Check out the book and as she asked us to do last night — please buy Committed this week so that we can knock Sarah Palin off the #1 spot on the best seller list. Do it for the country!
