bodyodyssey

Fri - October 7, 2005

amy ippoliti at omega day six

eye of the tigress

yes indeed...that about sums it up. so very thankful for yesterdays bodywork as we did some crazy pretzel poses today and i actually got up (with the help of marjorie and jody) into full pigeon, eak pada raja kapotasana, and also (albeit poorly with a bent knee) into surya yantrasana , compass pose. yikes! add some drop backs and some other standing with your leg behind your head from bound triangle and whew! can't wait to do it again!

Posted at 02:30 PM

Thu - October 6, 2005

amy ippoliti at omega day five

it's raining sheets of rain everything is cold and wet
nobody's going out of doors
they're all at home living it up on the internet
i guess nobody's lonely any more

7am again, up with the fog as it were, and then asana to greg brown. wow. such dedication and will power i never seen from myself. this morning it was all about the practice teaches...and what a safe loving space amy provided for us...so much more confident than yesterday...today was my day to blossom...then at lunch i got tossed around by kalline...thai yoga like i never imagined...like being caught in the middle of a holy war...a truly holy war...2.5 hours i was on that mat...with hot stones and hot packs and tiger balm...yikes...what a goddess...

spread out on the lawn for the afternoon session we got the nuts and bolts of how to present it to the world...working with beginners, using tantric concepts, sequencing a beginners curriculum, privates, pricing...and then a total blow out iwth the last night of kirtan with kd...

Posted at 11:32 PM

Wed - October 5, 2005

amy ippoliti at omega day four

everybody knows what's going wrong with the world
but I don't even know what's going on in myself.

the the dusk followed by nick drake pink moon for morning asana, followed by a breakfast of grapes and banana and a smidge of scrambled tofu, and then onto the tough stuff...teaching. much more of a process day...six pages of notes versus yesterdays fourteen pages of notes on adjustments. i have to say that amy is absolutely the chit! ananda thing i have to applaud is her amazing experience and preparedness. and such a big heart...in a few minutes she'll be meeting with me for the purpose of offering me insight and direction toward furthering my practice and my teaching. more on that later. this morning was about how to approach a class, intro to demonstrations, and how to language more effectively. little bitty practice teaching dyads were involved as well, which was a bit nervy, but with tracy as my partner for the first two i quickly got into the swing of it and felt confident and at easy before it was over.

lunchtime was a healing time as i had the opportunity to experience a soul retrieval with frauke, one of the two shamanic healers on staff at omega. this was quite an experience and perhaps i'll get to it at a later time if the blogging gods will it to be so.

afternoon we began outside to talk about the assignment sheet that amy included in her teacher training packet. very good stuff such as breaking down benefits of the various principles in various categories (physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual), working with dualities/trinities, and more opportunities to really delve into personal experience and understand to more readily bring a deeper breadth of wisdom into our classes. then we went inside and spent quite a bit of time playing the role of looking at students and scanning the room with eagle eyes looking for the good, for general form and foundation, and observing actions and refinements. our final challenge of the day was presenting a demo in groups of four, weaving in our overnight assignment of coming up with a personal anecdote encompassing the concepts of remembering the universal and glorification of the individual. whew! my own advice: don't demo down dog to illustrate inner and outer spiral...especially if you are a stable guy such as myself!

and so now...waiting to talk with amy...and waiting for the 3rd night of krishna das and ty burhoe kirtan...i'm off to the cafe to publish this mess. hope it has been even slightly edifying or entertaining.

Posted at 08:29 PM

Tue - October 4, 2005

amy ippoliti at omega day three

brother can you see those birds? they don't look to heaven. they don't need religion, they can see.

started out early grabbing a banana and some concord grapes from the lunchroom before heading over to the movement hall to rock some asana to rem's new adventures in hi-fi . then we had a very long day of hands on adjustments...i must say that amy rocks...getting my asana out of the way really set me up to receive the grace that she was offering. a long lingering lunch and then a kd kirtan and jeez it's already time to let go of the wi-fi!

sorry about that!

Posted at 11:24 PM

Mon - October 3, 2005

amy ippoliti at omega day 2

being the further musings of a black sheep yogi in his quest to live without expectation

well i would have figured that a bit of sweat and hard physical work would be involved in this teacher training, but alas such is not the case unless i carve the time out of a pretty filled up calendar. c'est la vie. today was two 3 hour sessions of yoga therapeutics...shoulder oriented work in the morning (following on yesterdays hips) and legs arms and sacrum this afternoon all of which will come in handy on the massage table and the thai yoga mat as well as in the yoga classroom and with the privates i am sure to be showered with in due time. there was an opportunity to practice with amy at lunchtime, but lunchtime is lunchtime for me...maybe tomorrow...in the meantime tonight is the first of 4 nights of kirtan with krishna das and amy's husband ty burhoe ...so maybe i'll get my asana in gear for that...otherwise it's up in the early morning for me...or skipping lunch...hmmm...choices choices...i'm hoping for the birth of asana out of the spirit of music . and now it's publish or perish as the music starts in just 4 minutes...

Posted at 07:57 PM

Sun - October 2, 2005

amy ippoliti at omega day one

being the musings of a black sheep yogi on his time in teacher training with anusara goddess amy ippoliti

well then...that lower back thing just might get handled! it is so refreshing to be back in a teacher training...to be teacher as student...surropunded by other teachers pushing the learning curve up a notch. i'm happy to be here...and was especially happy to be the demo model for our first therapeutics exercise...working with the hips. as amy said...core power dissipates when the hips go out...and mine go out every time i work at the restaurant. it was all back to basics today, starting out with opening to grace...backing off to get eagle vision...(schiffmann's helicopter ). and then:

seeing the picture
accepting what is in front of you
doing what needs to be done

too much of course to really even try to get it all here...let's just say that it's off to a good start, and that even as i am physically and mentally exhausted i am feeling spiritually refreshed.

and oh yeah...the cafe at omega rocks.

