Tuesday evening teaching yoga in Milan : voice assists

Last week on tuesday I taught in english italian a full vinyasa class in Milan. It was a great experience. But I asked to my colleghes do you think it is right to change language during a yoga teaching? In a nutshell, many of them told me not to answer because they never had to. A few of them told me not to feel like teaching in another language. My friend and colleghe Belinda said to me it is right to be understood by students.

My personal feeling is not to touch too much students (verbal guidance) so if I need to express in a few seconds to change a foot position to improve the posture, I need to say it as quick as possible. And possible means if I communicate a first assist and the student does not understand, I will change my teaching language for him or her at the next one. The best book I red about assisting is Yoga assists of Sharon Gannon. In this book it is suggested to teachers to know how to adjust but to decide if to do it or not. I guess thatmis the point. Freedom of speech, to get a result. Action on the contrary.

First IoDonna yoga tour in italy with Sharon Gannon and Benedetta Spada

I am happy to share with you the details about the first italian Yoga Tour in historical venues to promote yoga practice for people inviting them in incredible location to pratice for the first time or so. I would say to enlarge the circle and make it a beautiful experience, to create inspiration, to be joyful all together once, to change mind-body, to love yourself and choose life. More details and registration on line.

Yoga tour Fai location:
http://www.iodonna.it/speciali/theYogaTour/location.shtml

altri link utili:

http://www.rcsmediagroup.it/comunicati/al-via-il-26-settembre-il-primo-the-yoga-tour-uniniziativa-di-io-donna-e-fai-in-collaborazione-con-bionike/?refresh_ce-cp

http://www.primaonline.it/2015/09/24/214520/al-via-il-26-settembre-il-primo-the-yoga-tour-uniniziativa-di-io-donna-e-fai-in-collaborazione-con-bionike/

http://www.iodonna.it/attualita/appuntamenti-ed-eventi/2015/09/25/yoga-10-pillole-di-saggezza/

http://www.iodonna.it/benessere/salute-prevenzione/2015/09/28/yoga-tour-prima-tappa-al-castello-della-manta/

Yoga Teachers:
Sharon Gannon
Benedetta Spada Vincent
Paola Buonuomo‬

             

Yoga challenge creating a new practice with mindfulness for 366 days

Mindful Yoga lab is a research project about practicing mindfulness while being on a yoga mat. born to be an answer to the difficulties of some people to use mind while doing body exercises of yoga, it aims at producing a mindful guidance of any body movements and of asana stay and exit. We decided to create a yoga challenge as Bernie Siegel book 101 exercizes for soul has inspired to us. Every week for one year, We will publish an article about an exercize of mind into a yoga practice. Usyually Yoga labs last 60' and are in a Vinyasa style. Please feel free to comment and like. A crowdfunding for the Book publishing is ON at https://www.paypal.me/benedettaspada

Introduction
Mind is a part of our wholeness which can be helpful to work on our self silently, with willpower, creating a new wellbeing culture. The only instrument you need to use are concentration for a while and smile. It can be easier that working on body or spirit. As a interior way of being it works from inside to ouside also on the body, creating a dialogue. If mind was a muscle, it is easy to think it could be stronger of flexible with a specific workout. To create a healthy mind, it is necessary to listen to the mind after stimolating it, without painting the answer with our fear or anger or others' convictions. We need faith in the divine project for us, and be the change for a true increased real life. Being stronger mindbody do not leave a chance to illness, bad news or distructive behaviour.

LAB #1
Pain is necessary is the starting point in mind to Look Back Lab and go to opposite of numbness. Practicing yoga you may feel your limit, in the present moment and from the past. Anytime you remember or live or even anticipate a bad karma, keep an open mind and peacefully watch what occurs. You may associate something good which happen at the same time, write it down, keep it in your mind. Thich Nhat Hanh would say make your worst memories the new plants and opportunities that grew out of the ashes and best compost of your life. Yoga is an opportunity to make a talk between soul and body, following the outside pain to go back to inside and finally release.

