yogamontreal

At François Raoult's Workshop - May 2007

In his May 2007 workshop at Yoga on the Park in Montreal, François Raoult made a deep impression on beginners and experienced yogis alike. Here some notes from his workshop for teachers on Monday May 21, where he shared perspectives on the role of a yoga teacher, offered a wealth of tips from his decades of practise and teaching, and answered questions from a group of teachers and advanced students.

Yoga Anatomy - A must for yoga teachers

How do you learn what is happening to the body during yoga postures? In recent years a flurry of new books has come out to help yoga teachers and students understand and visualize the dynamics and effects of each yoga posture. Perhaps the clearest and most concise is Yoga Anatomy, by Leslie Kaminoff .

The 6.72 billion names of god

Too many names of god,
Cosmologies divergent!
Still, in this thing convergent:
I
Say it’s so.

Too many names and tales!
Enough to say
I am.
And be convincing.

The universe
So vast to know
No certainty is true

It's ours to sail
across the sea
of stars
to know it better

It's ours to peel
our selves away
Till
I am
is enough
And vision's very clear.

It's ours to be
Ascending,
The universe aware!

Our journey's
what it's seeing...
what could there be
More sacred?

Is Yoga A Religion?

Is Yoga a Religion?

Wherein your fearless webmaster chases logic into swampy waters, searching for new answers to a suddenly more pertinent question.

“--- , Otherwise, it’s just gym” is a phrase heard too often in the mouths of yoga teachers. Presumably yoga class is higher and better than the aerobics class that plays loud music next door and disturbs our serenity. After all we address the person’s spiritual development; not just their butt line.

At the Lotus Palm Thai Yoga Massage Introductory 1 course.

At the Lotus Palm School in Montreal: This is the borderland between yoga and massage, meditation and dance.
A school respectful to a Thai lineage and its wisdom,
now well adapted to North America,
and growing rapidly in popularity as a massage technique.

Studios Coming and Going

The past few months have seen many milestones, comings and goings of yoga studios in Montreal.

More Signs of Life

Thanks to the many people who have been asking after my health. It is great!

Modern medical science has rescued me from a congenital heart valve defect that once would have spelled a very short life expectancy and sharply reduced vitality. Yoga made me strong and resilient for the surgery. It helped me deal with the emotional dimension of a heart condition, where the effect of your feelings on pulse, blood pressure, etc. become very obvious. And it has helped me recover solidly from the effects of major surgery.

I am back to a teaching schedule at the YMCA, and after the holidays at Mandala Yoga.

This blog has languished for the past few months, but it too will be showing new signs of life in the coming weeks.

Watch for a major change in the yogamontreal website as well, as the people at Ecohosting help me roll out a new technology platform for the yogamontreal.com website, with interesting new features: more efficient operation by the webmaster, and more features for the website user.

Yogamontreal will be launched out of the 1990s and into 2007 in a single leap!

Touch down - And Go For It!

Erica, back home in Vancouver, sums up her experience in India

More About the Heart

The story about heart surgery continues, as complications occurred. They were overcome, however, and I'm still on the recovery road. Thanks to so many who sent their good wishes.

Malcolm Learns About the Heart

My experience of heart surgery has been a profound wake-up call; and a reminder of the importance of love in the world. On the night before the operation, and the morning of the operation, I opened up to the intentions and good wishes being sent my way in various yoga and meditation practices around Montreal and elsewhere. What a feeling of being uplifted!

I practiced with a sense of urgency that morning, as in: “there’s the last bird of paradise for a while, maybe even forever.” I knew that the practice of yoga asana, meditation and breathing that I have pursued in the past years, and the cultivation of loving kindness that I have been part of in the Montreal community, were important to a successful outcome.

My thanks to the many who sent me their good wishes, by email or by psychic ether. This is where the physical heart and the metaphysical heart merge,
and healing goes beyond muscle and bone.

I wrote some notes about the operation, which follow:

More from Erica at Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram

Continuing our series of posts of reports from yogis on their pilgrimages to India, here is another report from Erica, in a moment of reflection during her course at the Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram in Chennai, India.

