Athena: My journey with yoga – My first post!
This is the start of journaling my very special journey, with my spiritual self and the people around me. To really trace back to when I first started my journey with yoga, it would be back to when I was 11 years old. Not many people know that I have started doing yoga so many years ago, because I did not convey this part of my life to them. It has been such a long but uneventful journey with yoga, not until recent years. My mom got diagnosed with cancer in 2004, when I was in Primary 4. I was young and did not know much then, but knew that my mom was sick. She recovered, thankfully and a year later, she started to practise yoga after hearing about the benefits of it. I had my very first class when my mom asked for me to follow her to a private class at a teacher’s home in Bukit Timah. She already had attended a few classes then and wanted me to try it out too. Can’t remember much about my first class, other than wearing long tights and sweating in a very tiny room with 4 other students and that I had to address the teacher by Ms Stoney. Eventually, I started making adult friends because of the age group the students were in. I even went for a retreat in Nepal with my mom a year later with Ms Stoney and a group of yoga students. After the cancer ordeal my mom went through, going for Yoga was a way to spend more time with her. I continued for a year but was mostly going through motion and poses. Another 3 yoga teachers later and practising at a Condominium to out in the open at MacRitchie Park, I injured my knee while training for a National Floorball competition. I decided to stop yoga then because I experienced a sharp pain with stretching my legs during downward facing dog and couldn’t stand on one leg because of the pressure on my knee. I stopped practising for almost 2 years, until I headed to Canada for my school’s exchange program in 2015. During my 6 months in Vancouver, I was looking for activities to feed my exercise regime. I signed up for the gym at school (so so cheap), tried to do running outdoors (but it was so so cold by the sea) and eventually chanced upon hot yoga at The Hot Box Yoga in school. Best decision I have ever made! I signed up for their 1 month unlimited package to try out and eventually continued to practise until I came back to Singapore. A few memorable things I recall about my yoga lessons there: 1) All teachers took time before or after class to share a piece of advice from a book they read or a situation that happened recently, and how it can translate to our practise on the mat or in life. I felt that I could always relate in one way or another. 2) They had power yoga with weights!!! I was so intrigued. One of my favourite classes there. 3) I started to notice how yoga had changed my body physically when I practised every day. Simple twisted chair poses were making my core so strong. 4) I really treasured the special moments I had with yoga. My commitment to wake up every day at 640am to make it for the 7am classes was something I would never have done. I was always a sleep > anything else person. 5) Last but not least, I started to see how lessons learnt on the mat could always translate to how I treat myself, the people around me and the situation I am in in real life. I actually felt enlightened. When I came back to Singapore in 2016, I continued my lessons with my previous teacher before I switched to Yoga Lab after I started working. I finally decided to take YTT at Yoga Mandala after a few years of thinking about sharing this practise with many others. It has benefitted me so much in shaping my approach to life and to stay true to myself. I wanted to share my practise with people and also challenge myself. What a long journey it has been but YTT at Yoga Mandala is just the beginning…. Athena Feb’20 Weekend YTT
Krystal: Endless Journey
This is the last week of yoga teacher training. It’s a bittersweet moment. It is one of those moments of “a chapter of your life coming to an end”, but yet it is the best time to figure out who I am and who I truly want to be. Some say that “every ending is the start of a new beginning” but I would like to see this as an endless journey. It has been nothing short of amazing to learn with a bunch of strong like- minded ladies, each with our distinctive styles, and we have clearly witnessed the growth amongst ourselves in this short period of 15 weekends. Through asanas, we learnt how to release tension in our bodies, how to breathe into poses, how to take flight and how to sequence with purpose and teach with authenticity. Beyond asanas, we gained fascinating knowledge about the evolution of yoga and the yoga philosophy of life aka Patanjali’s 8 Limbs of Yoga. I truly enjoyed the course and I will bring everything with me as we continue on with our lives and it is definitely not an end to the friendships forged. Yoga has allowed me to go through a process of endless self-discovery; an eternal journey into the centre of myself. The objective of the yoga teacher training – whether I become a yoga teacher, doesn’t matter anymore. Here’s to discovering a life of endless possibilities!