#2
In front of your fear Will Power is necessary in yoga, as breating to live. We need a voluntary breathe for the Freedom From Fear Lab. What is it? There is a natural individual breathe and a voluntary collective breathe. If you are calm your breathe is calm and steady, if not you can eventually hick up. If yoga corresponds to women, locks and breathes correspond better to the maschile part of us which should make it easier for men. In fact it corresponds to the right part of the brain so every sane body should make it. Usually natural breathe is an expression of our reaction, voluntary breathe is an struggle for freedom. Lets have an exemple, if I dream during the night it is a reaction in act, if I do a visualization during the day it is a act of willpower. Breathing as a wilful act which envolve body, mind and spirit. Unwilled breathe is an expression of our unbalance life. Putting in front of us our fear, helps in finding our own yoga posture, breathe, and holiness.

Lab #3 is a transitory exercize to settle down our soul evolution. The focus of the laboratory is a high value of yoga: integrity. To be true with ourself is different than to be honest. Let me tell you this event I assisted, a man in a park drop a 50-euro bill and as several others I saw it and decided to return it to the man, that was honesty. But if no one else saw that the man had dropped the money and I decide to return it, that is integrity. Integrity is internal honesty, or as Anita Moorjani said is being centrered within the universe, it is god speaking through me. Patanjali has writen a Sutra about: you can not say anything that does not come true. In your asana practice that choice of truthfulness means to star at your mat, and not compare with others, to do the postures as far as you can, may be some more and then come back to your maximum of the day. Then release tensions, speak about emotions and let go. The contrary would be to be distracted, to cheat about your effective limit, to go out of a posture without a benefit, to repress emotions.

Jivamukti yoga with Sharon Gannon Italian tour 2015 Milano Roma Cervia

Sharon Gannon is back in Italy next November 2015, (2015 events are here)
for the presentation of her last translated cook book in italian Recipes of Joy. Read more here http://www.simplerecipesforjoy.com/sharon-gannon/

I am so happy to introduce to italian yogini in case they dont know her. I met Sharon in 2008 in London for Yoga Journal italia to interview her and David Life and partecipate to my best yoga workshop ever. Our meeting led to the organization of the first event in Milan in 2009 with 100+ yoga fans from Italy, southern and central Europe. Great success before another success in Rome with the Jivamukti school of Nieves. Here more info about Nieves http://www.nivesyoga.it

Then in 2010 I went in Berlin for the only european workshop with others hundreds of yogini. I cant remember to have practiced with such a number of people, and will always remember that Sharonji say hello to anybody before the practice together. A way to say hello, to say thanks that I learnt from her. Our last meeting was in 2011 for the last presentation of Book in Italy and workshop with Yoga Festival and Eifis (we actually have the same publisher). Great moment of yoga and yoga life.
Now she is coming back so please after reading reserve HERE!
Milan, Rome and Cervia (Venice).


If you read italian I have an article for you writen by Maria Laura Giovagnini, a chief editor in IoDonna with whom I have collaborated as testimonial of Yoga tour 2015 and once practiced yoga.
Here about Yoga tour 2015 with Sharon Gannon
Here about Article about Sharon Gannon 2012


And have a great time.
With great love all is possible.

Yoga and tenderness: the gentle side of yoga

Next event in Antibes on August the 2nd 2015
9:30 am - 12
Euro. 35

Yoga and tenderness

The yoga work (atelier) is focused on finding tenderness (douceur) while practicing dynamic yoga. After practicing with mindfulness, after practicing with breathe awareness, I will present in anteprima her next workshop for Yoga festival Italia "Practicing with tenderness". The daily tenderness teaching (please check www.casadellatenerezza.org for more information) is included into a vinyasa yoga sequence which empower the body and strenghten the mind. The guided meditation will broaden the horinzons to the advanced or beginners. Multilevel and french/english spoken.

Some more details later.

Yoga, love and miracle for a good health

Yoga can heal? After 15 years of yoga teaching to thousands of persons and following them face to face and with social networks, I wanted to give an answer to this question. My answer comes from somewhere into my mind but not from brain, it is a vertical thinking, nothing to explain, nothing to plan. Half of who is reading now could prefer bill Tara' horizontal words (see below), for the others, the vertical thinking is a feeling, the truth you get in a look, the very first thinking before thinking (which has happened in a before space). What happen before thinking? A simple exercize to understand: breathing check up.

Mukund Bhole (www.yogabhole.com) has set a vertical system from an indian medical 50 years' experience. I would sum it up in "feel instead of think" your yoga practice. Slow your breathe, feel your inspire, extend and relax, then expire.

