Vida Tranquilo em Florianopolis

The sun is still shining in Florianopolis and I have had a great first week of classes at Yoga Shala.  I am teaching in place of the regular Mon and Wed evening classes and it feels great to be a substitute teacher and work with the students here.  I am teaching most of the classes in Portuguese and what phrases and words I have yet to learn, there are plenty of people in the class who are ready and willing to help out!  It’s great because I get on a roll with whatever I am teaching…I get excited to see inner triads pushing the floor, legs with integrity and faces relaxed and I start to talk quickly and love my words in English and Portuguese because I get so excited!  It makes nice energy in the class.  The students are all levels and, as usual, I am focusing on the foundations of hands / feet / bhandas and breath.   I don’t think teachers infuse much ‘spirituality’ or more intensive yoga philosophy into asana classes here and they are very open to the ideas I am presenting:

The Asana practice is just s mirror….look inside!  Observe your thoughts, practice poses with heightened awareness, learn to love yourself so that you can love others from an authentic place and the wisdom of the sutras as well.  Wow, that’s a lot for just 4 classes but it’s making an impact, I can tell.

My friends who’s classes I attend here always bring some theme or yogic philosophy to the class, but it usually at the beginning and/or end of class as a lecture type of thing instead of applied application of the concepts in the asana practice.

The original plan here was to have a ‘reciclagem para profesores’ which was a refresher course for teachers here.  However, only 3 students signed up for the program and my friend / host / studio owner Camila and I decided to cancel the Reciclagem and just hold a one day seminar for the three students and any other teachers that wanted to come.  We did this on Friday and was a very nice class.  I had 6 teachers join in a 3 hour lecture and 2 hour practice that was very nice….Lunge-O-Rama!!!  The discussion was really juicy as well with a nice discussion between the difference between Teaching and Leading.  Both are equally important and both have different results based on what information / experience is being created.  I really enjoy ‘teaching teachers’ and we had some great talks about the path of teaching yoga.

Oh…on Thursday night I went to see The Kite Racer, WOW, great movie!  However it was mostly in Arabic with Portuguese subtitles…it was great for my Portuguese but I found I could not read quick enough to keep up with translating and reading.  So I just read and followed the story.  However, as we were getting the tickets, I was introduced to an incredible Brazilian promotion….Beja Disconto.  On Thursday nights at Shopping Iguatemi…between 5 – 11.  It’s 2 for 1 if you kiss your ‘date’ at the register!  Really!!!!!  I was with a friend and we had a nice ‘friends’ kiss which got us the 2 for 1, but there were come couples in line that really earned their discount!  We’ll see if there’s a film this week I want to see (or not!) and try and make it again .

Saturday, I had my first workshop at Yoga Shala and was really stoked to bring The Natural Link; Elements of Nature to your Yoga Practice to a group of 19 students.  Many of the students had not participated in a ‘themed’ workshop and the concepts of the elements in the asana practice and the structure of the class was very well received.  I have some students / friends here that I have known for several years and they were there, including Figgy, who is blind.  Honestly, he is the best student in the class every time because he follows so closely the workds and instructions.  His body awareness astounds me and his spirit inspires me.  He always travels with his close friend Vinny who is also a bright light and the two of them come to most of my events in South Brazil.  I have some photos at the bottom from the workshop.

Today, I was invited to another incredible beach, Santinho and had a very blissful and shanti day….see photos.

Shanti Om – David