Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be bent out of shape!

If yoga was all about doing incredible poses and having an as advanced practise at possible, the most honoured yoga teachers would be circus artists.
So why isn't that so? Why did thousands of people travel the world to study with Sri Pattabhi Jois and B.K.S. Iyengar, even though they couldn't do the same tricks as they do in Cirque de Soleil?
Because yoga is about something completely else. And I guess that we all tend to forget that from time to time, being busy to conquer new amazing poses. But luckily, the Universe will keep reminding us of the true spirit of yoga.

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I am a very sensitive soul, and in discussions, a lot of subjects can easily become sensitive subjects to me. When I started talking with people about why I didn't eat meat as a 15-year-old, I sometimes found myself crying in frustration afterwards, because the subjects was so incredibly important to me on a deeply personal level. With time and patient practise, I grew older and learned how to handle the topic in ways where I could stay true to myself but still keep centred and thereby avoid getting affected badly, when others pushed my red buttons.


However, the Universe doesn't let anyone get away easily in this world. It seems like that every time you think that you know something or can handle something, the Universe will tell you that you're not quite there yet.

Here in Paris it has been very difficult for me to find practise rooms. Last night, I went to this place in town, where I eventually found a little piano I could practise on a couple of hours every day. To my huge disappointment, my reservation of the practise room hadn't been registered. I was so frustrated as the secretary wouldn't give me the key to the practise room that I just started crying in front of him. I was so sad about being here in Paris to study with an amazing piano professor, when I couln't even get even a small piano for just an hour to practise on! I couldn't keep my self calm and centred in the middle of this world of new battles in a new country, using a new language.

Later that same evening, I found myself in a horrible discussion with a guy, who presented me for a completely very surprising discussion that made me very sad.
It was a completely new topic for me, and I couln't help to take it quite personal. I felt so sad about the whole thing that I later found myself crying so much that I couldn't sleep. I decided to do a short mediation in the darkness to centre myself a bit in my big emotional mess.

Soon I became calm enough to realize that everything was just as it had to be. The Universe was just challenging me, aiming to make me stronger. The Universe was reminding me what my yoga was all about. And I guess that the Universe intends to keep challenging me for the rest of my life!

*

"Yoga simply makes my life easier", David Swenson says, when people ask him about his relationship to his yoga practise. And I really like that simple way to describe it.   

Yoga just makes life easier.

I belive that the steady practise of physical poses, breathing control, concentration and daily discipline can help anyone to become the best version of one self.
A steady practise will give you a steady mind and a steady everyday life.
Concentration in your practise will approve your concentration in any other situation in life.
Devotion to your practise will affect you devotion to life itself.

The acceptance of yourself will increase your acceptance of others, and your inner love will grow outwards in ways that you can't even imagine.

*

The Universe keeps reminding me that I have to grow stronger. And luckily, my yoga is like a faithful chariot on the battle fields of life. My yoga is helping me to stay true to myself and honest to my hearts deepest desires. My yoga is helping me to build outer as well as inner strength, so I become strong enough to protect my sensitivity and softness.
Every day, my yoga will make me even better prepared to stay balanced in any situation that life will show me.
My yoga will help me to keep aiming towards being the best version of myself.
Always.

"Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be bent out of shape!"   

*

The 500 hour rule

Not so long ago, I went to have a couple of yoga classes at one of the yoga studios in Copenhagen. No one knew, who I was, and I was perfectly happy with that - I just wanted to enjoy my own yoga without having anyone observing me.

At one of the classes, we practised handstands up the wall. A lady stood right next to me and looked at me, as I jumped up. "How do you do it so easily?", she asked. " I can't jump that high!"
I smiled at her and said: "Well, you know what - I've practised this a bit."
"You've actually practised handstands? At home?!" The woman was clearly surprized. It seemed as if I had opened a whole new world just in front of her: it was actually possible to practise yoga at home.
And I was even more surprized that she was so surprized.

*

I soon found out that it wasn't so easy to hide in a yoga class room. You CAN actually see on someone that he or she has done their homework. Even though I tried to stay anonymous, peolpe noticed me and my practise. When I at one point did a full split with my back leg bend up to my head, something started to rumble in the room. The teacher noticed this and obviously felt like he had to say something. "And yes, we can all be very fascinated by the beautiful, challenging poses", he said. "I also get fascinated, when I see someone doing them. But I don't care how far you can go. It's all about alignment - that's what is important. And people are just different. I did a full split only once, and I have never done it again."

