Happy New Year! We’re just back from our winter yogabreak in Egypt. Highlights include morning yoga in the sunshine and by candlelight in the evenings. We climbed Mount Sinai in the moonlight and watched the most awe-inspiring new year’s dawn from the peak. And then there was the Indian Ocean snorkling! One of the students compared it to diving into a tropical fishtank. Are we going back next year? You betcha!
With this being the time of new starts, I’ve had a lot of requests for information about Zen Yoga. What actually is it? So here’s a definition. What I teach is primarily based around the yoga I learned during my eighteen or so years of monastery practice. The style emphasises physical alignment, the flow of energy in the body and your quality of awareness. Mindfulness of the body is one of the four practices taught by the Buddha that lead directly to enlightenment. Each pose brings new parts of the body into focus so that we can become aware of any tightness or restriction. As we bring our awareness to these areas of tension they immediately start to shift and release. The great Zen master ‘Hakuin’ taught that Buddhas are like water and ordinary people are like ice. Zen yoga practice melts away the tightness and resistance that prevents us from enjoying the flow of liberation. If you’d like to experience Zen Yoga practice, click here http://www.zenways.org/?page_id=15 and if you might be interested in teaching Zen yoga, click here http://www.zenways.org/?page_id=223
Hope that makes sense. Wishing you a truly liberating 2010. Looking forward to seeing you soon.
Daizan