Day 79 of 90: Modo Yoga, The Tide

Day 79 of 90 straight days of hot yoga at MODO YOGA and as I entered the studio I met two groovy Vancouver Mokshie’s Julia and Eric.  Welcome to LA! Today I entered the studio with just a little over ten days to go and thank you for all the tremendous support from people all over the place that are sensing I am getting close. I am well supported and loved on this journey and I accept and receive it humbly.  I took teacher Joe’s class and it was a wonderful reminder of several things, first we celebrate and support each other in class as a community of breathers, and as always Joe reminded us of our breath. Joe has great wisdom and love for life and yoga.

In class as I was practicing I noticed my breath, it reminded me of the tide. Coming in and going out gently.  I also noticed that if I push in anyway, the breath shows me that I am pushing, by pounding the breath. Just like the ocean in a storm pounding the beach. It helps for me to notice the breath in this way, like I would the ocean.  I also am aware that the only thing that stops the breath is thought, when I am thinking in a pose, I am not breathing, I am holding on to the breath, holding on to the thoughts, because I am not trusting the experience as it is.

But when the breath moves like the tide, I begin to notice the subtleness and grace of yoga.  In the pose, when I fully breath, I can sense the hips gently moving in place, the foundation strong in each pose, and the actual movement of yoga happening.  This is important, because foundation is important. The foundation is the breath. As yogi’s we are practicing to live fully here, I like to look at it in this way, we are practicing to” B.E.”, which means BREATH EXPERIENCE.  Yoga is simply breath experience. Without thought, we have full union of breath, body, then mind, and it is all working together with the breath.

Each pose is just that, a pose with breath. The mind sees it differently. The mind sees the pose at first as a threat to it’s identity and panic’s. The breath comes to relieve the panic, and relax into it. So we do this dance of panic and relax for awhile, till one day, we begin to trust the breath experience. Then each pose is simply a breath experience with twists, bends, flow, and stretching. It is no longer about being shallow and impressing people with our flexibility.  Impressing means I AM PRESSING, showing off. Yoga is about the breath experience.

As I move to day 80….Namaste

   David Matthew Brown: Modo Yogi blogging experience