"It takes time!", I said out loud. Slightly frustrated. I had so much more to say, but I held myself back. It  wasn't my class, and I didn't want to seem rude. I wanted so badly to talk about how much work, self acceptance, honestly and patience it had taken me to get to the full splits. I AM NOT BENDY BY NATURE. I definitely don't do full splits because of my nature. In fact, I haven't ever met a grown up person, who just slides down to a full split, just because he or she is bendy by nature. It took me around 500 hours of practise, before I was able to do the full splits. Just saying!
"I also did a full split once - and then I pulled a muscle!" someone said from the back row with a satisfied smile, and everyone laughed. I really didn't like the spirit, and I had to hold myself strongly back from not saying something like: "Well, you didn't use 500 hours of honest work to get there, then!"
Of course you pull your muscles, if you force yourself down into a full split, when your body isn't ready. You need to work honestly with your body to experience any kind of progress - otherwise you'll just harm yourself.

*

Practice does not make perfect. 

Only perfect practice makes perfect.

- Vincent Lombardo 

*

It takes time to experience progress in bodywork - just as in every other part of life. And not only time. It takes VERY WELL USED TIME to get there. Practice doesn't make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect.
I might be very influenced by my being a classical musician. In the world of classical musicians and dansers, discipline is alfa & omega. You have to word extremely hard to become a professional musician. But work isn't enough. You have to work smart.
I often meet the challenges on the yoga mat in the exact same way as I face the challenges in a piano piece. I localize my own limitations with a merciless honesty, so I know exatly what to work on - and then I start breaking down the barriers. Bit by bit. Building up the required techniques, speed, wealth of details, memory and what ever else I need. And maybe that is why I often feel different from many other yoga teachers, who doesn't focus as much on building up the strongest foundation for progress.

Please notice: Yoga isn't about being good. It's about improving yourself. It's about becoming a better person - physically as well as mentally. Personal development can only take place if you meet yourself with merciless honestly. And then it just takes time - and perfect practice.
If you ever see someone doing difficult and demanding poses easily, be sure that he or she has used A LOT of time and honest work to get there.

Please don't ever overrule how much honest work and time it takes to become better!

*

*

To be or not to be pissed off by your yoga teacher

Have you ever had the experience of being pissed off by your yoga teacher? You're not alone. However, you might feel alone about it.

I've experience an interesting tendency amongst the yogis I've met. When you go to a  yoga class as a student, you automatically expect that you'll be able to open yourself and your body under secure guidance of the teacher. However, that's not always how it works out.

What if you just don't really get the right vibe with your teacher? What if he or she makes you feel irritated? Then a conflict is created between your expectations and the reality of the situation.

If you meet people on the street, you don't expect your heart and body to trust strangers completely.  Sometimes you meet people, you like - and some times you don't. It's exactly the same thing in a yoga studio, since yoga teachers also walk on the streets. You might feel amazed by your teacher, or you might feel pissed by his or her presence.

If you feel resistance against your teacher - accept it. It is just the way it has to be, and there is nothing wrong about it. However, there might be some very interesting things to learn from situations like these.

When I met one of my most important teachers, I felt a lot of resistance against her. Already during the first lesson, I sensed how our energies clashed together - at least in my mind. The strong feeling of resistance made me want to create a distance between her and me. I even told my fellow yoga students how much she frustrated me. I felt irritated by her being, and I was quite sure that she noticed - and moreover I was sure that she felt the same way about me.

It took me around 100 hours of lessons to meet her with true, humble openness. And then I realized that the resistance against her was caused by her nonverbal confrontation of the black holes in my heart. She was pressing the red buttons in my soul, and I had to accept it. she was silently entering a part of my territory that I wanted to fall into oblivion.

After I ended my training with her was over, I was going trough a very difficult time of my life. I was entering the shadow land of my soul, since now there was no way back. And just as I felt worse than ever, I understood that she was the only person in the world, who could help me. She was the only person who could support me in my difficult process of cleaning up my heart and history. I wrote her an e-mail and asked if I could join one of her retreats - and soon I was on my way to meet her again.

Her yoga lessons and teachings together with the beautiful place made it possible for me to take a step back and get a view on my life. Finally, I saw that things were just as they had to be for now. And I found peace.

*

I had a very interesting experience with a young, strong guy, who came to some of my lessons in Copenhagen.

After his first class with me, he was very honest about his personal resistance against me. He told me that he felt really pissed off during the lesson. I was very fascinated by his honesty, and I told him that of course he might feel irritated in my presence during a yoga class - just as well as he might have felt it, if we had met each other in a bar.