Posted at 10:38 PM

Sun - July 17, 2005

bandhas and chakras

laid bare...oh my!

adding a new bandha to my repertoire...can't even remember all of the logic that led me to it, and haven't explored it enough to give it a name, but since we have mula bandha at ther root chakra, and udiyana bandha at the sacral chakra (both of which are chronically closed for the average white american type, needing as much practice at relaxing as at getting toned), and the jalandara bandha at the throat chakra, it seems that there must be another bandha at the crown chakra (if not the other three major chakras). if we need to stop it all from leaking out the legs we need to stop it all from floating out the skull as well, eh.

and speaking of chakras...there's an interesting correlation with the dimensions that i just noticed...the 1st chakra, physically associated with the anus (small and round), corresponds well with dimension 1, the point. the second chakra, physically related to the genitals (penis and the slit of the vulva,) corresponds well with dimension 2, the line. the 3rd chakra, physically related to the belly (a circle or a sphere), corresponds well with dimension 3, the sphere. and the 4th chakra, physically related with the heart (the rhythm master), corresponds well with dimension 4, time. so then. this should give us some clues about 5th, 6th, and 7th dimensions, eh?

Posted at 11:17 PM

Wed - July 13, 2005

failing to prepare

is preparing to fail

if you are not starting class with your students as they are at the current moment, then you may be teaching a yoga class, but you are not practicing yoga. the best way to prepare is to practice. the more you practice yoga with yourself in the moment, the more you will be able to practice yoga as you teach your students, in the moment.

Posted at 01:37 PM

Tue - May 3, 2005

bodyodyssey relaxation experience at blissful monkey in jamaica plain

shall we toot our own horn?

Posted at 09:58 PM

Mon - April 11, 2005

cleanse thyself

almost through the cleansing process

so there is an amazing amount of mucoid plaque escaping my system these days as i head into the final week of this cleanse ...i'm on one meal a day right now, with a little bit of snacking (apple, banana, dried mango...), and starting sunday i'll be doing a few days of juice fasting...then it's a few days transitioning back with fresh fruit snacks and a salad or fresh vegetable dish once or twice as hungry, being careful not to overload my system...

after coming back into full-time eating i plan to keep in mind the natural hygiene principles of cleansing by fasting, with water or diluted fruit or vegetable juice: one full day to cleanse the bowels, three full days to cleanse the blood, and five full days to cleanse the liver...a monthly bowel cleanse seems like a good idea, a seasonal blood cleanse, and a yearly spring liver cleanse...i like the simplicity of no pills no frills...just plain clean water...we shall see how that pans out...

Posted at 11:11 PM

Wed - March 30, 2005

fully licensed

in the city of boston

yes...it has finally come to pass that i am fully licensed to practice massage in the city of boston...maybe now i can focus on my taxes...

Posted at 01:28 PM

Fri - March 25, 2005

green smoothies

super tasty treat

1 pear
1 fuji apple
1 mango
a couple handfulls parsley
1 cup of water

i used the super smoothie maker that iris gave me for hanukah and put in the water and then the parsley, and then the fruit...

super tasty!

and super cleansing as well...and more on that later!

Posted at 12:46 PM

Tue - March 8, 2005

a weekend with ana forrest

just what i was looking for

it was hard work. i sweated a lot; especially the first night. much space was opened in my hips, but not so much in my heart, though it was billed that way. i would take a workshop from her again, but i couldn't imagine making it my practice...just not my thing i guess. good start for phase two of my cleanse, tho. hard work and sweat are good for kicking off that sort of thing. for my daily life however, i'd rather let grace do most of the work.

Posted at 09:54 PM

Tue - January 11, 2005

yoga teaching schedule online now

just a link and a wink!

the new winter calendar is now online , courtesy .mac homepage. take a look...hope to see you soon!

Posted at 10:04 PM

Fri - January 7, 2005

assisting

back in a few

off to kripalu to assist todd norian with an introduction to anusara workshop...will see carolyn from the ytt who is also assisting...hoping this weekend can help bring me back into a more peaceful place amidst all the chaos of my life...

Posted at 11:17 AM

Mon - December 6, 2004

branding

everyone's doing it

in light of the new set of guidelines john friend has laid out regarding the use of the name anusara , which in my own case precludes the use of the name in a class or workshop title, i've decided to bill my own brand of yoga bodyodyssey yoga. nothing too shocking there. at any rate i'll be focussing on john friend's universal principles of alignment and his heart centered approach, as well as emphasizing breath and the sense of discovery and exploration that is so present in the yoga of erich schiffmann .

Posted at 11:55 PM

Sat - October 9, 2004

homework from erich schiffmann

just three things

1: meditate once in the am and once in the pm. sit, lie in a hammock, whatever. just get comfortable and listen. 20 minutes is good.

2: thoughout the day, pause...feel the space around you...begin to observe that this feeling is love...

3: say thank you more than usual

Posted at 10:33 PM

ytt certification

final departure

7th day at the third mod

6th day at the 3rd mod

5th day at the third mod

4th day at the third mod

3rd day at the 3rd mod

2nd day at the third mod

first day at the 3rd mod

opening night at the 3rd mod

addicted to shakti