|
Welcome to the August edition of Conference Connection. Thank you for the overwhelmingly positive response to our premiere issue.
In this edition, we're featuring a very candid autobiographical piece from Aadil Palkihvala on how he began his yoga practice to becoming one of today's foremost yoga instructors".
Plus, we've got another great discount for Conference Alumni from Inner Harmony.
It's not to late to receive a discount when you refer-a-friend to our upcoming conference in Estes Park. (Call 800-561-9398 for more information). Our Colorado conference features beautiful scenery, refreshing mountain air, and an all-vegetarian menu.
Read on for a sample recipe from the conference, BBQ Tofu. Yum!
Finally, if you have a conference story you'd like to share, please send it to us at yoga_stories@yogajournal.com.
If we use your story, we'll send you one
of the new Yoga Journal's Yoga Step-by-Step videos (VHS or DVD).
Namaste,
The Yoga Journal Conference Team
Elana Maggal, Conference Director
Renee LaRose, Conference Manager
Jenny Bangert, Conference Coordinator
P.S. For those of you who are interested the 2005 San Francisco Conference registration just opened.
Last year many classes at this conference sold out…so register early for your best choice in classes! Click here
for more information.
Attend the Estes Park Conference for Free!
With our new Refer-a-Friend program, you'll get a $50 rebate for each person you refer to the Estes Park Conference.
There are no gimmicks or hard-to-follow rules, except you must register for the conference and then refer your friends,
and the total rebate cannot exceed the cost of your tuition.
Online Message Boards
Want to stay connected with fellow conference attendees?
Looking for a roommate? Yoga Journal is pleased to announce that each conference will now have an online message board exclusively for conference attendees.
Chinese Barbecued Tofu
Looking for a quick and easy variation for preparing Tofu? Try our Estes Park favorite,
Chinese Barbecued Tofu. Accented with honey, cinnamon and sesame oil, this recipe is
also a perfect dish to serve when entertaining both vegetarians and non-vegetarians.
Click here to get the recipe.
Editor's Note: The following article was written by Aadil specifically for this newsletter.
As you'll quickly learn, Aadil's wit, education and dedication to yoga has made him one of our most popular instructors.
Aadil will be teaching at both our upcoming Estes Park and San Francisco conferences.
Specific information on his classes can be found by clicking here.
My mother tried to conceive for seven years but was unsuccessful. She went to doctors galore, but with her retroverted uterus, the doctors said it was impossible. Finally, she was advised to try yoga.
Iyengar took one look at her and said, "You must practice with your husband and then you will conceive within four months."
Right enough, thirteen months later I was born.
- How did I get into yoga? I had no choice. My parents said "Go," and so I went. I sat on the sidelines watching classes from the ages of three to seven, and then Iyengar asked me to join at the age of seven.
- Iyengar was very intense. He would sit on my back in paschimottanasana for ten minutes at a time, and on my belly in urdhva danurasana.
- Since I was brought up in a family of India's most famous and respected lawyers and diplomats, I went to law school and then graduated in San Francisco. I worked for a few months at the Council of Western Attorneys General in San Francisco and then started my own practice in Washington State. I continued teaching yoga to pay my way through law school.
- When I was ten, my mother who was going through severe depression because of a complicated hysterectomy, discovered the larger yoga of the great sage, Sri Aurobindo and the The Mother. I have been devoted to that teaching since then.
- I founded Purna Yoga, taking the phrase from Sri Aurobindo's teaching, which is a synthesis of Iyengar asana, Sri Aurobindo's inner yoga, Ayurveda, my wife Mirra's transformative spirituality, yoga philosophy, nutrition… to make yoga more inclusive and more balanced and rounded - a global approach of uniting rather than warring.
- I practiced law, then had a travel agency, and bought and sold real estate, ending up teaching yoga in my basement and practicing law upstairs. That grew to become Yoga Centers, one of the most respectable yoga studios on earth.
- Having a passion for saving our planet for our children and grandchildren, I founded Eastern Essence 100% organic and delicious Indian meals designed to nourish the individual and protect our planet.
- Just as I was deciding to leave San Francisco, the law firm there offered me a partnership. I had to make a decision. Just as I was about to sign my resignation to the bar in Washington State, I was offered a lucrative law case. I had to make a decision.
At the age of three, I watched my parents practicing asana with B.K.S. Iyengar. At the age of seven, I joined them.