However, he came back. Many times. In the beginning, he came when he didn't know that I was taking the classes. And I could se how he was thinking: "Oh no, not her again".

But as time went by, he started to appreciate my classes.

Last time I met him, he came to me to talk after the lesson.

"I don't know if you noticed, but I got angry off during the class today", he said to me. "You kind of pissed me off."

Again, we started to talk. I asked him when and why, but he couldn't say. We started examining the poses of the class, and soon we found out when the irritation appeared. The guy felt frustrated during the class as I asked the class to do simple movements which required mobility. As a sportsman, he was caught in the feeling of a hopeless competition between his strong thighs and and the girls flexible hips. He was used to be the best. And now, he suddenly had to face a challenge, where people around him did things, he wasn't able to do yet.

Who doesn't know that feeling? You are used to be something special in some kind of area in life, and then - BAM - you have to accept that someone is doing things better than you. And here we have one of the key reasons to why we do challenging poses in yoga: If we practice to face a challenge on a yoga mat with an open spirit, we eventually will keep calm when we face challenges in the real life.

*

If you force yourself to let go of your resistance to a teacher that doesn't make you feel comfortable, the situation might even create more tension and resistance in the mental body as well as the physical. My invitation for you is to accept the situation as it is - and find out, what is triggering you.

Don't expect yorurself to let go off all the resistance in your body and mind, when you go to a yoga class. Be humble to the proces and let it take all the time, it needs. Show your body and heart all your patience and love, and it will respond with so much more trust and dedication than you could ever imagine!

Yoke yourself to the battle!

One of the important books in the yogic tradition is the Baghavad Gita. It is one of the most respected and read hinduistic texts. Baghavad Gita portrays the pangs of conscience, Arjuna must go trough, since he is forced to fight against his own famiy. In this work, "yoga" is used as the english word "yoke". It is mostly used in situations, where Arjuna connects himself to his warwagon and chariot, the hindu god Krishna - and thereby another part of himself. “Yoke yourself to the battle!”, Krishna says to Arjuna. In the Baghavad Gita, yoga is a symbol of the preparations before the battle. It is the act of building strenght, bravenes and agility to face the world - and to face oneself.

I introduced my yoga class today with the story of Arjuna and Krishna. I asked my class to prepare for the battle. Life isn't easy, and my class wouldn't be neither.
During my introduction, I tried to do what I could to camouflage, how much I was actually asking my students to join my own, personal battle. But I knew, they knew. I knew, they knew that today was one of my tough days. But i don't think that they knew much more than that.

*

This summer, I began the biggest and hardest cleasning process, I could ever had imagined. I had the hardest time of my life. Slowly, but definitely not gently, all my old displaced stories and feelings started making their way back to the surface.
It all started with a body treatment. I asked a body therapist to help me release the sorrow that was hiding under my skin. He sure did. After my 2nd treatment, I couldn't stop crying. In fact, I cried for three full days, before I slowly started to calm down again.
This episode led to a serious yoga crisis. I started wanting to run away from the shala during my mysore practise. At first, I started practicing less. Then even less. And in the end, I wanted to run away so badly already during the first 5 minutes of the practise that I just stopped coming. After this, I didn't practice yoga myself for more than a month.
By digging into myself, my muscles and mind I was facing the parts of myself, which I have been hiding away for years. That made me want to run away very badly. All the time. Living with the man, I loved, who just walked right into the very center of my being with his bare precense, definitely didn't make it less intense. I often found myself planning to take the next flight to India or Istanbul, just to get away as far and as quicly as possible. But there was no where to run away from what was within myself. Just like Arjuna, I hade to face the war, however cruel it might seem to be. I couln't choose anything else than to meet it with honesty and respect - and yoke myself to the battle.

I slowly found out that I had to break myself compeltely down, before I was able to build myself up again. The old, ousted stories had to be rediscovered, before I could begin to move on. There was many stories. It took a long time. And it costed me more than a river of tears.

*

Every little victory in life makes us stronger, and after the class today I wanted my students to know that completing a yoga class like mine that was quite a victory. However, I soon lealised that I was having a breaktrough myself during that very moment. Something had changed.
As I led the class to rest in Savasana, I sat for a moment in silence, breathing - preparing. And then, suddenly, I let a low, soft voice grow out of the silence. I started singing.
I sang the moola mantra.

It was the first time, I had been singing for many years. Now, I suddenly found myself singing with the vulnerability of my heart and the strenght of my presence. I sang the most beautiful words, I knew, and I sang to show my appreciation and thankfulness to my students, as well as to the whole battle of life. I honoured every step of the process, and now I understood that I had finally fought my way to my next level of living.

