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Smells and mosquitoes


In our mindful living classes, a consistent theme is gratitude and compassion. In keeping with what I am taught, I am grateful for the opportunity to learn where the seals in my house have weakened so I may repair them.


I am grateful for the exercise I get while chasing mosquitoes in the house.

I am grateful for the smells mixed with the rainwater so I can use my incense and look forward to mornings that smell only like the desert.


I take all of this with a hint of salt, mainly because it's stuck to my car, and I appreciate the nearby cleaning services that make my life so convenient.


a man with a fly swatter looking like he is about to bring down justice


Dubai is incredible in how quickly it handled a surprising amount of damage. Most of Silicon Oasis was accessible within two days. I saw them cutting down broken trees even before the storm finished. However, they were still pulling cars out of the basement of the building next door until the 28th. The remarkable dualities of a unique and fast-growing country.


We hope you are all safe and your insurance was paid without inconvenient fine print. Be safe tomorrow. For those with children "studying" from home, be kind, be patient, and reward yourself with a glass, cup or mug at the end of the day.


Meanwhile, I have come back to my studies of Yoga history. Over the past ten years, we have seen remarkable research into yoga for both hatha and tantric traditions - broadly grouped.


Did you know there is no unified definition of yoga or its goal? Yoga is often referred to as both the practice and the goal, or one of the two, depending on the historical text you read. With yoga incorporated into many belief systems, the goals are diverse.


As a system of practice, early goals appear to be suicide from rebirth. A bit of suicide was a recurring theme, with the dissolution of mind or body as the only way to avoid coming back to life. Hard to tell how you identify this as a problem in the first place.

The goal of death - or liberation - lasted until recently and is still practised by some. 


Other systems aim to unify with a higher being, your higher self, your best self, or maybe universe juice. It could also be a prescribed - and noble - way of living. Our yoga teaching training course explores yoga history more, probably based on historical research more than most.


Liberation from life will always happen. Often earlier than we hope. The goal of finding a way to live that betters the world and that betters myself seems much more worthy. Is it not how we approach our liberation and what we do before death that matters?


What does yoga mean to you? If you wanted to define it and say, "I practice yoga. This means I do …, with the goal to achieve …" how would you fill in the blanks?


Charl

air yoga




May Updates


The Academy

Next weekend is our free "Meet the teacher" event, where you can ask every question that burns your mind at night as long as it relates to yoga teacher qualifications.


Our next Yoga Teacher Training starts on May 23rd. It is a hybrid RYT-200 course where we blend online and in-person.

It is certified by Yoga Alliance International, so your certification is valid everywhere.

yoga alliance RYS 200 logo

We are working hard to enhance the course with more online content. Every day, we record more of the course to support your learning. Soon, you will be able to study it completely online. We believe yoga is best learned through practice and interaction, but we understand everyone's time pressures.


You can listen to Anca talk about the course by watching her video.






Somebody's watching us

our 1000 views YouTube achievement

We want to thank you, Anca's mom, and Rosiel's family in the Philippines for helping us grow our views!


That is also the number of hours I lost learning about and performing editing and colour correction this month!

For those with math skills, I know. But it feels that way.


You can let us know what you like, dislike and what you want to see by dropping a comment here or on YouTube. If you let us know what you want, we can deliver it. If you don't, it would only happen by chance.





This month's Inside Flow

We will practice the " Devil Inside" flow if you feel naughty this month.


That means we now have up to five unique flows. The first week of the month is used for recap, and we finish the month with an Inside Flow Concert, where we squeeze them all into a single dedicated session.

Rosiel from air yoga studio practising Inside Flow in white


The Inside Flow Concert will be on the 26th of this month, just before we start teacher training for the day. It is a great way to recap, get a crash course, or celebrate all the flows you have learned thus far.




What are we reading

I'll share two interesting books that disrupted our understanding of yoga's history. They focus more on hatha yoga. There are other streams of yoga, but people pretend they don't exist. We'll share more on other histories once we find good information and read and summarise them. Although, you may need to be a member of our academy for that.



Yoga Body

Mark Singleton

book cover for mark singleton's yoga body

Who is reading it: Charl studied it for our yoga teacher training course

Why: It looks at how the yoga we practice today developed. In contrast to what many schools teach.


Not for those who want to believe we practice something taught 5000 years ago because humans then were more enlightened. If you want to celebrate the adaptability of our practice and learn more of the truth, this is a great book. It touches on old texts but focuses on yoga within the past 200 years.



Roots of Yoga

James Mallinson and Mark Singleton

Book cover for roots of yoga from james mallinson and mark singleton

Who is reading it: Charl.

Why: Part of expanding/updating the history section in our yoga teacher training course.


A collection of newly translated and interpreted texts on yoga focused on pre-colonial practice. It is part scholarly and part organized for better understanding. An audiobook is available, but it is not recommended. The link is to the US Amazon site.





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Unknown member
Nov 24, 2024

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