Krystal: Teaching According to Plan
I taught my first lesson, and felt so unprepared. Reflecting on my countless mistakes, I asked myself if I could be better prepared for my first class. The short answer is yes. The long answer is yes, but I don’t think I would be able to expect my teaching to go according to plan. Life is completely unexpected in the most wonderful way. Even though it did not go according to what I expected of myself, I have received valuable feedback after the first teaching, understood what I did not understand in the first place and strived for better teaching in the next round. I then became less harsh and critical of myself. Maybe when things are not going to plan, they are in fact going according to a greater plan. There is much magic and mercy in this notion. Instead of self blaming, I choose to believe that I could maybe force certain things into action but the remaining would always be governed by the laws of nature acting in a way that promotes my wellbeing. To appreciate that there are no natural forces working against me, but they are working to fuel my growth. Feb’20 Weekend YTT
Krystal: Unlearn & Relearn
After endless rounds of Surya Namaskar, I am seeing all the so-called basic yoga postures in a different light. We often can’t help that our bodies have ‘muscle memory’ and have automatically learned certain things from our past experiences, but I am starting to recognise that we can choose how we act based on how our bodies feel and we can choose to unlearn and to practise new behaviours. Headstand (Sirsasana) was like the first inversion that I nailed without supervision. I basically learnt how to balance in a headstand by mimicking what I saw in that perfect instagram shot and I always got into it via kicking or tucking my knees before floating up. In one of our inversion classes, we were taught Pike Headstand. No matter how hard I have tried, my body refused to pike into the headstand. I thought that unlearning my conditioned way of getting to a headstand and relearning how to uncover a pike headstand is an effective way to cultivate self-knowledge (Svadhyaya). In order to transform, I need to identify and acknowledge my old habits that are ultimately not serving me. This process could also be applied to my daily life. We are ever changing on both a physical and emotional level, therefore being fixated upon one way of practising will not work out. I shall continuously unlearn things that I was taught about who I was supposed to be and to relearn the real me in the present time and space. Krystal Feb-20 Weekend YTT
Krystal: Kindness to self and others
Recent episodes in life made me realise I can’t control how others receive my energy. Anything I do or say gets filtered through the lens of whatever the receiving person is going through at the moment, which may not have anything to do with me. But, what I can control, is the energy that I give. The first of Patanjali’s 8 Limbs of Yoga lays the Yamas, and one of them is Ahimsa. Ahimsa is the practice of non-harming or non-violence, which includes physical, mental, and emotional violence towards others and the self. This means I should not intentionally hurt others in my thoughts, actions and behavior, and I should not do that to myself either. Trying to practise this, I question myself, what are my thoughts creating? What kind of energy am I giving to the receiving person? What are my actions directed to? Learning that I cannot control how others feel, the best I could do is giving with as much love and integrity as possible. Show kindness to self and others, with no intention of harm, and therefore no judgment, criticism, anger and irritation as much as possible. Krystal Feb’20 Weekend YTT
Krystal: The Art and Science of Yoga Sequencing
Practising yoga intermittently over a period of 5 years, I have been a student of multiple studios in Singapore, Netherlands and other parts of Asia. Class sequences differ from one place to another, depending on the type of yoga and the style of teaching. Typically I feel that the class sequences are quite logical, starting from some light meditation & breathing, to simple warm-up postures, intensifying to more challenging postures, then slowing down to cool-down postures, and ending with Savasana. I have ever been to one that started with Savasana, which was pretty cool. There are also themed classes (heart-opening, hip-opening, detox just to name a few..) or classes that lead to a certain peak pose. As I leave each yoga class with a sense of wholesomeness, I realise I have not really understood the wonders behind each sequencing. Not until Jessica introduced her view of how a class sequence should be done – Stand, Seated, Prone, Supine and Invert. Her several reasons include working from Root (Muladhara) Chakra sequentially to the Heart (Anahata) Chakra, following the upward flow direction of lymph and addressing gravity. I attended yoga classes after this lesson and found myself being more mindful about how certain postures cue the body to jump up and down, which can disturb the flow of the practice. If I visit the purpose of Asana, which is to bring the body at ease and decrease the fluctuations of mind, then I guess there is indeed merit in following the sequencing, and there is science behind it! Then came the weekly yoga sequence assignments. I found myself spending hours in creating the sequences. The process of sequencing is still challenging, yet creative. Postures can be stitched in many different ways, so long it makes sense and this makes it an art. I have never thought of sequencing with so much purpose before 🙂 Krystal Feb’20 Weekend YTT
Krystal: Why Yoga?
“Why do you like yoga?” is a question that people often ask me. “Yoga needs flexibility, I cannot do it”, “Yoga is so slow, I cannot keep up to it”, “Yoga is so overrated, I cannot understand it” are a few common statements I usually hear from others. Being someone who loves sports, I personally found yoga practice as a way of life and a perfect harmony of strength, flexibility and endurance. This perfect balance from yoga allows me to train at a higher level because my body can adapt to the range of motion and my fear of injury lessens. Yoga also triggers my body’s adaptive and rejuvenating powers. It’s how each time I ended the practice feeling much more energised, even though I have “worked out”. Learning that yoga is the union of the body, mind and soul, it is interesting to see how it all makes sense. Every movement on the mat is non-fragmented. My mind tells my body to move in a certain way that feeds my soul. My body tells my mind when it is tired and to mindfully let go my ego. Through the asana practice, I have gotten to know myself in the most incredible way. This also made me realise that we don’t necessarily need a starting point for yoga. Krystal Feb’20 Weekend YTT
Mel: WHIPPING INTO SHAPE
Okay phew. I managed to remember everyone’s names and that is an amazing feat because at the end of the day I’ll be soooo fatigued I can barely call a Grab home. Maybe a disclaimer but I really am not a morning person. The first three weeks were especially painful for me because it took me some time to get used to waking up at 6:15am on the weekends. The first couple of weekends were also the hardest for me physically, because we did a lot of exercises to first get our bodies strong enough for things like arm balances and inversions. Although I’ve been a regular subject for Alexis’ “torture” for 2 years…boy was I in for a surprise. I won’t reveal much in case you, yes you, the one reading it is deciding on taking YTT (dowittt).. but all I can say is Jess is very creative. But not to worry! She’s a real team player. She actually does the exercises together with us and still manages to instruct and teach. Hats off. The goal is to emerge a butterfly after this YTT. 100 squat jumps anyone? Melissa Feb’20 Weekend YTT
