Royal Yoga Studio

all new 3 hour intensive

Focuses will include:

• what the science of yoga
  has to offer your goals and evolution
• giving perspective on your
  yoga practice and its growth
• meditation and brainstate
• how to learn all kinds of stuff

Date:
Saturday, April 19
Time:
1-4pm
Price:
$50 ($30 for students)

Location:
Abhyasa Yoga
3400 Monstrose, Suite 303 (Skybar Building)
Houston, TX 77006

This workshop is open to ALL LEVELS and backgrounds

For more info email me at:
royalyoga@gmail.com

Much Love,
Andrew

Θ Here are the fliers for my two new events in my tango world. I don’t have a tango site yet so I’ll share it here.

Θ Don’t forget about the Houston Tango Festival coming, January 25-27.

Θ I will also be subbing all of Robert Boustany’s Teacher Training and asana classes from January 21 - March 3(ish)

Email with any questions.

Ciao,
A

At the end of each class or session I almost always chant the Gayatri Mantra. It is one of two mantras given to me thus far and the only one given to me by my teacher, Robert Boustany. I am not a scholar and, though I have studied its meanings and significance, tend towards caring less what is written about it and more what I experience from it. It has always had a powerful significance to me, effecting me deeply and reminding me constantly of my humble and privileged place as a teacher.

At the end of my class, I will often focus on the feeling of blessing all things, and each student in the room. I then let the words of the mantra fill my mind as I inhale to chant the sanskrit words. As I chant, the focus is always on the moment of the sound and the sounds effects on the room and my body.

Below is a transliteration of the sanskrit as it was given to me and links to further study the mantra’s historical and spiritual significance.

It is with great honor that I share this with you all.

Om bhur bhuva swaha
tat savitur varenyam
bhargo devasya dhîmahi
dhiyo yo noha prachodayât
swaha
Om
Om
Om
~
“I bow to the source of all life,
may its light illuminate me.”
~
note: The ‘om’s chanted at the end each have a unique focus.
The first focuses on the ‘O’ sound,
The second focuses on the ‘mmm’ sound.
The third flows through all 3 sounds: ‘AUM’.

A link to a well done Wikipedia article.
And another, more in depth article.

With love and gratitude,
A

Let’s define ‘to teach’ as ‘to guide or to direct’ for brevity.

So…
What do you teach in your class? Do you teach a series of postures handed down to you by a teacher? Or a mixture of different but relatively structured sequences from different teachers? Do you teach your practice at the time? Are you teaching from your heart or from a heart from the past (yours or another’s)? Are you teaching the same class or a scheduled class irregardless of the kind of students that show up? If you have an ‘advanced’ practice, do you teach absolute beginner’s or recuperative classes?

Class style and substance is as varied as is the teacher’s influences. As are how to and how much to define one’s class with a title or description.

I consider all of the classes that I teach both ‘Beginner’ and ‘Advanced’. Θ Most are ‘beginner’ because the postures in the classes are easy for practically anyone at any level to access and on the whole, rather gentle. The remaining classes are ‘beginner’ because each class is designed for those that are present, and if that day the class needs a stout class, the postures that will be presented are designed and tweaked for that group to be put right back into a beginner space with themselves: exploring, excited, open, questioning, free. In other words, there is really NO such thing as an advanced class. Only classes that are challenging or are not. Θ The reason I consider all of my classes the be just that thing I said doesn’t exist, ‘advanced’, that in the spectrum of classes that are offered under the title ‘______ Yoga’ most are unable to create within the participant an experience, a connection to the ‘real’ that is yoga’s blessing. All of my classes, especially the one’s that tend towards ‘easier’ postures focus specifically on that space of connection to the moment, to you body, to the timeless now as a very intentional act, using the postures as the gateway. To me, this is real yoga, this is a high-level practice, this is yoga.

So if you want to learn to direct or guide people to put this foot there, move towards this position, focus here, notice this, breath awareness here, open that, etc…teach beginner classes and savor them. It is the best thing for your ability to enunciate the concepts floating in your brain into an experience for your lucky student. You will learn to problem solve countless issues, distilling them into their purest components and reassemble weaknesses into strengths. You will maintain a strong compassionate heart and not loose touch with the part of you that not so long ago was a beginner trusting yourself to the hands of another. You will be reminded of the beginner headspace and refine strategies for cultivating and sustaining it. You will be doing the world a great service. You will be polishing the thing in you that is teacher, leader, student and yogi.

Namaste,
A