When and where did you complete the teacher training?
2009 Spring Palm Desert, California

How or why did you start practising Bikram Yoga?
Thank you, Tracy!

How was your very first Bikram class?
Hot, sweaty, at the end I thought I can fly. My feet didn’t touch the Earth for hours.. at the same time if someone gave me a bow and arrow I could shoot very far and aim perfect. I felt so focused and concentrated.

What is your most important advice for the students?
Don’t take things too serious and have patience.

What did you want to be as a child when you grow up?
Jockey.

What would you do if you didn’t teach yoga?
I would ride a horse, haha, …kidding. I would learn and teach something else.

What is your favourite quote?
”We are not Human beings seeking for spiritual experience, but Spiritual beings in the human experience.”

Which one is your least favourite pose in the series?
Rabbit./Sasangasana.

What are you most proud of in your life?
Walking 800 kms in Spain on the Pilgrimage of Santiago de Compostella in 2005.

What is your first thought in the morning?
Coffeeeeee… and a great walk with the dog.

What do you treasure the most?
My friends.

Tell us about your first kiss.
I was 13, totally in love and very excited about it. It was perfect.

When and where did you complete the teacher training?
I took my teacher training in Hawaii in the fall of 2007

How or why did you start practicing Bikram Yoga?
I started Bikram Yoga when I was off work due to depression and a friend invited me to the class.

How was your very first Bikram class?
It was hot… hot, hot, hot my friend did not tell me it was hot yoga and I wore sweat pants and a sweat shirt for my first class.

What is your most important advice for the students?
Enjoy the heat, enjoy the misery and don’t be hard on yourself or your practice. It all comes with time and enjoy the journey along the way. Step by step.

What did you want to be as a child when you grow up?
I wanted to be a nurse

What would you do if you didn’t teach yoga?
I would be working at Costco I think.

What is your favourite quote?
“Live, live, live, life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death.”

Which one is your least favourite pose in the series?
It changes from week to week. I just know that the posture I like the least is the one my body needs the most

What are you most proud of in your life?
Finishing my teacher training and living my truth through my teaching.

What is your first thought in the morning?
I need to get to class to teach the 6 am.

What do you treasure the most?
My parents and the relationship we have.

Tell us about your first kiss.
It was very scandalous and I was about 9 at the time.

BYG (Bikram Yoga Guelph) would like to invite all of you
to celebrate the end of the

30 day challenge

and

the Holiday Season

with us and the challengers.

The party will be held in the studio on

Saturday December 5th, at 8pm

Yoga mat is not necessary

We would like to thank you for your dedication and patience with this party.
Members who participated and completed the 30 day challenge in the summer, please come and talk to us at the front desk.

People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies. Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you. Be honest and sincere anyway.
What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. Create anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous. Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, will often be forgotten. Do good anyway.
Give the best you have, and it will never be enough. Give your best anyway.
In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.

I salute you. I am your friend and my love for you goes deep. There is nothing I can give you which you have not got; but there is much, very much, that while I cannot give it, you can take.

No Heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in today. Take Heaven! No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this present little instance. Take Peace! The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet with in our reach, is Joy. There is radiance and glory in the darkness … could we but see and to see we have only to look. I beseech you to look.

Life is so generous a giver, but we, judging it’s gifts by it’s covering, cast them away as ugly or heavy or hard. Remove the covering and you will find beneath it a living splendor, woven of love, by wisdom, with power. (more…)

Everything is fine because I’m here now, fresh flower smiling in your hair.
This pure white song reaches up into the sky and peace settles on your face.
I’m a little scared of what is next to come, but every window of my soul is open.
Oh if angels come, if angels come, when the angels come, I’m finally home.

Love has touched the surface of the Earth here, we shot the door and hate remained outside.
Shoulder to shoulder, rock me, rock me more.
There is no power to keep us apart, friends can never be lost.
Oh if the angels come………… I’m finally home.

In Hungarian:

(more…)

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain! I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it, or fix it. (more…)

A time comes in your life when you finally get it – when in the midst of all your fears and insanity you stop dead in your tracks, and somewhere the voice inside your head cries out – ENOUGH!

Enough fighting and crying or struggling to hold on. And, like a child quieting down after a blind tantrum, your sobs begin to subside, you shudder once or twice, you blink back your tears and through a mantle of wet lashes you begin to look at the world through new eyes. This is your awakening. You realize that it’s time to stop hoping and waiting for something to change or for happiness, safety and security to come galloping over the next horizon.

You awaken to the fact that you are not perfect (more…)

Paul Askew will be in our studio as a Guest teacher for several classes next week, visiting from the Bikram Yoga Centre in Toronto.

He is going to teach on Monday the 16th at 6:00pm and 8:00pm, as well as on Tuesday the 17th at 6:00am, 9:30am and 12 noon.

Here is a short bio for Paul.

After a friend suggested that it would alleviate his knee and shin pain, Paul embarked on an intense journey, practicing Bikram Yoga regularly. In 19 months, the health advantages had become so evident that he decided to attend Fall 2008 Teacher Training so he could teach others what he had discovered. Despite tearing the meniscus in his left knee two months before the start of training, he decided to complete the nine-week course anyway. At times he had to work through immense pain, but he persisted, knowing that a little discomfort now prevents a lot of misery in the future. Post training and despite a huge reduction in pain, Paul elected to have surgery. He continues to strengthen and heal his knee through regular practice using advice given to him privately by Bikram. He experiences, first hand, the amazing healing abilities of this yoga and wants others to benefit too.