The dance between the light and the dark

by Katie-Alan Calhoun, September 2015 200 hour Bali yoga teacher training student

Hanoman Street

I step out of the taxi, cradling all the belongings that I've packed for the next month. As the cab zooms away, it hits me: I have arrived in Ubud. It's late in the evening and Jalan Hanoman is alive and busy. People rushing to grab drinks with friends, mopeds whipping by, loud noises, bright lights and unfamiliar smells. If there is such thing as a culture shock, this is it. What in the world was this little mountain girl thinking? Grabbing my overly packed bags, I made my way through a dark alley to find my hotel. A local gentleman, seeing me somewhat distressed, asked if I needed assistance. "No, I've got it", I replied, as I looked at him, probably looking very much like a deer in the headlights. Did I really "have this," though? 

I finally reach my room and start to unload, literally and figuratively. All of the stress of traveling had finally reached its boiling point. I'm alone in a foreign country, trying to wrap my head around the month ahead of me. It's dark, unfamiliar and I'm completely spooked. As I curl up under my covers, trying to escape reality, I receive a message from a friend back home. Knowing I was in distress, they send a consoling message: "You're going to be okay. Everything may appear scary now, but tomorrow it will all look different in the light."Holding onto these words as if they were my mantra, I somehow manage to sleep through the night.

Bali courtyard

I roll out of bed the next morning, feeling the heavy hand of jet lag. I take a quick look in the mirror and quickly regret it, cringing. Thirty plus hours on a plane is not a good look for me. I slowly make my way around the room, trying to let go of the unease of the previous night. Suddenly, I hear a noise outside my room, and a voice: "Miss?" I open the wooden double doors and am stunned at what I discover. "Wait, where am I?", I think as I scan my surroundings. I'm looking out at a beautiful courtyard. Birds are singing, the sun is shining, and the aroma of flowers and incense fills the air. I'm in such a state of shock that I completely forget about my little visitor. "Miss, would you like tea and breakfast?" he asks. Tea?! Yes! That is exactly what I need.

How could this be? I'm suddenly enjoying my breakfast in a completely different place than I had entered the night before. Fortified with fresh fruit and tea, I muster up the courage to begin exploring. Ubud is awake and ready for the day. This is not the Bali I had encountered the evening before. Walking the streets I'm becoming familiarized with my surroundings. Smiling faces, wonderful food, shopping, culture, and monkeys! This isn't scary, I think to myself, this is amazing! Day one in Ubud and I have already come to the realization that this is exactly where I need to be. My heart is filled with excitement and yoga teacher training hasn't even begun.

Katie-Alan

Amy Jirsa put it quite beautifully when she said, "Yoga is the dance between the light and the dark within you. The light is what brings you back to the mat and the darkness is what you uncover there. Don't be afraid of this darkness. These are only shadows, and though you'll have to walk down some pretty dark alleys, remember you are grounded in the light, and the light will set you free."

By practicing yoga, we are bringing light to the darkest places within ourselves. Much like my first night in Bali, the dark can be a scary, unforgiving place. It is where your inner demons reside. Your fears, doubts and worst nightmares. But have faith in the light, whether it's  the light inside you or the rising sun of the next day. Our journey in life is all about perspective and how we view our reality. With a little light, our perception can change, just as I began to see my adventure in Ubud very differently.

Your ego is not your amigo, but it's not your enemy either

by Eva Brockschmidt, September 2015 Zuna Yoga 500 hour Bali Yoga Teacher Training student

"Your Ego is Not Your Amigo " - if you're at all familiar with popular yoga culture, chances are you've probably heard this phrase before or even see it splashed across a yoga top somewhere. Personally, I've always found it kind of cheesy. Yet it holds a lot of truth. It also raises some questions, such as what do we really mean by ego? Why does it hurt us, and how can we put it in its proper place?

Ego denotes the idea of a prescribed self-identity – “This is me, I am different.” To some degree, this self-identity or “I-shape” is absolutely necessary. Singularity of body requires singularity of mind, so our ego functions as an identifier which allows us to act in our physical form. Modern psychology even talks about the importance of maintaining a “healthy ego” and suggests that people suffer when their ego is hurt or diminished. 

From a yogic perspective, this suggestion also holds true. Yet instead of ascribing the cause of our pain to some external event, it's believed that the ego itself, this fixed identity that we have given ourselves, is what causes pain.

We have a tendency to take everything that happens personally. It is only when we let go of ego that we realize that in fact, most of life is not personal at all. Whether it's a driver who cuts us off in traffic, a friend who lies to us, or a rude server at a restaurant, these situations are usually a reflection of the other person's internal workings. The driver who is rushing through traffic is probably stressed out. It doesn't matter to him who he cuts off, it just happens to be us. Yet we often take such situations very personally – “how could they do this to me ME?!” In general, frequent use of the "I" and "me" pronouns is a good indication of ego. However, once we start taking situations less personally, we can start to gain control over negative emotions and stop them from running away with us.