Use your hands like ears, to feel, experience, perceive the peel contact. Check up your bandhas specially uddiyana bandha on the inspire relax your pelvic area like a lotus flower opening, and on the expire stress a little your pelvic area (scrotum for men). Check up your  breathe IN relax and extend, EX stress and contract. Mindfulness is coming back to correct breathe (possibly ujjayi), to your focus (mindfulness and drishti), to right movement (as far as you know them banda and asana). Use compassion it does not matter if you loose the rythm as a student of viola please come back to the starting point for a new play.

The words from the students I listened to at the end of the check up were close to my intent, almost intuitive or not rational. It is so different from what this society used to ask for that I consider a success the affirmation of the rightness to use sound during the asana practice, the right observation that there is nothing to understand but only to feel, and the curiosity around mindfulness as I made it works. In a few words of mine mindfulness applicated to yoga (meditation in movement) is: find your first thinkings, find them right, give them importance.

Before the yoga sequence practice, I guided a moment of mindfulness in order to choose a focus for anybody. The focus helps, as the breathe while someone loose the sense of this work to come back to a starting point. The lost of concentration is not important but the find again of mindfulness practice is mindfulness. Sometimes I say to my students who are disturbed by the external sound of a car in the street or a plane over the city, "if you get disturbed and have many thoughts please put them on the next car/plane which is passing now and let them go. Come back to your breathe. Come back to your focus."

During the asana practice, we are getting slowly in. Building a vinyasa, and mindfuling an asana. For exemple, while practicing crocodile pose, I ask for laying down on the mat, feeling the breathe into the belly, and upward body. Reconnecting to the mindful practice of bandhas. The vinyasa therapy sequence is mostly based on feet standing postures. Getting faster the practice is combined with bija mantra (small primordial sounds).
See min. 4:15 the Shiva rea video click here
Or copy and paste later http://youtu.be/6x1kt6A0o9s

After the one hour dynamic practice, I suggest the candel or the bridge posture but done in a slow motion version, specially while getting out of the posture. 

During the relaxation I create positive thinking based on a book or on some reactions at what I have caught from the collective practice. In case I taught to ashtangi, I insist on the necessity to balance the strenght with flexibility (mentally and physically) for exemple. The sense to have practice in slow motion at the begining and at the end. The technics to find when you loose them bandhas, ujjayi and focus. A book I used in the past is Natural mind, natural body of Bill Tara, specially the parts called Wellness tips and The authentic Self. Create manageable goals, make your goals actable and act them. "Goals without actions are wishes. Action without a plan is often chaos and feeds the monkeys. If we do not make plans and commitments to ourselves, our failures can easily disempower us. If we let our vision fuel our desire, we need to let our plans be the engine that moves us forward." (bill Tara).

In a nutshell, yoga is life and lifestyle. To be alive while practicing you need to improve your presence and to be a real person (as you practice yoga) you need to put into practice your self.

Good food for mindfulness in Antibes for summer events 2015

The book of Mahiya Zoé Matthews includes the words I was looking for. After a year, working with macrobiotic cooks, authors and speakers, I was seriously thinking about the what is there after macrobiotics?! I got the best from Ohsawa, and its followers, some new generation authors I was daily using the books, but something was missing to me in order to explain how to eat. So I red further more! And Philippe Sionneau with tao explaination about how to cook were enlightening. Then I decided to meet one of this master called Carlo Guglielmo, nearby Torino wgere he found a macrobiotic food company and helped hundreds of people with TCM. Since then, I applicate in my alimentation the 5 transformations cycle and pray before eating. The what was clear to me, and I finally found the How to eat in this Ananda's work. The title of the book was clear : soul full eating. Eating was an action to change the world and my individual and the soul was the motor. The full use of my soul was the condition to make eating a prayer, a mantra or a meditation. Sometimes in my life I met people successing in make a great plate for my soul, silently and personally felt good, but these happy few were in trouble to explain me how to proceed. In a nutshell, the best part of the book is while including prayer, meditation, friendship, mindfulness, engagement. Eating, cooking are the same doing as they say. While Eating/Fasting and Digesting, our inner strenght and character determine our ability to be a peaceful person at home and in the world. Like a training focused on yama practice. I recently called this practice with Mindfulness words instead of yoga words. I include into my evening vinyasa therapy yoga classes, 30 minutes of mindful practice to prepare to diner. With my husband we have done some meetings (called M-eatings) called "Good Nutrition, Good emotions and mindful life can change our life!" because 

Tenderness is: preparing ourself to eat good (holy and yummy)

Don Carlo Rochetta, from a conference in Perugia.