How to Find Your Yoga Studio and Teacher

Mary Dunlop offers this post on the subject of finding your yoga studio and teacher.

Erica at the Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram (KYM)

Erica reports on her 2 week workshop, The Power of Yoga, at Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram

Hart Lazer's Eponymous Visualization

In the work of yoga, and the relaxation that accompanies it, the mind empties. Cares fall away. And sometimes, even more remarkable things occur; as on this occasion.

Guru: Documentary on Pattabhi Jois

An insightful documentary film about yoga was released this month, in London, England. Guru: A Documentary by Robert Wilkins, was released at a gala premiere on March 5, attended by Sri K. Pattabhi Jois, the founder of the Ashtanga yoga system ("If we practise yoga without fail, we will then attain physical, mental, and spiritual happiness and our minds will flood towards the self.").

Morning Practice

The Courage of the Early Morning

Many Montreal yogis are moving into spring by with the help of early morning workshops. Here is a report on various programs being offered in the city.

Mysore in the Year 2020

This report from India is by Larry Niven and Steven Barnes, two of my favourite science fiction writers. Their book Saturn's Race, set in the year 2020, includes a visit to Mysore with a Dr. Jois, a "small, limber, dark man," and describes an Ashtanga class taken there:

Gayatri Mantra (report from Daphnée)

Daphné St-Pierre, a Montreal yoga teacher, is in India for a year of study and seva. Here she writes about the Gayatri Mantra, a powerful chant.

A Thing of Beauty

A thing of Beauty is a joy forever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

-John Keats, one of the great poets of the English language, died of consumption (tuberculosis) at age 25 (1821). His mother had died of consumption, and he nursed his brother through this wasting lung disease. He was very aware of the beauty of breathing.


At his bequest, the following lines were engraved on his tombstone:
"Here lies one whose name was writ in water."


He felt his life had been insubstantial, he was trying to get out of writing and into a respectable career, until he became an invalid. Yet his words still write their way into the hearts and minds of millions. They are carried on paper enough to lay low great stands of trees -- and now on electrons.


This excerpt is from Hyperion

Daphnée's Yoga Practice in Pune

Daphnée St. Pierre, teacher at several locations in Montreal, including Joy of Yoga and the YMCA, has gone to India for study and seva. Here she reports on her experience in Pune.

Lyse in Arunachala

Lyse Michel, a Montrealer who went on the Fountain of Happiness retreat to Arunachala, India, with Mollie Lawson, offers this report:

Hanuman in the streets?

Margo Veitch stayed at  Arunachala, the sacred mountain near Tiruvannamallai in Southern India this fall. The event was a retreat organized by Montreal yoga teacher Mollie Lawson.

Margo, a Montrealer by origin, massage therapist and yoga teacher, now lives in New Hampshire. Among her many impressions from Arunachala: "The monkeys were truly amazing!"

(Photos by Margo Veitch)

Daphnée in India

For many in the Montreal yoga community, India beckons, as the home of yoga, as a pilgrimage to a place that works along different lines.

Daphnée St. Pierre, teacher at several locations in Montreal, including Joy of Yoga and the YMCA,  has gone to India for study and seva. She reported in on Jan 18:

Bikram to the Rescue

I went to London to interview for a Big Job: After two gruelling days of interviews, tests, and disappointment, I caught the last Bikram Yoga class in a packed studio in the City. An oasis in the desert, even if it was a hot as any desert!

Anatomy for yoga

Hatha yogins in India developed an amazing system to develop the physical body. Some of them posited the unfashionable notion that getting to know the body you are in could be a valuable step in the path of self-realization.

Today, many see their path is through a better understanding of anatomy and physiology. Here is a report on an anatomy for yoga class offered in Montreal.

Hot Yoga

Today I took my first Bikram Yoga class in more than a year, at the Bikram Yoga Montreal studio at 721 Walker Avenue. Here are some observations.