*

 

Om
Sat Chit Ananda Parabrahma
Purushothama Paramatma
Sri Bhagavathi Sametha
Sri Bhagavathe Namaha

Om - We are calling on the highest energy, of all there is
Sat - The formless
Chit - Consciousness of the universe
Ananda- Pure love, bliss and joy
Para brahma --The supreme creator
Purushothama -Who has incarnated in human form to help guide mankind
Paramatma -Who comes to me in my heart, and becomes my inner voice whenever I ask
Sri Bhagavati - The divine mother, the power aspect of creation
Same tha- Together within
Sri Bhagavate -The Father of creation which is unchangeable and permanent
Namaha- I thank you and acknowledge this presance in my life. I ask for your guidance at all times

(the above simpilified version was supplied by Felicity Barrington of Canada)

*

Body Remembrance

They say that an elephant never forgets.

Nor does your body. 

*

One evening, my boyfriend said to me:
"You know what? I've learned something about you. You are not vulnerable."
"What do you mean?" I answered with a proper amount of defence. "I'm very vulnerable!"
"You are not vulnerable", he repeated. "No, you aren't."
 Suddenly I understood.
"You're wounded.", he said.

I felt struck by lightning. He was right. I am a very wounded person.  And how much I ever might try to forget about it, my body remembers everything.

"Do you still like me?" I must have asked him a couple of times to much during our time together. One day, he sighed and smiled at me. "Sometimes, it can be difficult to be close to people, who are living in the moment. ALL THE TIME."

For many years, I worked hard to make sure that I didn't take anyone or anything for granted. I tried to appreciate everything as much as possible; be present, curious and discovering in the moment. But everything needs to be balanced.
Now I see that it was mostly a way to protect myself, basicly not to trust anyone or anything completely, so I minimized the risk of being wounded. By not taking anything for granted, I still had the possibility to be happy, when good things happened around me, without always being afraid of disappointment.

Time flows, things change - but some don't. I found out, that it was continuously very difficult for me to believe in and trust the people around me, even though they tried to show me their friendship and love the best they could. And it still is. However much I want to give up all my defences, my body remembers its wounds and resists.

*

Yesterday, I made a yoga photoshoot in Copenhagen with a good friend of mine. Slowly, we noticed something interesting. If I was on the ground, I felt completely free in my poses - but as soon as I was standing on something just a couple of inches over the ground, my body froze completely with stiffness, and I couldn't do anything. I was afraid of falling down and being injured, even though there wouln't be any remarkable difference. "Maybe that's telling something about why it's difficult for you to put your weight into the arms of an acroyoga partner? Christina asked. Suddenly i realized that my fear of being wounded has been affecting my life much more than I thought. 
It's not only difficult for me to trust my partner in acroyoga. Or partner in life. It's difficult for me to trust my own legs.When I do the drop-backs in my astanga-practise, I need to know that someone is standing by me, ready to catch me if I fall. And that's actually not enough, either. I need them to put a finger on my hips, just so I physically feel that they are REALLY there. It's no problem for me to do the practise, but I panic, if I'm not sure that someone is ready to help me, when I have to let go and trust my body - and myself.

* 

For many years, I've done everything to forget. But my body remembers everything. And the more I work with my body, the more I dig into the stories of my life. It's is maybe the most difficult challenge, I've ever set myself in front of, but I'm trying to let the humble child in me meet the elephant - and meet all the stories, I wanted to forget.

"I soften to be open to meet you"

"Here I am, sitting with the magic heart. In the heart space."
I looked up and smiled to the others in the circle. One by one, we got to hold a little wooden heart and tell about what hat happened in our lives since last time we met at the immersion in the beautiful, Swedish coolness of Göteborg.
"I find it difficult to put words on something so subtle as the change I'm going trough - now, over the last month and all the time. Everything is changing all the time. But there is one sentense, which has been very important to me the last month. It was the words, Anja said last time: "I soften to be open to meet you."  When she said these words - and physically showed it - I felt like ahaaa... This is it. I need to soften to be open to meet people around me, to myself - to everyone and everything. And I've been working on that."

*

We were working with the first principle of anusara yoga: Being open to grace. Anja was trying to explain us about making the sides of the body long, the inner body bright and dropping down the organ body. She walked the talk. First, she demonstrated a tensed person with a stiff and closed expression, with the sides of the body short, a tensed neck, hugging her abdomen nervously in and up, and presented herself with a tensed "Hello" to one of the others. And then she did the opposite. She set her grounded foundation, made her upper body tall and light, relaxed and softened in her whole being. She softened her face. Her eyes. Her gaze. And her whole being suddenly changed into being so extremely open, welcoming and friendly - radiating true, loving kindness. I felt completely overwhelmed.

