Since feeling is first...

My overseas trip is soon coming to a close!! I return to Christchurch on July 1st and a new six week class session begins on Monday, July 7th. Please see my class timetable on the right and contact me if you wish to join a class this term. I look forward to seeing all of you soon!


After two amazing and inspiring weeks of yoga study in California and Utah with my teacher John Friend, I am now settling into a slow, delicious holiday with family and very dear friends in Washington DC. Summer is in full glory here! The sun shines sweet and warm each day, giant magnolias burst into flower everywhere, and cool balmy nights bring out the fireflies. It is so magical to see the trees and fields aglow each evening with tiny, brilliant points of light. I have much time for practice, contemplation, and reconnecting with loved ones. I feel so blessed to be here.

In my weeks of in-depth study, John covered new and exciting territory! In San Diego, we embarked on some intensive and fascinating scriptural study of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali from both the Classical and Tantric (Anusara) perspective. We linked the threads of this comparative study into our next three day session on the Vijananabhairava Tantra. In this beautiful but little known yoga scripture, all of the major questions of life are asked (and answered!)...Why are we here? What is the nature of this world? What is the meaning of this life? How best can we rediscover our connection to the Source?

In the Tantric yogic perspective, we believe that this manifest world, the glorious diverse array of all aspects of nature we see before us IS a true reflection of the highest transcendental Spirit. Our own human body is the most exquisite and orderly manifestation of this Spirit in which we can rediscover and celebrate the power and beauty of the universe in every single moment!

In a profound follow-up to this glorious celebration of the big questions, I completed John's Therapy Yoga Teacher Training in Utah. There we took this highest intention to celebrate the intrinsic goodness and beauty of each person into the smallest, optimal details of physical alignment and movement on an ordinary, day to day basis. For many of us, day-to-day living can be cloaked by experiences of chronic physical pain, acute injury, or emotional suffering. How do we best address this?

In my yoga classes, I teach five alignment principles that are simple, orderly, progressive, and empowering. When you build a good grasp of the Universal Principles of Alignment, no movement, no injury, and no yoga pose is outside the realm of your understanding. In fact, you can approach any movement, injury, or yoga posture with curiosity and confidence!

Each morning we learned and practiced techniques for effectively using Anusara's Universal Principles of Alignment to better help those experiencing discomfort or injury almost any place in the body. Every afternoon, we had the amazing opportunity to observe John apply these same principles in targeted, creative ways with people presenting severe injury and/or limitations. Some had flown in from all parts of the USA!

When you study the details of anything, it is easy to get too focused or small minded in your perspective. John reminded us again and again of the 1st principle of Anusara Yoga. Be OPEN. Look at the big picture first. Before there is "doing"...there is "FEELING". The 1st principle is an energetic softening of all levels of our being...body, mind, spirit. In this deep softening, we open ourselves to see what is beautiful, what is good. This is part of our yoga practice...to find the beauty and the goodness in every situation. Even when we are confronted with limitation or injury.

I jotted down a favorite quote from e.e. cummings in the margin of my notebook:

since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things...

Feeling IS first! And keeping that sense of expansiveness and possibility, we can then draw into the syntax of things that IS life. BUT... without getting small, without getting cloaked, and without the need to control or dominate.

Interestingly enough, what holds true for every "yoga" posture also works in every "life posture" we take off the yoga mat. If we practice the first principle, if we soften and open to the recognition that this body is the most exquisite manifestation of our universal spirit... we will find that what we practice in our body on a physical level will extend out into how we experience and live our lives on an emotional and spiritual level.