Events organized with a spirit of dediction to create a knowledge and counsciousness about food.
August 7th 2015
Next event in Arts Thés Miss in Antibes, for a vegan diner plus an experience of mindfulness. More info below

https://www.facebook.com/events/439195036283755/

Last minute yoga in Milan May : Vinyasa Padmayoga

Book now your yoga class in milan

Italian yoga book tour summer 2015 with Benedetta Spada and Yogadinamico 2015

- Milan the 20th of June 2015 in libreria Esoterica @6 pm

  

First Yoga meditation inside international airport was done by An italian yoga teacher

After the first experience in San Francisco airport, Venice airport has gone all out for realizing the first live morning yoga sessions in an international airport. The event will consist of having a yoga teacher at your beck and call for a guided 15 minutes mindfulness session insisting on anti panic technics and some exercises against travel stress. Benedetta Spada, an experienced yoga teacher from Milan who has spoken to hundreds of persons as a motivational speaker, and also wrote a book about this, she is the one choosen to bring travelers of the day 4th of April 2014 to relax. She says " Venice airport 15 minutes yoga sessions is the major experiment in the world of free guided wellness as a service to passengers. As I wrote in Yoga in viaggio my last book, travelers need better general conditions on the one hand VIP lounge less overcrowded and public areas less stereotyped but on the other hand more silent in open spaces and valuable experiences to do self relaxation instead of only paid wellness experiences."

Save the children, save the queen or simply practice yoga and love to change your life?!

At home my father often quotes Adorno, Jung  but I found in Dostoyevsky the light about my Love focus of the day. I wrote "l'unico inferno è l'incapacità di amare", that I freely translate by the english words "Hell on earth is the incapability to love!". I believe that before to speak about Save the earth, the children or the whole humanity, one need some more love, the world needs spirituality! And this focus, begins now with you and me, choosing life, choosing to involve ourself in goodness, fairness, truth for truth, consistency... I love english language because it does not allow to interpretation like italian language. CONSISTENCY is my political programme. I guess I wrote too much  words, although I wanted to mean love, to mean respect. Life is a gift so what do you wait to put ourself on the job!

Free yoga class with Benedetta Spada in Milan for sun Eclipse 2015 and Spring celebration

Yoga Festival, in partnership with City of Milan, asked for Benedetta Spada to lead a meditation and sun salutation serie during the celebration of the sun eclipse. At the same time hundreds of partecipants have greeted the italian early spring.

I have been asked to partecipate (as a teacher) to Eclipse and spring 2015 celebrations with all Yoga festival friends, yoga students, and citizens connected in less than 48 hours to this event. The idea was so great I decided to change my plans of the weekend and serve the Holy spirit and my City. So we had an appointment in a city park nearby Planetario at 10 a.m. all together, the sky was cloudy but the faces of the people were shining. I guess people arrived in vespa, bicycle, train and car. Yoga mats everywhere by the tiny streets, yoga mats opened silently during more than an hour and lets practice a few Sun salutations and some more.

Why did I partecipate in? For a sense of yoga community, to make me well being, finally because I had something to say to these people. Shadow and light are the same. It is not true to think one is better than another. They are the two faces of a medal, separated and complementary. Put together our Light and our shadow is yoga. The way to do it is simple as repeating the phrase "even if me (say your name) I have my pains, my shadows, I decide now to be alive, I choose life and Light." Accepting these two parts and this union is yoga. The World need renaissance, need a guided wellness opportunity, need positive characters by the street.

Press about:

http://milano.mentelocale.it/63839-milano-eclissi-solare-20-marzo-yoga-ai-giardini-montanelli/

http://www.ilgiornale.it/news/milano/eclissi-milano-new-age-comune-organizza-saluto-sole-yoga-1106958.html

http://www.mi-lorenteggio.com/news/35540

http://www.radiolombardia.it/rl/news.do?id=57795

http://www.etalia.net/articles/a6c97444c-685a-461c-b56b-d0fa7e69b61e

http://www.settenews.it/index.php/cronaca/103-news/7311-eclissi-evento-new-age-comune-milano-saluto-yoga-al-sole

http://milano.repubblica.it/cronaca/2015/03/20/foto/milano_il_mega_saluto_al_sole_per_l_eclissi-110044352/1/#8

http://www.adnkronos.com/fatti/pa-informa/sport/2015/03/20/benessere-yoga-per-tutti-domani-giardini-montanelli-per-salutare-eclissi_ORqmO11UTlqn1zCdStN51J.html

http://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/2015/03/20/eclissi-sole-2015-eventi-in-tutta-italia-cristoforetti-scatta-foto-dallo-spazio/1522235/

Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oks6SuBmPLw&sns=em
http://youtu.be/oks6SuBmPLw

Jivamukti jules Febre in Milan 2nd of April 2015

A few words as requested to me to present Jivamukti Jules Febre next event in Milan (Italy). In 2009 with Sharon Gannon and David Life and in 2011 with Gabriella Bozic, Benedetta Spada was the city tour partner, but in 2015 I will have a partnership with Federazione Italiana Yoga e Sport, a new taskforce of italian yoga teachers. Thanks to all. Enclosed tou will find the event description and the few information I collected about Jules Febre.

Jivamukti Yoga - Hip Hop Asana™

Fun sequencing distinct to the Jivamukti Yoga method will warm you up and keep you cookin'. Come prepared for an upbeat session with great music and sequences. This is classic Jivamukti: original, sequential, inspired with spirit, and a little wild. A vigorous Jivamukti Yoga class for all levels of practitioner.

Bio: Jules Febre, nephew and closest student of Jivamukti founders Sharon Gannon and David Life.

Jules Febre is an internationally acclaimed Advanced Certified Jivamukti Yoga Teacher. He began his practice at the age of 6. In his early teens, Jules spent time traveling in India with David Life. During that time he was invited to share satsang with Swami Nirmalananda and Shyam Das, two radical yogis, as well as studying Ashtanga Yoga with Sri. K. Pattabhi Jois - three great beings that have each helped to add to the progression of yoga in the West. Jules travels the world teaching Jivamukti Yoga, Hip Hop Asana, as well as immersion programs and retreats.  He leads the 300-Hour Jivamukti Yoga Teacher Training Programs in addition to mentoring in the 800-Hour Jivamukti Apprenticeship Program. With a desire to serve the community in which he was raised, Jules also teaches in youth development programs, prisons, and probation centers in New York City and around the world. He is a featured teacher at the US Yoga Journal Conferences and many international yoga festivals throughout the world. Having appeared in multiple magazines, on television and radio, he is recognized for his unique self-expression and a progressive teaching style that is filled with fun, humor and inspiration. Jules teaches a rigorous class with creative sequencing permeated by yoga philosophy with joyful wisdom that inspires, uplifts and serves all those he meets. Jules gives thanks to his Gurus Sharon Gannon and David Life and life long mentor Yogeswari.

With great love ALL is possible

MILAN Organization for the 2nd of April 2015
MILAN location : Spera Bikram

last minute reservation on phone 3924935761
last minute article about us : http://www.yogafestival.it/blog/hip-hop-asana-workshop-un-workshop-da-non-perdere/

Reservation webpage here: http://bit.ly/HiPHoPYOGA

Information contact here: padmayoga@benedettaspada.com

Some more events coming in Europe: Rome, Berne, Zurich, Barcelona, Eindhoven, Amsterdam watch out and partecipate  http://www.julesfebre.com/schedule/

Yoga, life and death

https://www.facebook.com/benedetta.spada.yoga/posts/10153366449614546:0

My husband suggested that I write a post about death, inspired by this photo. This week, a farmer from Piemonte paid for a lesson of yoga therapy for his mother who is in very bad shape due to a life of lies and self-limiting convictions.
Yoga therapy aims to help the areas which hurt the most, without any movement, but by working with the breath. The therapist has to show no pity for the ego, the ultimate cause of sickness.
When we got home again, my love told me to look what was written on the side of the crate full of heirloom apples: “Rebirth”.

This is what I think of death: for those who live a good life it is merely the passage to something much larger - a better world with people you do not expect to meet but are so happy to see. To not be afraid of death I think is a good indication that I am doing the right thing, but there are many others ( eating and drinking with joy, having fun working and making your dreams come true, to love #kanasimi) and there are times when we meet others who comfort you and show you the way.
I don’t ask too many questions about death because I follow a saying of Jonathan Livingston “ here is the test to now if your mission on earth is finished: if you are alive it is not.”
What is your vision of death?