I worked hard at the asanas, especially since I had to fight inherent stiffness in my body. My effort was directed at attaining posture after posture, performing always more difficult poses, transforming the impossible into the possible.
In my late teens, I would often practice for more than seven hours a day, many days in a row, often with Iyengar. Staying half an hour in a headstand and an hour in a shoulder stand would leave my neck so stiff that I could not even turn my head the next day.
While my parents were doing pranayama, Iyengar would have me do Viparita Chakrasana (starting in backbends, walking up the wall and then kicking over, landing in Uttanasana) over a hundred and fifty times!
By the age of twenty, thirteen years of intense training was in my body, and I had a repertoire of hundreds of poses, including high-risk poses rarely seen and never taught. At this time of my life, with Iyengar's encouragement, I embarked on a ten-month worldwide (and whirlwind) teaching tour. At the end of that tour, I was lifting some crates for a friend in London and ruptured two discs in my lower back. For what seemed like an eternity, I was not able to sit, stand, or walk without experiencing excruciating pain.
During the long rehabilitation process, Iyengar nurtured my spine back to health and, in doing so, revealed a softer side of his personality than I had known before. He was kind and gentle, keeping one eye on me throughout the class, caring just like a mother cares for her child. He would hover over me, making sure I was working the therapeutic actions carefully, correctly, and gently. I still feel a deep gratitude for his care.
I had to start asana all over again. It was agonizing-not so much the physical pain as much as knowing what I could do before, and not being able to do it now. Additionally, the muscles around my pelvis, legs and spine had seized up to protect my back, and I was now stiffer than most beginners. This whole experience was a great lesson in humility, and for the first time I began examining the role of my asana practice in the rest of my life.
Years later, I watched my wife clinically die and be revived three times. In her tormentuous brushes with mortality, I was once again forced to search for the deeper meanings of my life, and the place my daily asana practice had in it. As I searched, I was assisted by the penetrating and often astonishing insights that my wife had gained through her trials and efforts, as she strove to manifest divinity in her body and life.
I began to discover what was for me an entirely new approach to the practice of asana, which included yet transcended the old approach. Iyengar and the ancient masters had already mentioned this kind of practice, but I suppose I was unable to hear it until humility had softened my ears and my heart.
This new practice had, at its core, the surrender of the brain to the heart as well as the lifting of the pelvic energy to the heart. My wife Mirra explained to me (with unending patience!) the importance of opening the heart center. Speaking from the depths of her own inner experience, she reminded me that it was the heart that held the secrets to self-knowledge and it was the heart that was the portal way to the universe within.
Now, as I teach, I no longer ask my students to make the performance of the posture their primary focus. I ask my students to explore, discover, grasp, and then lift the awesome, grounded power of the pelvis into the heart center, giving the heart attention, energy, and nourishment. As they work in the poses, I also give them techniques to help them surrender the intellectual and analytical abilities of their brain to the inner quest that takes place in the heart. From the masters of antiquity to the great Sri Aurobindo, the guidance and the work of yoga has always been to "go within."
Going within is the first step in yoga; that is, exploring the hidden chambers of the heart to find one's true Self. The next step is to bring forth the latent divinity that we have discovered within, so that we may fully serve our individual dharma (life purpose). In doing so, we help ourselves and others, transforming mere existence into a joyous and purposeful life.
For more information about Aadil and his businesses, please see
www.aadilpalkhivala.com
www.yogacenters.com
www.easternessence.com
|
|
Special Discount
Get $100 off any retreat from September 4th to October 29th, 2004
To request a discount coupon from Inner Harmony Yoga Retreat Center, please visit www.innerharmonyyoga.com
/yogajournalpromo/ and fill out the contact form.
Be sure to mention Yoga Journal and the conference you attended. This offer is for Conference Alumni only.
We're proud to have Inner Harmony Yoga as a 2004 Estes Park Conference sponsor.
|
Save the Dates
Colorado Conference
Estes Park, Colorado
Sept. 27 - Oct. 3, 2004
Less than 2 months away!
San Francisco Conference
Hyatt Regency San Francisco
Jan. 14 - 17, 2005
Registration now open
Lake Geneva Conference
Grand Geneva Resort & Spa
Lake Geneva, Wisconsin
May 13 - 16, 2005
Registration opens Dec. 2004
10th Annual YJ Conference
Colorado Conference
Estes Park, Colorado
Sept. 26 - Oct. 2, 2005
Registration opens Apr. 2005
|
|
|
