Back To Teaching

I will start teaching tomorrow 18th February at D'Music Motion Fitness Studio

The schedules are :-

Every Monday and Wednesday at 5.30pm for Beginners
Every Tuesday and Thursday at 8.15am for Yoga Flow
Every Tuesday and Thursday at 5.30pm for Intermediate/Advanced
Every Saturday at 10.30am for Restorative Yoga
Every Saturday at 4pm for Beginners and 5.30pm for Intermediate/Advanced

See you soon......

It's Okay

Life continually teaches. We eventually catch on. Some of us have master's degrees in subjects we never intended to take. And through our experiences, we realize: It's okay to make mistakes. It's okay to fall. It's a form of higher education. -Douglas Pagels

where are all these bugs coming from?

hmmm, don't know where to start. the last time i remember blogging was a little while after the power cut we had. since then I have spent my time recovering from a long spell of colds and flus. i might have cough some of my brain out on tissue so do forgive me if i have mispelled and made 'nonsensical' words or sentences. since the strings of sickness took over, i have probably taken more than the human race's share of medicine. altogether it was a concoction of 'pee paa kau' syrup, robitussin (decongestant), lotsa vit c in high doses i.e 1000 mg each(these freaking pills are so hard to swallow especially when you have a sore throat), echinacea with garlic (it's foul considering it leaves the garlic breath for the whole day.....nasty!), lotsa strepsils (i know it doesn't help with the sorethroat but for comfort, i took it), ibuprofen alternating with solpadeine and ahhhhhh, good ol' paracetamol.........and when i couldn't shake it off and the fevers kicked in after three weeks of the whole 'shebang' , i waved a white flag and took clarithromycin (just found out amoxycillin hates me and gave me the 'run'). feel a whole lotta betta now.

really sorry guys for delaying the classes. believe me, if there was any more tablets or cures that would have remedy me faster than the above category, i say,"GIVE IT GIVE IT GIVE IT ......TO ME!!!!!"

no, for the yogis out there, the neti pot didn't work..........no, not when you have a complete 'road block' in your nose....and no, i need not meditate as my drugs were doing the job for me quite nicely already............sorry guys, i am only human..........i might think of taking up ayuvedic medicine just to see what else there is out there for the taking with the bugs.

but good news is i am feeling betta and am looking forward to this year..................not the bugs

Cool !!!!

Baseball Star Adds Yoga To Game Plan
" Martin hopes addition of yoga to off-season regimen ends late-year slides "
3 days ago


Russell Martin, the hard-nosed catcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers, has taken up yoga.
That's right, the native of Chelsea, Que., best known for his dogged blue-collar work ethic and play-through-all-pain intensity, has made yoga an integral part of his off-season workout regimen for the first time this winter.
"I've never felt better," he said.
Fear not baseball fans, the soon-to-be 26-year-old isn't planning to trade in the tools of ignorance behind the plate to pursue the ultimate goal of unifying the body, mind and spirit into oneness.
Rather, the two-time all-star is searching for new ways to keep his body healthy and strong throughout the 2009 season, eager to avoid the late-month swoons he's experienced in each of his first three big-league seasons.
"Last year, I remember all the way through spring training and the beginning of the season even, my body was tight," Martin recalled last weekend at Baseball Canada's annual awards banquet. "When you're a baseball player, you have to feel loose and that's kind of like prehabilitation, that's what my dad calls it.
"That was my main goal, to do some yoga, still do my explosive movement type stuff, because that's all it is in baseball, reaction-type stuff, and flexibility. All those things, with a consistent work plan during the season, instead of seeing my numbers drop towards the end, hopefully I'll see more of a stability and a consistency. That's what I'm looking for."
The off-season adjustments represent a new way of thinking for Martin, who used to be adamant about playing virtually every day - not the best idea given the gruelling physical and mental demands of catching - and about grinding through all his aches and pains.
Whereas he once would shun various treatments, he's open to them now, partly because the youthful feeling of invincibility is starting to ebb from him. The fact that he's a career .298 hitter through the first four months of the season but bats .262 after that no doubt helped sway him, too.
"The window, it's not very big, so you want to try and feel good for as long as possible and that's really taking care of myself off the field as much as possible, too," said Martin. "Those are things I really didn't do that much of in the past, just because of my attitude, hard-nosed, I don't need anybody's help. ...
"I'm realizing that if I do put on ice, and do contrast hot and cold after a game, I might feel a bit better the next day, or I might feel a little bit better in August, or maybe 10 years from now. Who knows? I'm just trying to be a little bit smarter now."

