Yoga Is Skill In Action: Teaching Flow and Restore at 808 Wellness: Kihei, Maui, HI: November 8, 2019

Honing the skills of moving with grace was our endeavored path today.

This is the first class back of a new season of Flow and Restore. While I've been teaching here in Maui under this class title for over a year, as I sat to prepare class it occurs to me "I'm doing it all wrong", which translates I'm doing my life all wrong. Here's the rub.

I think of this class as two separate pieces, the flow and the restore, like I live my life, the touring executive, and the relaxed yoga teacher. I mean, I showed up to Maui this time underweight and with big dark circles under my eyes. This last tour was depleting, even with the asana I was practicing and the healthy smoothies I was drinking, the Yoga wasn’t getting through.

The most recent insight, the edge of what I'm learning, the fresh new information is that it's not flow and restore, its flowandrestore. It's can we move in our daily life from that place of presence and sweetness that we get from the restorative effects of a yoga practice. Can we move with grace?

The Bhagavad Gita offers a definition of yoga as "skill in action". The skill we were cultivating today was the skill of supercharging what IS working for us. It’s not abut the asana, but it’s in the asana where we can learn to flow with with presence. We must be willing to break the bonds of sufffering (another definition of yoga from the Gita in Chapter 6, verse 23 duḥkha-sanyoga-viyogaṁ yogasaṅjñitam) and let our hearts and lives shine bright.

We called on Kali and the mantra OM to help us with our asana, pulling out some esoteric practices to romance inner courage to be in the yoga, for real, and allow ourselves to expose and move from a more shiny, loving, and authentic version of a self that has work to do in this world.

Here's our sequence:

savasana
floor moon pose
cat and cow
floor twist with wrist and shoulder opener

downdog

uttanasana
tadasana

dancer's dance play
tadasana
sankalpa meditation
OM

low lunge salute with Kali Mudra

lunge
warrior I
warrior II
peaceful warrior
trikonasana

wide leg forward fold
skandasana with Kali mudra

lunge
external hip opener
dragon
pigeon

savasana
sit
Namaste

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