Here's the deal folks,
when the Indian's way back when (like 5+K years ago) formulated postures in a sequence to get the physical body moving, it was with the intention to prepare oneself to be still and calm, for meditation.
To observe your inner and outer life and see its connection with everything. It was to get your body to a place that was in a condition to be clear enough to communicate with the divine, i.e. your higher self. That self is the same self Brad Pitt and the Jonas Brothers are linked to. We are all linked sans a VIP pass, like one large power surge that your blackberry, ipod, dvd player, camcorder, juicer, toaster, coffee maker is linked to.
We are all linked together.
You just have to practice your way into that awareness.
Like it or not, we are all the same even though our journeys, tests, past, education, families, childhood are different.
Does that make you think differently about flipping that guy off in traffic?
It should, cause that is yoga my friends.
You don't know what that guys journey is or how much ego is diseasing his 'moment', so practice yoga then.
Yoga ain't just on a mat, listening to the harmonium and doing 108 sun salutes.
Nope, its not.
It's not the guy in the hybrid who ran the stop sign and almost hit me with his car when I was crossing the street this morning.
Oh, you are so aware of the environment that you drive a hybrid but you aren't aware of the people around you?
Should I get mad?
I could, but really, maybe he didn't see me and thank goodness he didn't hit me.
In that moment.
That moment is a moment to practice yoga.
Move the f on.
Its about using your experience on the mat and bringing it into the real world. The 23 other hours of the day. Hard work, yes. That's why they call it a practice.
If I hear one person tell me they can't do yoga or don't like yoga, to me, that tells me they don't know what yoga is.
Yoga is, for the true yogi, any unification of YOU: your body, mind and spirit with that 'divine' or 'GOD like nature' if you will, that we all have and can tap into if you are willing to do so.
Do you like walking the dog?
Seeing the birds in the trees?
The sun set?
Your child giggle?
Washing the dishes?
Running a mile?
Preparing a Sunday feast after mass?
The barmitzvah of your first born boy?
Getting a massage?
Eating a cookie?
Really eating a cookie?
Tasting the brown sugar,
the butter,
the salt,
the baking soda,
the cocoa,
the factory it was made in,
the care that was put into stirring the mix or operating the machine that put the cookie in its round form?
The driver that put the ingredients/package in the store?
The mom that placed them in front of you, hot and gooey with a glass of cold milk by its side?
The TV program you were watching or phone conversation that you were having while you were eating the warm gooey cookie?
Can you taste the cookie?
THAT is yoga?
YOGA is being conscious, aware, present, taking every moment in.
Yoga is not, perfecting a pose, looking good, getting it right. There is no right.
No right.
If you look at an Iyengar book and put it up against an Ashtanga book, warrior 1 will look different from one guru to the next.
Trust me, my friends. I've studied with the gurus and the not so gurus.
You are the guru.
As teachers, we can only guide you to what we have been trained as the most safe way to move your body into stillness.
We provide, from our own life experience, a channel to communicate with YOU the way to get yourself back to yourself.
It is of MY utmost importance to look at you, talk to you and create an experience for you that will get you to the point where "I" have been and can take you. I can't take you anywhere I haven't been.
If you study and practice with me, you might find, I am not your person. Perhaps you need to be with someone who has been somewhere else or has certain experience they can share that I cannot.
That's ok. I won't take it personally.
I have practiced with HUNDREDS of teachers that I respect greatly. Teachers that can communicate with people I can never imagine being able to communicate with. They have styles I do or don't agree with or don't respond to and so I move on. But I know that they make yoga accessible to the people they can. That's why they teach. At least that's why I hope they teach.
I have practiced for so long that for me, postures don't mean much, as long as I can be caught in a moment where I'm just in the moment, experiencing feelings, sensations, discovering parts of myself that might otherwise be dormant in my day to day. That is yoga to me.
I love the breathing and meditation, the philosophy and the history. I don't teach or preach the philosophy or history unless someone inquires. It is my mission, because I know how difficult it was for me to begin the process of yoga, to get into my body and be still. It is a daily practice and one I revel in.
It is the first and foremost thing that I teach. If you are already there, I salute you for that.
The majority of my students just want to feel. That's what I teach, in the safest way I know how.
SOOOOOO,
for those students who take my class and pull me aside whilst I am teaching a class to a group of people to tell me that their neighbor next to them is doing a pose incorrectly,
I will kindly tell you to talk to that neighbor after class.
For, I am in only one position,
to guide you through a safe, calm, strong and relaxing experience.
If you look around to someone else while you are practicing and judge them or me, you are not in the room for the right reasons.
Get out of your head and into your heart, what you are doing and not what anyone else is doing. There is no room for ego in yoga. Simply no room.

I'm passionate about this because a student pulled me aside in the middle of my class to tell me someone was doing something wrong. After repeating the correct way of doing a pose 20 times in a class and having a student continue to do a pose in a different way, who am I, really to correct someone if this is their choice?

Really.

Like my mom says, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink.

I was in a Bikram class a few months ago where the teacher put me in a pose that actually hurt me physically and then was yelled at. My emotions got in the way of my practice and the 'yoga' was gone.

This is not the environment I want to create.

I have studied extensively with the great Dharma Mittra, Srivatsa Ramaswami andSri K. Pattabhi Jois. To put it bluntly, these guys are old, enlightened and have serious practices and energies that you just don't want to question. Every single one of them, who I have seen challenged by their students about being precise in a posture have turned the question back onto the student asking them how they would feel best doing a posture.

I have to be honest, being around these great teachers, you can feel their greatness and commitment to the lifestyle of yoga but I don't think ANY of them take it nearly as seriously as us westerners.

I'm open to your arguments but again, I will only speak from my experience and from my tremendous respect for all of the yogis that went before me translating this art, life, tradition to what we have made it now.

Please ask yourself though, what benefit is it to you to correct me or another yogi?

When I take a class and I look around at people who are soooo clearly not connected to their bodies and I watch the teacher walk by and not say a word, I catch myself because I know that it is no longer my experience but rather my observation and judgement of what someone else 'might' be experiencing.
Not yoga.
Yoga, for me is on the mat and in the world.
I encourage you to find what yoga is for you. It does not have to be touching your toes.
It is your experience and connection- your unification with everything else. Not you and everything else.
I love yoga. It is my life and practice every day. You know when you are in love and you can't get that person out of your mind?
That's me and yoga. Like a freekin' nun and Jesus.
It's me and Yoga.
If you like that, you'll like my class. If you judge me or anyone else in the class, go to someone else. I'm not for you and that' not what I teach.
On that note, be good to yourselves please. You are all we have.
Drink water and call your mom.
Namaste and love, love, love to everyone....