Iranian women practice in their yoga class in Tehran.
Jean Chung / Corbis
"Should a Pious Muslim Practice Yoga?"
By Azadeh Moaveni Sunday, Nov. 30, 2008 From TIMES

To the long list of things that everyone else loves but that Muslims are supposed to hate — democracy, dogs, women with uncovered hair — we can now add yoga. A council of muftis in Malaysia issued a fatwa over the weekend banning yoga for Muslims, claiming that the sweaty 'Oms' and other Hindu elements of a standard 60-minute yoga class could "destroy the faith of a Muslim."

For a moment, this news had me selfishly worried. I've been contorting myself into reverse triangle across the Middle East for about a decade, and I fretted that all my favorite yoga centers and teachers might get hassled by morality police types. I also worried about my friends who do yoga — if there is one thing the stressed out populations of cities like Tehran, Baghdad, and Cairo really don't need, it's the loss of a safe, indoor means of relaxation. Fortunately, I suspect the muftis' edict comes far too late. Muslims, at least those of the Middle East, have been practicing yoga widely since the mid 1990s, and in some countries the exercise is now as commonplace as it is in blue-state America. (See here for a story about Christian yoga in America.)

In Iran, where cheerless clerics have inveighed against everything from poodles to the pants-tucked-into-boots look, yoga is popular enough to warrant its own magazines and the government has made no fuss (but thanks for bringing it to their attention, muftis of Malaysia!). Across the country, including religious cities like Mashhad, there are thousands of yoga classes held each week, and there is a class for every yogi: for children, the elderly, the overweight, the spiritual. There are contemplative, patchouli-scented yoga centers, austere Iyengar centers for the very serious, and flow classes in gyms for women in chic yoga clothes who just want arm tone. (See here for pictures of facial yoga.)

The Iranian love affair with yoga is a complex thing, born of many factors. There's the general disenchantment with strict, orthodox Islam and the accompanying pull to alternative forms of spirituality. There are strictures that women face in exercising outside covered, and the appeal of gentle, indoor sport. Add to all that yoga's global fashionableness and Iranians' high rates of anxiety and depression, and you have the first genuinely yoga savvy middle-class in the entire Middle East. (See here for pictures of Iranian society and its struggle for modernity.)

Not once, in all my years in Tehran, did I hear anyone suggest yoga might be incompatible with Islam. Indeed, the city's packed yoga classes overflowed with believers, instructors who started class by venerating the Prophet Muhammad on his birthday, Ramadan classes where everyone was fasting and went all noodlely by the end. Most seemed sensible enough to realize you could lower or raise the spirituality volume of yoga as you pleased, and that doing downward facing dog didn't make you a bad Muslim. One of my girlfriends even attended a Sufi yoga class where the teacher played the daf (a Persian frame drum) and everyone chanted to the Shi'a Imam Ali. Many, like my mother, like to note the similarities between the physical sequence of Muslim prayer and asanas, claiming harmony, or at least fatwa-free ground, between Islam and yoga.
In the Arab Middle East, yoga is pretty much still the domain of yuppies. During a stint studying ashtanga in Cairo, my classmates were either expatriates or Egyptians who had returned from the West. In Beirut, the city's largest yoga center occupied a gorgeous old building in the Christian quarter, and drew a sophisticated mix of Christians and Muslims alike. The Lebanese, however, tend to prefer gym yoga. Attending a yoga class at one of the city's many posh fitness centers means that ministers can chat on their yoga mats, and pop stars can show off their headstands, a convenient way of getting centered and being seen at the same time.