Our ego restricts us as we involuntarily filter everything through this fixed identity. Thus it determines not only the way we see ourselves, but also the way we see and perceive others. As a result, we often react in a hostile manner towards things, people and circumstances that do not fit with or challenge our self-prescribed identity. When reality doesn't conform to our views, we begin to struggle and try to rearrange it. In this way, ego clouds our judgment and leads to ignorance (in Yogic philsophy, known as avidya).

Ego is one of the five obstacles which hold us back and prevent us from being truly free. The others are pride, attachment, aversion and fear. However, once we start to overcome the first misperception, whereby we mistake a part of us, our ego, for the whole of our being, we will automatically begin to overcome the other four. They are all offshoots of this original ignorance. 

An intensive yoga teacher training would probably cause many people's egos to crumble. As your practice has progressed, you may have developed this sense of yourself as being “good at yoga.” Maybe you’ve thought of yourself as particularly strong or flexible, now you're suddenly surrounded by people with very strong practices. What's more, you are suddenly asked to undo and relearn everything from the start. Misalignment and other shortcomings are laid bare. If you let ego be in charge, you're likely to react with umbrage and damaged pride. But if you can surrender and remain open to this new information, then it's an incredible learning experience which will leave you completely transformed, not only physically but also mentally. 

Even outside the intense experience of a yoga teacher training, the mat is an ideal place to observe, confront and begin to surrender our fixed self-identity. Ego normally bubbles up pretty quickly during practice, and it can take many different guises: jealous glances to the person next to us, the insistence on always taking the hardest variation of a pose or to do every vinyasa. Sometimes it even feels like the entire practice is driven by the head, pushing and pulling the body to force it into poses it doesn't want to go into. But once we've become aware of ego’s presence, we can surrender it. By bringing our attention back to our body, our breath and this present moment, we can begin to soften into a state of being, rather than thinking. 

We cling to ego because it seems to provide us with the certainty and order that we long for in our lives. Yet the security is a false one. It does not exist. Life itself is inherently uncertain. No one can escape what Pema Chödrön calls “the fundamental ambiguity of being human.” All we can do is learn to live with it. 

This being said, while ego is not our friend, it's certainly not our enemy either. In this world we need a sense of ego, an “I-maker”, in order to be able to differentiate, to know what is us. So it's not about breaking up with our ego completely, which is impossible, but rather about putting it in its proper place, assuring that we are in charge of it rather than the other way around. On the journey of life, we certainly don't want the ego in the driver’s seat, but that doesn't mean that we have to kick it out of the car completely.

Spotlight on Cilla, Zuna Yoga teacher training grad

MEET 
Priscilla "Cilla" Rybicki,  Zuna Yoga teacher training graduate, E-RYT 200 / RYT 500, and yoga studio owner

HEAR HER BACK STORY

Cilla is a longtime resident of Burlington, Vermont, and a perpetual student of the mind and body. She earned a Bachelor of Arts & Sciences degree in Psychology at the University of Vermont and, after trying yoga, made it an essential part of her life by harnessing it as a tool to alleviate back pain and correct postural misalignment caused by scoliosis. She became a certified yoga teacher in 2009 through Burlington Yoga and in 2014 she traveled to Bali for her 300 hour yoga teacher training with Zuna Yoga. Cilla is also a Certified Massage Therapist. 

LEARN HER THOUGHTS ON YTT

It was incredible. The advanced yoga teacher training was exactly what I needed to deepen my own practice and refine my teaching skills. What I learned there, not just about the transformative benefits of regular practice, but also about my own inner strength, empowered me to take the leap and open my own studio, Sukha Yoga. 

SHARE HER STRUGGLES

Like many students of meditation, she admits to struggling to overcome a constantly "thinking" mind. Her own challenges inspired in her a desire to make the powerful practices of pranayama and meditation more accessible to everyone. 

SHARE HER JOY

One of the things I love most about owning the studio is having the freedom to be able to lead donation-based classes for nonprofit organizations and having the space to be able to raise awareness and reach more people. It's been really rewarding to actually make a difference: we've had the honor or working with LoveYourBrain Foundation to help bring yoga to survivors of traumatic brain injury and to raise money for earthquake relief in Nepal.

BENEFIT FROM HER ADVICE 

Always continue to practice and grow. Yoga is a lifelong pursuit, and there is always something to learn and refine. Set a clear intention when you start to teach or open your own studio. Remember the real reason you're teaching (which probably doesn't involve dollar figures) and practice what you preach. Don't let anything hold you back from reaching your goals.

