:: YogiSutras: Yoga Blog - Journeys into Yoga ::

Finding your guru could be a lifelong journey. In my lifetime, I’ve had two. Yes, two. How do I know that and what was I looking for? For most Westeners, “guru” is somewhat of a mysterious concept. What is a guru, and why would I want one? I’ll try to simplify the meaning of guru in this blog.

For someone to be your guru, first, you must recognize him or her as giving you inspiration, knowledge and guidance. Gurus will not come to you and say “I am your guru.” This recognition will come from within yourself.

For me, I have always looked for someone who will effectively reset my direction when I am trotting down the wrong path, while at the same time deliver to me an optional path or two that will generate growth. My 2 gurus have been mentors in my career. They have taught me people skills though various mechanisms, and have placed me in growth situations that I would not venture into without their gentle prodding. They’ve helped me with career knowledge, domain expertise, personal confidence, and taking pride and grace with my work.

It’s interesting, my career and mentor path have gone hand-in-hand. I have an emotional block that disables me from working for an organization that does not bring me potential mentors. When I interviewed for my current position and they asked me what type of boss I was looking for, I said, one that is smarter than me. This proved to be double-edged, because my interviewer, who happened to be my future boss said, “well, I look for people who are smarter than me.” I thought I blew it at that moment. What I was really thinking was that I was looking for my mentor, my guru through my employer. I was looking for mental and spiritual growth, as well as an opportunity to learn, through each precious moment of life. Why would I want to spend 8-9 hours a day working for someone that I could not learn from? And why would they hire someone who could not bring talent and knowledge to their organization?

Yesterday, my heart opened to a new mentor, who could very likely be my third life mentor.

Open your heart and find your guru. Hunble yourself and acknowledge that another person could shine light into your life, and your spirit.

Namaste

Kay, good morning, Tuesday morning , it’s Ifer. Just a quick blog on yoga and smell.

It’s actually kind of funny. Last weekend I got to bring my son Greg, who I’m going to talk a lot about, because I adore him, to a CorePower yoga class. He’s 14 years old, and I brought him to a core power yoga class, taught by Brandon. I don’t think he wanted to come to a class, but he came with me because I asked him to come. He’s doing yoga in his basketball practices at school.

So we had a good time, we sweated a lot, and Brandon played some great music, and it was really nice practicing next to Greg, but what’s really kind of interesting is that same week — or in that same timeframe — I was really getting kind of concerned because my yoga mat was really starting to smell. And I guess this was bound to happen, because you sweat so much in power yoga.

So I raised my concern to one of the instructors, Naomi, and she told me to just take my yoga mat in the shower with me And so I started doing that and using Dr. Bronner’s soap, and it started to fix the problem. So this morning I was walking around the house, starting to gather my yoga things together and I was thinking about the smell, and Greg, my son, who is six feet tall and has a size 12 foot comes to me, looks down at his shoes and says, Mom, can you do anything about the smell of my shoes?

And this is about three minutes before we’re leaving for school, and I was kind of like — well, hmmm… — I thought about taking them in the shower with me, but then I thought that wasn’t a good idea at the present time — and I said, “Actually at the moment, I don’t know, but maybe if we just put them outside some of the smell will subside.” And then I thought, well, maybe we’ll buy you a new pair of shoes, and he said, “That’s a good idea, but what should I do today?” We changed out the shoes, and placed the smelly ones outside.

So, he was pretty concerned about the smell as well. So, as we walk the journey of life, smell is part of it. And I hope you enjoyed this blog. Namaste.

Hi, it’s Ifer again, Monday night. So, one of the things I’ve found that I’ve really connected with again, (I keep finding the things that I’ve really connected with) , is music. Music, it’s a wonderful thing. It’s got breath, it’s got sound, it’s got feeling and emotion, and for the most part it’s talking about “the now,” right? People are singing in the now.

So one of the things that my son, Greg, does for me (he’s 14 years old) is he loads my iPod Shuffle with music and he calls it the “Mom shuffle.” and so I’ve been listening to these Mom shuffles and I’ve been thinking about the music that I want to play in my CorePower classes — some Elton John, some Pink Floyd, Lyle Lovett, even parts Dan Fogelberg that could work — so keep an eye out for the Ifer shuffle CorePower yoga class. Namaste.

Hi, it’s Ifer, and it’s Monday after a long weekend of core power training, and I’m taking the day off from yoga because I feel like I deserve it.

But I wanted to just note that one of the benefits that I’ve been getting from taking this yoga and spending the time for myself and, pending the time to share the yoga practice with my friends, is that my ability to focus has increased, I want to say, hummm, 100%.

I mean if you try to add up all the things I’m trying to do, an additional 20 hours of yoga practice and training on top of my 40 hours of regular paying job, on top of whoever knows how many hours of little consulting jobs that I can’t seem to kill — (I guess that’s in part my fault because I tend to love it) — and a son, and a … I guess you could call my husband, and two houses, and three dogs, and a cat — and trying to balance some kind of a lifestyle and some fun that I’d like to have — maybe some fall running in Boulder — how am I able to focus?

And the only thing I can attribute it to is this training of core power yoga that I go to, that I spend six to 10 hours a week doing. It helps me focus. So on that note, namaste.

Hi I’m Chalice, and I’m a part of this wonderful yoga teacher training here at the CorePower studio, and I’ve been practicing yoga for a very long time, different styles of yoga, and something really special happened to me when I came to CorePower yoga for the first time. Really experiencing the flow, the music, and just the powerful group energy that this kind of Ashtanga Vinyasa yoga brings to the whole “banquet of yoga styles,” I guess you could say.