At all my various yoga classes in the Middle East over the years, I always had the feeling that everyone wanted to be there. But apparently there are a few Muslims out there who're not sure whether yoga is halal, haram, or makrooh (that is, the permissible, the forbidden and, the last, an in-between category known as "the disliked," including shellfish and cigarettes and other appealing things faithfuls Muslims can partake of without being actively condemned).

The question of "is making yoga allowed?" does appears on Muslim web sites, and I've found myself wondering just who the doubting yogis might have been in all my many classes. The quiet types taking up the back row, who wear deliberately plain workout clothes? The chatty, devout housewives who got bored during the breathing exercises? That the forums' experts and mediators rule so contradictorily — some rule haram, while many more judge yoga harmless — suggests there is no fixed Islamic position on yoga, just as there is no fixed type of yoga itself.

The place of yoga in the lives of most Muslims, I imagine, will not be shifted by Malaysia's fatwa. Those who practice will practice, the super-pious will frown, and the anxious minority will pose questions like this one, which appeared on the site Ummah.com: "But what if someone starts a business, e.g. a spa, which offers yoga?"

Feeling Broody.........

Spending more time with the family has been a real treat. My nephews are adorable and I'm feeling broody with children everywhere. :) . Max is nearly 3 years old and he's quite a little character. He talks like a 5 year old kid and seems to understand a lot more than you think. He loves airplanes and talks about it endlessly; his favourite boeing 747. All I can remember is the Beluga Airbus. If you start asking me what type of car I drive, I'll just tell you it's a four wheel drive. Ha!!!

Well, on Chinese New Year day, I woke up with a sore eye. It was pretty bad! I felt and looked like Mike Tyson after a big fight. Peter was snoring heavily away and took me awhile to wake him up. That included shaking him vigorously, opening up one eyelid physically with a forcep, poking him in his ribs, tummy and back, tugging at his hair etc. When he finally looked over, he just reassured me would resolved on it's own. It didn't. My sore eyed turned out to be conjunctivitis. Sigh...............Spend a couple of hours at Ripas H. to see the doc. and got me some antibiotics. But lucky me, the swelling reduced by the next day.

Anyhow, am clearing and packing things away at the studio. Feeling nostalgic but looking forward to teaching at D'Music Motion. It'll be a fresh start.

It's been really nice taking it easy for the past weeks. Feeling completely relax and calm. Caught up with Grey's Anatomy and watched a couple of movies. Patrick Dempsey still looks good...in fact...I prefer him to George Clooney. And YES, watched Underworld....really good. No Kate Bekinsale but still good no matter....so do watch it if you can.

Gong Xi Fa Cai!!!! Happy Chinese New Year!!!

Yoga in Light

The powercut lasted for a few days and it was amazing to see how dependent we were on electricity! Nearly most businesses were closed for days and some houses didn't have water supply. Supermarkets and schools were closed too.

We were supposed to have a dinner party after yoga on the 22nd Jan and I was hoping the lights would come back 'on' again. But by 5pm, I knew I had to rush out to the shops to get myself some tealights. Well, I didn't, but Elaine did. We probably lighted up 80 tealight candles. I also decided to get some batteries for the radio to get some background music going. So, at 6pm, it was already getting dim but the students were all set and ready to do yoga despite of the circumstances. It was amazing. I think the candles set an ambience of peace and tranquility that got the students in a great yoga flow from one pose to the next. Such great focus!!!

I felt a little sad that it was the last class I conducted for Seraphina in 'the' studio. But everyone has been such an amazing support and I am truly, deeply grateful.

We had such healthy snacks for the party after. Chicken quiches, water melon, vegetable spring rolls, pitta bread with humous and lots of fruit juices.