Heading to Vermont? Visit Sukha Yoga's website for information on classes, workshops and special events.

Spotlight on Mary, Zuna Yoga 300 hour yoga teacher training grad

Mary (at right) teaching in Bali

We recently caught up with Mary Byerly, who completed Zuna Yoga's 300 hour Bali yoga teacher training last fall. Mary is the owner of Panacea de la Montaña, a seven acre yoga retreat nestled in the mountains near Tamarindo in Costa Rica, with views of the nearby Pacific Ocean. After hosting yoga retreats and teaching classes at Panacea for the past 11 years, this year Mary launched her own residential 200 hour yoga teacher training program.

Mary is a Yoga Alliance registered ERYT500. She has been practicing yoga for over twenty years, learning from the Iyengar, Vinyasa and Hatha traditions. Her own teaching is based in the classical tradition of Hatha yoga, with an emphasis on alignment, strength and breath. 

ZY: Tell us one little known Fun Fact about yourself.
MB: My first career this lifetime was as a classical trumpet player. Because of that, I find that music in yoga classes is quite distracting to me. I have a tough time not getting wrapped up in the music!

ZY: Did you have any aha moments during your Bali yoga teacher training last year?  
MB:  Many! My top one would have to be: Where your mind goes, energy follows, so be careful and conscious about where you point your mind. For example, one of my favorite Everett quotes was, "Don't jump on the cloud of irritation." Does it make sense to be occupied with what isn't working, or is my time better spent finding another way? When I came back from Bali with so much focused energy, there were amazing accomplishments within very short periods of time, and this continues. My mind, body, breath, and energy are all aiding me in living my life - and it works quite brilliantly.     

ZY: What are your biggest challenges as a student?  
MB: Not always having the chance to take a class with a good teacher. I live in a peaceful, somewhat remote area in Costa Rica, where I can't exactly pop by someone else's studio for a workshop or training.

ZY: As a teacher?  
MB: Being involved in the business end of things.  I love to study, learn, grow, work with people. I have had to discipline myself that I also need to devote time to the business in order to be able to do what I love.  Once I started approaching that as part of my growth as well, I felt less like it was a distasteful job and more that it would help new yogis find me.

ZY: What advice do you have for someone wanting to start their own yoga business? 
MB: Get a good mentor who has been there and can help you through your blind spots. This just as important as having a good teacher. Find your niche and embrace it.

ZY: What important lessons have you learned since opening your retreat center?  
MB: Everything in life is part of the practice. When approached this way, my day is awesome, whether I'm leading a yoga teacher training, cleaning a toilet, or planting a garden. Holding space for others to see their lives as a spiritual practice has been the best gig I've ever had.  

To book your yoga retreat or training in Costa Rica, contact Mary at Panacea de la Montana.

What Zuna Yoga Teacher Training Graduates Say About Us

When you're determining which destination yoga teacher training is perfect for you, the old adage location, location, location is only part of the equation. A big part, granted. But no matter how sandy the beach or how cheap the local currency, a destination yoga teacher training is only as transformational as the people in charge of your spiritual and philosophical and anatomical education. And what better way to learn about that than from those who've been in your place? Following is what former Zuna Yoga students—aka the Zuna Tribe–have to say about their experiences.

"The course material was structured so brilliantly and systematically that we were able to cover a plethora of topics in a relatively short amount of time—and retain it! The island was superb, the accommodations were breathtaking, the food was fresh and tasty and my fellow students became like family. I couldn't imagine a better 200 hour yoga teacher training or a better way to begin my career as a yoga teacher."—Lucas

"All I can say is thank you, thank you, thank you! I feel so blessed to have been a part of this training. For so long now, I have felt like something was missing and now I know exactly what it was. "—Leanne

"Many thanks for what has been a truly transformational teacher training. I loved the thoroughness, the manual, the lectures, the delivery, the humor, the discipline, the intensity, the attention to detail and the sharing of examples. These have all had a profound effect on me."—Claire

"No words can really describe how grateful I am of having the opportunity to be part of the Zuna Yoga® teacher training. You showed me and let me explore how to be a yoga teacher, but also how to explore who I really am. And that, to me, is the most wonderful gift."—Melanie

"I can honestly say I have learned more and truly engaged in class more this past month than I have through any other education course I have attended. This, of course, is a reflection of you. Thank you for such a treasured gift I’ll keep with me the rest of my life—the gift of knowledge and the tools to live a happy, peaceful and beautiful life. I can’t wait to start truly living and fully implement this into my daily life so I can find my authenticity and inspire others like you have inspired me."—Danielle

"A heartful and mindful approach on yoga in its complexity. No doubt, in those two months we went through challenges of the body, mind and ego. It wasn’t always easy, but every second of our training was beautiful and deep."—Krystina