"Maybe it's just an illusion, but I've experienced amazing things while trying to soften. I've tried to meet friends and strangers with softness. And meet myself with softness. meeting and experiencing moments with softness. My boyfriend says that I have a 12 track high way inside of me. I'm often storming in a lot of directions all the time, being very passionate about what I'm doing, being very intense.... And being very, very busy. So I've realized that working with softness and taking one step back is very important to me.

I've tried to soften to my choices. Do I really need to do the full primary series of Astanga tonight, when I'm exhausted and an sensible? Or do I actually just need to sit down for a while and meditate? And somehow, stepping back has taken me two steps forward. It has given me an energy-boost! The softening has given me time to rest and resettle, which has made my developments even bigger in both my yoga practise, my music... and in almost every part of life."

*

The softening has really made me step back and get closer to my hearts deepest desire. In my every moment. It has given me the posibility of really choosing the life, I want to live. The softening to my yoga practise has given me so much more energy; so much more authentic prescense, mentally and physically.
I have asked myself, what my deepest desire was about my music. And the answer was clear: playing chamber music with my amazing, beloved partners. And almost out of nowhere, my Duo con Passione, suddenly has got so much tailwind, and a lot of new projects - recordings, concerts and plans of participation in competitions - has suddenly been launched. I have tried to meet persons, who I have been trying to keep out of my life, with loving softness once again, and the outcome has been amazing. On the other hand, softening to myself has made me realize, what persons hasn't been nourishing for me to be around, and this has made me 'break up' with a very old and powerful friendship.
And then - not to forget - I have softened to my love. I have let him into my deepest heart space. And I really whish him to stay there!

The break down of the break trough

Sometimes, it can be very important to remember that the phoenix has to burn, before it can rise up from the ashes. A break trough often comes hand in hand with a break down. Remember that you have to die to be able to rise. You might never be able to find new and better paths and strucures in life, if you don't run your head against a brick wall some time - if you don't find yourself in pain and great frustration or unhappiness. And from time to time, we all need a wake-up call to find out that we are doing something wrong - and to find out how to fix it.

Some time ago, a new student came to one of my classes and told me that she might be a little careful with her asana practice, because she had recently pulled a muscle in a yoga class. "A pulled muscle? In a yoga class? A yoga class?!" I was very surprised. In my world, pulled muscles occured in sports like badminton, football and activities with quick and explosive movement - but in a yoga class? She told me that she had simply tried to hard to dig deep into a pose, stretching as much as she could, and suddenly the muscle fibers simply broke.
It was of course an awful experience for her. And it was awful for me to hear that it was actually possible for my yoga students to experience the same, if they weren't well enough warmed up and trying too hard to do something, their muscles weren't ready to do yet. But after working with her during the class, I realized that her injury was actually just a very important message from her body.

She was very flexible, and her stretchable muscles had made her a little too fearless when it came to her yoga practice. The pulled muscle wasn't just an injury. It was a wake-up call. It was a wake-up call for her to listen to her body's signals and find out that her body - like every other body - has limits. She needed to start listening to her body. She needed to start working with her body, not on her body.

I spoke with her about it after the lesson, and I was happy that she could understand my thoughts about the injury being a sign for her to find a new path of development in her work with the body.

She needed to start protecting her joints and strenghtening her muscles - increase her sense of stability, sensibility and well-aligned strength. And even though very few get as far as to pull a muscle in a yoga class, the story is a great reminder for us to build up strength where we are soft and weak, and soften up, where we are tight and strong. Usually, all of us have to think about both elements in our practice. Normally, people are very soft and weak on the back side of the shoulder area, while we are much stronger and more tight on the front side. Therefore, it's good for most of us to open and stretch the front side of the thoratic body and strenghten the muscles on the back side. But some of us in general need to soften, let go and open up, while others already are very soft and flexible, and need to strengthen the body to keep it working in a constructive way.

Injuries and other kinds of obstacles in life isn't necessarily a bad thing. It might be a very important sign for us to stop and listen, and find out what to do or change to keep living and developing in a pleasant, gentle and appropriate way.  We need to remember that the benefits of a yoga practice is completely dependent on what it consists of and how we work with your body. And that we might need to die before being reborn with new knowledge and understanding of ourselves - just like the phoenix needs to burn, before it can rise up from the ashes as a new but yet the same creature.