Some suggestions:
-from Jivamukti http://jivamuktiyoga.com/teachings/focus-of-the-month/p/halloween-and-all-saints-day

Yoga for pregnancy a simple 5 hours training

Yoga for pregnancy and birth is a great goal and I guess business but is not a solution to pick up a few months before giving birth. I would say it is like a gift to receive during pregnancy (specially first pregnancy) as breath awareness and some yoga postures are important during the work to give birth. Indeed my first lesson focus on breath and body awareness, my second and third on the postures which can be helpful to prepare the body and during the delivery. In the end I would say 3 lessons of 1 hour and half can be useful for exercices and postures basis in order to know them and pratice home, can be helpful to find your posture if you decide to give birth naturally and to bring into your delivery a stronger breath and some yogic elements to your delivery room and that it. If you need more (because of past tragic experience of yoga or of delivery, because of hard baby posture or any complication, because you are afraid of or completely new to give birth) I would suggest to you a yoga meeting every 2 weeks for 6 months.

In the end aiming at giving birth is nice to prepare (get a toolkit and be happy) but nothing is more useful that to let go during the delivery your basic instinct.

Some people need yoga because they lost their body and mental balance. So the first easy thing to communicate to pregnant women is to educate their breath with a simple body scan you can check with them a breath dynamics. I personnaly use body scan technics from a medic called Bohle (yogatherapy). It consists of using hands on the side of your upper body to understand that breath is or is not regolar. That breath is a sound and a home which is a doorgate to a mindful life. Taking care of our breath, educating or reeducating our inhalation and exhalation is a good job to do while waiting for our baby. Breath awareness bring to body awareness for exemple. At the end of the first lesson women would get a new breath/body awareness and some advises how to use breath during delivery.

Some others come to yoga for the discipline of asana and the body discovery while practicing unusual postures. For the second lesson I taught some of the relaxing postures recommended for pregnant women in any books: for lower back pain release (cat pose...), for pelvic gym (chair agint wall, use of bandas...), heart burn and indigestion pain (stik pose, body side awareness...), ankle strenghtening (warming up on feet and massage) and the most important resting postures.

Lastly some people discover with yoga a natural way of life, a yogic lifestyle on and off the mat. Bringing all your knowledge about yoga into your delivery room is not easy specially if you have opted for an assisted delivery for any reason you have decided. Last lesson (open to future fathers) focus on compassion practice and emergency or instinctive postures (in case of natural birth preparation). I am 37 years old and in the last 15 years I have assisted many friends and students a small time before and after the birth. I Noticed that something was lacking for and from women, from their partner and family: family compassion practicing and woman instinct valorization. In order to bring mindfulness to my students of the pregnancy yoga course, I like to speak to the male partner to stimolate his protective attitude towards his female partner. Male usually need to see/listen to (more than to feel) so I introduce them to some simple postures to assist their partner to memorize in order to understand how the baby is positioned. Checking the position of the baby (normal birth position or any others) the man is aware of the engagement of his baby and can help to keep a natural position or to bring back his baby in a normal birth position. Last important thing about baby positioning but not least is to let understand if baby is arriving from left or to the right side. Lastly the most interesting thing about body awareness is to bring mindfulness and instinct to rise. As I use to say to stop your mind, to shut up the dancing monkey, feel free to practice a simple Come back to your breath exercize. Feel instead of think. Inhale I am here alive and exhale Let go what is useless. While giving birth you will need a few things, a few thoughts to do what you have to do, so train to be grateful for who you are and let go what is useless. Last lesson finish with chanting as it could be helpful to use it while giving birth.

This course has been done for the first time in Sohum yoga shala in Antibes. Copyright free with permission of Benedetta Spada mentoning your source.

Books:

On Amazon.com http://tinyurl.com/n5qyjze

On Google suggestions http://tinyurl.com/ksja7ac

My suggestion is Olivia H Miller book Prenatal yoga

Global meditation as an experiment of peace

http://globalmeditation.chopra.com/

Why am I teaching yoga?

Holiday is a new opportunity to discover your life and have a mindfulness experience.

So I want to share with you my last yoga class in French Riviera specially the final mantra I have writen to my students:

Kabat-Zinn says in Full Catastrophe Living, " it is impossible to become like somebody else. Your only hope is to become more fully yourself. That is the reason for practicing yoga in the first place". The worst thing you can possibly do is to look around and compare yourself to somebody else, whether it is in yoga or any other field of endeavor.