Anyway, there’s pretty major growth and transition in my life, and I decided to make the yoga CorePower teacher training an intensive part of that transition — to keep my head in a clear space, and also pave the way to a new chapter of my life. I plan to teach yoga, and I’m thinking of relocating to France: I’m a French speaker, and I just absolutely love it out there — talk about being present – it’s really a different pace of life, people take time to smell the roses and taste the wild strawberries, what can I say? — so thinking of taking my five-year-old daughter out there, and giving her the opportunity for an international upbringing, and opening a studio.

Probably on the Atlantic coast of France, or perhaps further south on the Mediterranean near the border of Spain, and I’m going to take an exploratory mission out there this winter holiday, and just see what’s out there in terms of the yoga and what I can possibly bring and share with that part of the world.

People here at the teacher training are just absolutely wonderful, I made some lovely friends, and it’s just an incredible experience. And that’s about that. I can’t recommend it enough, it’s just a fabulous, life-transforming experience, no mistake. namaste

Hi, it’s Ifer. And I just got to listen to the first four blogs, and I have to say — (exhale) I’m just touched by everybody, and why they’re here. My story is different — I discovered yoga probably five years ago with my mother when we were on a retreat and kind of fell in love with it. And since then I’ve been searching for the right spot. And I didn’t find it, so after my mother died this year and after I found core power yoga, I knew it was what I needed to do. So, just maybe two to three months into my new practice, the teacher training came about, and I kind of knew it was something I wanted to do.

And since I made that decision, I found a lot of peace and harmony and, actually, a better way of dealing with my surroundings, because I’m feeling so much better inside. At first, it was very physical attraction, because I’ve always been physically attracted to sports. And then this magical thing came about, where all of a sudden I realized that my mind and spirit was benefiting from it as well.

So here we are in our second full week of training — it’s pretty intense, 20 hours of yoga training — and at least six to ten hours of yoga classes and now I have absolutely no time outside of yoga and work. But I still am able to find this balance and this harmony between my mind, body and spirit. And that sounds very coined, but I can’t find another way of saying it. So after my first week I’m completely exhausted and I find that food is my nourishment and sleep is my healing. So I will touch base with you again.

Hello. My name is Isabella or Isa, and I just started doing the teacher training program. I was inspired through a friend who took me to a class, and ever since then I’ve been addicted — and like to reach people in a physical aspect and teach them through … kind of the same way I’ve been enfolded through yoga. Hope to reach people in that aspect as well.

Hi, I am Vidya. I’va been doing yoga for three years now, and before that I had cervical cancer and arthritis. Doing yoga every day, one or two classes per day, healed my arthritis and cervical cancer. So it is that I can’t live without yoga. I am in the CorePower yoga teachers training right now. Thank you.

My name is Mary, and I decided to take the CorePower yoga without even knowing what it was about. I saw it on the Internet, and knew I wanted to teach yoga, but wasn’t sure which entity. But this was very intriguing to me. So I came, and I took a couple of classes during my training, and luckily found this is the perfect yoga for Mary. I think it’s great, I love the energy, I love the pace, the challenge, it’s all good. Thanks.

Hi — my name is Tünde. I am 25 years old, and I am signed up to do the CorePower teacher training. And we’re into the second week. My first yoga class I had taken a while ago, but nothing too serious. Just recently, this past December, I had taken my first class at CorePower.

It was a Bikram class, the hot yoga, which is done at 105°. And I absolutely fell in love. After that first class, I was drenched in sweat. And I felt alive, and I felt beaten up, it was something I’d never experienced before in any other athletics sports I had done.

I’m pretty physically active, I’m very big into hacky sacking, I’m pretty good in that sport — I’m a runner but I’d stopped doing that because of my knees, and I like to hike, and I bike everywhere — Boulder’s a great place to live for bikers, so — my intention is that I’m also going to be seven years sober in November, and I’ve found that yoga definitely plays a really big part in the body/mind/spirit connection for me. And I’m also part of some other organizations and a 12-step group. And I just feel my soul is searching and seeking the spiritual essence of the universe or God or whatever you want to call it.

So, when I am doing a yoga class, I feel so in touch with not just myself — but I feel at one with the people in the class. And I have time to stop and get out of my mind — I can dedicate my practice to, say, Katrina victims, or just get outside of myself. And also stay inside of myself, if that makes sense. Shut my mind off, and just really get in touch with my body, and shut the noise of my mind off.

So, after taking some Bikram classes I accidentally tried a CorePower class, and fell in love. It has music, and you’re doing aerobic things, you’re doing your Core strengthening, it’s motion and movement, it’s integrated with your breath, and so when I found that there was teacher training, I knew, there was something in my gut that I knew I had to take the teacher training course.

I’m also a full-time student at CU studying sociology, and I didn’t necessarily know if I could handle the workload of going to school and taking the training, and also with all my other stuff, I’m getting married, planning a wedding … But the more thought about it, and the more that came up for me was that I deserve to do this — whether I would use it for teaching, I don’t know — I can’t say as of yet, we’re only into week two.

But I can say that I’m learning so much, and also being able to just create really beautiful relationships with the class, get to know the teachers here, and it’s like a small little — it’s a beautiful place to be in practice, and I feel so fortunate and very, very blessed to be in this moment, to be in this time — how do I want to say it — to be present. What a blessing it is to be present.

Because I know the opposite: of not being present, being stressed out, being frazzled, being emotional, and I definitely am grateful for this balance. And yoga has definitely been an incredible part of that journey of being balanced. Class is amazing. And I don’t know, I guess I’m going to leave off on that note, but thanks for letting me participate.