Monday, February 4, 2013

Philosophy College Class Gets a Yoga Make Over



Teaching yogic ethics has been incredible. I've been studying and doing yoga since 2000 and I've been teaching yoga, meditation, and yogic philosophy for the past six years to college students in an academic setting. Listening to the experinces and ideas of those who are new to yoga is really one of the most inpiring things I can think of. On our first day in class this semester, my upper-division class talked about how for a yogi, success, spirituality, health, goodness, and integrity all come together (unlike many Western views). Almost none of my 17 students had done yoga before but  they were stunningly adept at it and we laughed and enjoyed ourselves as we did Ojai breathing, sun salutations, synchronized silent sun salutations, standing poses, balancing, inversions and backbends.
     It's the essence of yoga -- being in the moment, being harmonized body, mind, breath, and with each other and the world! My students also did two sun salutations every day for a week and a series of reflective meditations and writing exercises over two weeks in addition to reading a modern essay on yoga and western philosophy "Why Are You Standing on My Yoga Mat?!" and a traditional reading of the Yoga Sutras.

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