"Everett and Katherine are beautiful people with a deep understanding of real traditional ancient yoga, with profound knowledge of yoga practice and teaching methods, with huge experience of life which illuminates from their teaching approach to yoga."—Alex

"Zuna Yoga®'s fluid integration of body and breath has enhanced the experience of every yoga class I now attend. It's also created a lasting conversation between my body, mind and spirit. I now have a quiet place in my heart to live and grow."—MJ

"There's a clarity to the Zuna Yoga® method that encourages and, indeed, fosters clarity in the practitioner that is physical, emotional and mental. No other practice clarifies and intensifies the relationship between breath, strength, stability, and focus as well as Zuna Yoga®. Everett's sequences take a student so thoroughly and thoughtfully through an arc of "thoughts-in-action" that they take residence in your mind and body."—Karin

"Your knowledge and awareness are intoxicating. Thank you for sharing yourself so generously and compassionately. This was one of the best experiences of my life."—Anna

"It is not just a yoga course. It has provided me with the tool kit to live a fulfilling life—self-realization, self discovery, science and philosophy. I wish the course was a year long as three weeks went by too fast, but I am excited to have already started putting what I learnt into practice. I feel I have started to walk the path of life that includes reality, authenticity and fearlessness."—Athena

"The journey you provided was challenging, downright grueling at times, beautiful in so many ways, life changing…and having some time to digest this confirms it was exactly what I needed to grow as a teacher and, more importantly, as a person."—Kelly

"The Zuna Yoga® teacher training was an amazing month in which I grew on many levels. The passion they shared for the true meaning of yoga and traditional practice inspire me to continue in this journey. Taking this time is the great gift you can give to yourself and Zuna Yoga® offers a great space to do it."—Miriam

Want to hear more? There's a lot more that our yoga teacher training grads have to say. 

Twisting through uncertainty

by Franzi Priemer, September 2015 200 hour Bali Yoga Teacher Training student

Finally, I arrive at the airport, ready to leave my home. I say goodbye to the friend who's kindly dropping me off. I'm alone and ready for my departure to Bali. I board the plane, stow my carry ons, take my seat and take a deep breath. I am looking back on weeks filled not only of packing boxes, but also filled with thoughts, discussions, emotions and stress. Ready to start the next chapter. But circumstances intervene, and my carefully laid plans take a new turn.

Twist of fate

Just as I was thinking - "Finally! I have done it!" - I hear the flight attendant announcing on the PA system that everyone has to deboard the plane. The reason: "technical problems." Fixing said problems will take around three hours. The other passengers' reactions are unsurprising: a mixture of grumbling, worry, anxiety and annoyance. Leaving the airplane, I too have mixed feelings. Disappointment, because I thought I was finally starting my adventure. I also feel uncertainty creep in, and wonder if I'll still be able to catch my connecting flight from Hong Kong to Bali. Lastly, impatience and restlessness. I can neither sit down and relax nor read or write or concentrate on anything to keep me busy. So instead, I walk around, watching the other passengers, nothing to do, nowhere to go. I realize that I'm totally out of the habit of being idle. The last few weeks were packed with activity and socializing, running from meeting to meeting. And now, I'm stranded at the airport with the unaccustomed feeling of being alone and without something to do.

Twist of spine

After an hour of useless restlessness, I decide to give reading another try. I dig out a newspaper article about the growing Yoga culture in Germany. The subject is fascinating. I read about a man who met Sivananda in India in the 1930's and brought Yoga back to Germany. He called it 'physical Indian training', because the word "Yoga" wasn't yet common in Germany. I read some interviewees' experiences with Yoga, explaining their motivation and speaking about the great enrichment their practice has been. I share their sentiments and start to think about my own physical practice over the last few weeks. To be honest, it has taken a back seat to all the craziness, and I am hoping that I can start my 200 hour yoga teacher training without problems on Saturday (and still to be able to move on Sunday). Reading and thinking about Yoga, I begin to calm down. I feel the need to move in my seat. I stretch my arms, change my sitting position and begin to feel more balanced and relaxed. I stand up and do some forward folds and light twists and feel the restlessness subside. I am using my mind to calm my body, and using my body to calm my mind.

It's such a gift that Yoga can be practiced everywhere. It's portable knowledge that you can use whenever and wherever you are. Even - or especially - at the airport, a place full of sounds, faces and distractions. And not only with some physical poses, but also by calming down your thoughts, accepting a twist of fate and beating the restlessness with some twists of your spine. 

Hours later, I am still sitting at the airport. I don't know when my flight will depart, but I face the uncertainty with equanimity. I feel exhausted and tired but also happy and light. It doesn't matter when the flight takes off. My journey has begun, and I know I will arrive -  sooner or later.