To be yourself is more simple like to drink a cup of tea but we forget how to do it in our life and we find ourselves busy trying to be like somebody else and comparing us to somebody else who has more beauty, more flexibility, more strongnesss, more anything than us.

Here is my first point, nowadays I have difficulties to find in yoga shala and in life enough moments where someone ( a teacher, a lover, a friend, a yoga mate...) say to another: " try to be yourself" or just to find somebody who loves you like you are, or even better "try to walk in your life respecting yourself and knowing that you can recieve love just because you are you(rself), not because you are somebody else"! 

In many case I have heard people talk about yoga-mindfulness but I keep asking for myself do they really know what is yoga or mindfulness... Sometimes I met acrobatic yogi or some others who practice daily meditation on the rocks and so many others, but outside of their mat they start to be so different, like to be someone else into life or with their family, so I asked for me why should it be like this?

The answer I have given to me for the moment is that one is too much outside of oneself and too much in competition, too less inside oneself, too much in conflict and so on.

In many cases the first step to fond ourself is to find more compassion for our fears and our feelings. So while you meet one of this fears comes you can choose to start to create a new tension because you don't accept this limit or fear and just after increase tensions and pains (or you can decide not to do so).

If you want to change your life you have to come back to a simple option: to be in love with yourself, with your fears, body and mind limits, pains, tensions. If you start to accept who you are, you can help yourself in many moment of your life when may be something not so good happen. At the same time, when you start to reconnect with your breathe, with your heart and yourself you can love your partner with his/her fears, limits, stress, tensions, pains, this is my way to love. My beloved Thich Nhat Hanh would have said if the fear come into your mind just say "Hello my dear fear (inhale). I say you Good bye (exhale). As many times you need".

I like so much to practice Jivamukti yoga or Ashtanga yoga but I believe that in this society there is too much space for our body and competition and there is not enough space for mind, heart, mindfulness... also when you go to the yoga shala and practice you can forget what does mean this practice, not only how use your breath or performance but how to accept yourself, how to love, how to use your tenderness and only throught this way to change your life! This is the power of yoga and mindfulness, not to be perfect, but to give a new opportunity to you and your life. Yoga and mindfulness starts when your vinyasa yoga workout ends up.

In this summer yoga time I'm here in Antibes to teach in a new studio, after many days I'm thinking what I want to introduce in my life and in my yoga classes and I think we need more compassion, more patience with ourself that means for me need to give more space to what happen inside not outside and give more space to our family with the same patience and love everyday.

So if this summer you want to share your yoga with me, please write to me your story, why did you start to practice yoga and mindfulness in your life? Or why not?

Is it possible that you can start to love yourself throuht your limit and fears now is right time!

Benedetta Spada

Thanks to Marc A. Vincent for the english translation.

Photo credit: Marvin

Love 2014 - Part 2

How to pass from romance to love?

Jeopardize, free your choice! One day a maestro, a kind of guru told me: love is a choice of every moments, so take your responsability and love!

The tricky idea is that there is no rule, but I could advice on the contrary: where there is worry there is no space for love.

To my two friends who are getting married:

I wish the best life and to find anytime the willing to choose themselves into irregularities of life.

I wish them to find the right quantity of irony to finish the daily problems.

I wish them to take the responsability not to loose time for unuseful affairs (unuseful to love)

I wish them to find freedom not to look for external confirmations also to be strong as a seal

Here a word for all this called Namaste which means: I glory into you the place where all or the world, if you are in that place we gonna meet there because I am in that space waiting for you, so to be one a d only (una cosa sola).

Love,

Benedetta

La Fontaine maxim remix of mindfulness

 

with courtesy of @francoislange here is a modern maxim to begin your day. Benedetta on holiday think about you: @festivalyoga @yjit @yoganomics

Best 5 Ashtanga vinyasa books

Best book means that the 5 books give you a complete librairy about vinyasa yoga
1- A collective book about Sri Pattabhi Jois
Where does my yoga comes from?!
2- Maehle's ashtanga theory
What does my yoga means?
3- Long's book about anatomy
Where are body joints and channels?!
4- Life and sharon Gannon's book
What is the difference between sequenced yoga and freestyle yoga?
5- Scott's book with sequence illustration
One of the few books with ashtanga primary serie sequence