And thanks for tremendous and wonderful support I got from everyone. I think when everything else is filled with ups and downs, the only way you get through it is to count the blessings in life and to keep going forward. And yes, I will 'keep on' looking for another studio and meanwhile, I will continue teaching. Big hugs and looking forward to seeing you in February 16th.

A New Year, A New Start

I jumped the guns and took the opportunity to open a yoga studio. It has been challenging eversince the start, but I think the challenges were there to tell me to not ever give up no matter what. I believe things happen for a reason even if it seems unclear what the reason may be at first. I know all the undertakings in the past year has only made me stronger as a person. I may have bawled my eyes out, screamed frantically at the top of my lungs into the pillow and Pete saw the worse in me in the last two months. But now, I think it's not that bad. I'm still alive.

Day by day, I have learned to exhale all the anger and frustrations out. I have learned that everything changes and as long as I have passion for what I believe in, I will survive anything.

So, here it is. Seraphina will be closed on the 26th January 2008. I will be working freelance at D'Music Motion Fitness Studio, Unit 1C, 1st Floor, Lot 47320, Simpang 41-1-12, Jalan Kiarong, same block as Lim Seck Chong sundry shop. D' Music Motion tel no:2450341. We will start mid February.

I'm going to pack up all the floorings, fans, air conditioners, mirrors away in the garage. Save up some cash and hopefully, in the near future, reopen my studio again.

There's a special class this coming Thursday,22nd January at 6pm to 7pm. All beginners, intermediate and advanced levels are welcomed. We are having a dinner party after. Please bring a dish each if you plan to join us.

Peter said to me,"You're losing materials and four walls. You still have your freedom to teach yoga anywhere in the world and no one can take that."

Smile, Stand, Love,

Release, Chill, Let Go, Be Free,

Courage, Understand,

Words of Encouragement, Positive Affirmation,

Dreams, Truth, Journey,

Blessings

May our minds meet again..........

Namaste.....

Ashtanga within your Heart

I get a lot of students asking me what Ashtanga Yoga's all about. It's very much different from a Hatha Vinyasa flow. The poses folds in deeper and most of them are pretty challenging. I remembered practicing it in full with Sean Corne and I at tears by the end of it.

Ashtanga yoga was created by yoga master, Patthabi Jois. It consists of a set series of poses done in a vinyasa(old indian language meaning 'flow') style. The Ashtanga style stresses on Ujjayi Breaths, Mula Bandha, Uddhiyana Bandha and Dristis. Bandhas are locks created by squeezing your pelvic floor muscles (Mula) and drawing the tummy into the spine(Uddhiyana). Dristis are where your eyes gazes at, in other words, your focus of attention when you're performing the poses.

Here's a good explanation on ashtanga:-

Click here to learn more:- http://yoga.about.com/od/ashtangayoga/a/ashtangs.htm

And click here as explaine by David Swensen

About the Ashtanga Series of Poses

The first or primary series, called Yoga Chikitsa, is described in Yoga Mala. Yoga Chikitsa, which means yoga therapy, realigns the spine, detoxifies the body, and builds strength, flexibility and stamina. The series of about 75 poses takes an hour and a half to two hours to complete, beginning with sun salutations (surya namaskara A and surya namaskara B) and moving on to standing poses, seated poses, inversions and backbends before relaxation.

The intermediate or second series is called Nadi Shodana, meaning nervous system purification. It cleanses and strengthens the nervous system and the subtle energy channels throughout the body. This series is only introduced when the primary series is strong. It follows the same progression (sun salutations, standing, sitting etc.) as the primary series, but introduces new poses and variations.

The four advanced series are called Sthira Bhaga, which means divine stability. Pattabhi Jois originally outlined two intensive advanced series, but later subdivided them into four series to make them accessible to more people. These series emphasize difficult arm balances and are only appropriate for extremely advanced students.

I do feel that I create the flow in what I think feels right and good for the students. There are reasons behind following the set series of poses in Ashtanga but knowing me, I'm not one to follow rules. I believe like in life, there are different paths to follow, and it's up to us to decide what feels right. My philosophy is, 'just go along with the flow'.........................