Location: Old Saybook Connecticut, Schuyler Grant’s, Director of Kula Yoga Project Summer Home, Kula Yoga Flow Advanced Training
I just spent about 10 min falling asleep as a hard working trainee, Lauren, was taking notes, as she was piling information into her computers memory, I realized, I could do more, more consisted of getting up out of a dream state, and pulling leftovers out of the fridge, sneaking the food so Lauren didn’t see me, saluting her good night, and taking off to hit my bed, with cold soufflé in hand. Weird.
Lauren was completely unphased by my interest in her story, before we met I pulled her email from the trainee email list, and got to see her website. I was impressed with a picture on her website, so I posted it on Facebook as my profile pic, it still sits there today, as yoga is spray painted on a building wall. Not all connections prove to be profound, and a lot of time the profound is in the lack of celebration that comes with coincidence. She’s a Princeton grad, was a wall street trader, then a quick transition to yoga teacher, we come from different worlds, but we find a common practice to help us live in the overlapping the is our world.
Bali...clear
After flying in from Asia, and coping with jet lag, I’m starting to feel better in my body now. It might also have something to do with the obsession I’ve had lately with jumping off completely stable and safe surfaces into seemingly dangerous waters, the most dangerous thing about the water is my fear of the unknown that may reside below the waters surface, and that’s why I do it, jump to make the seemingly dramatic mundane. The first time two Sunday’s ago in Bali while touring the volcano region with Sarah, and tonight I skinny-dipped if you can call it that, in the cool Atlantic Ocean.
This training is different then my others, the access to the teacher is like nothing I’ve ever experienced from someone so capable, a sense of nothing to hide. The overall vibe of this thing is tangible. Spirituality is an excepted companion to what we learn here, but far from the priority, or the discussion topic. After leaving a spiritual vortex like Bali, I was quite upset at the lack of dreaming that happens here, at least at first, yet, growth is still finding her cracks into the experience.
After I finally taught this afternoon, Schuyler humbled me with her feedback, she said the same thing I’ve been hearing for a while, “okay so your good, now relax into the space you’re in”, she said my teaching was on the verge of motivational, and not in a good way, more like a bad version of Anthony Robbins. I love the show within the show, and that’s the major thing that is necessary drop to grow, leave the actor behind…undefine the identity. It’s being smoothed out, it has to, growth follows intention.
I left Bali, into a coaxed extension of my time away from work, because growth to me is paramount. Yet it doesn’t have to be biblical, as much as Moses parting the red sea is epic, it can also be a simple as making a choice to go to bed early to create space for a miracle.
Tonight it became clear to me; it’s no longer good enough to play in the same waters as others that are good, in fact that alone would drown me out of those waters. I’m in NY now, where authenticity is the language. Authenticity has nothing to do with others; it’s a relationship with ones self, that relationship is only truly matured, when the present moment is entered. And the present moment is turbulent, It requires breath, and focus.
Schuyler has the same vibration as another New Yorker, Lori Triolo, my acting teacher that spent 2 years waking me up, by calling me on my shit, back in 2005-2007, never for a moment letting me get away with anything. I only left when I felt mistreated, as part of the theatre company we were part of, my writing a parody of the company became insulting, I thought it was genius. I said good-bye in a meeting that had both Lori and I in tears. It was a release, at least symbolically. I quickly became a yoga teacher, the space in my life that was emptied at the time carved out a whole new identity, and lifestyle.
I needed the space to grow, till now; no one with the exception of Ana Forrest has even brought up the idea of what Lori layered my life with. Truth. Deep Truth.
Here it goes again, truth in a time of great leaps.
I haven’t been in HK in over a month, other then the one night I joined some amazing people to rock that city.
My dream along side my yoga-teaching career is to ROCK OUT. To grab the Mic, and share my poetry, my touch, my excitement for life, and it’s potentials.
Can I do them both while separating them? Yes if I want to.
my other home
photo-Patrick Haley
photo-Patrick Haley
Freedom Yoga aligned them into a definite gray area, fusing creation, performing and boundry breaking. The next stint in HK will be an amazing chance to Rock it out on many levels, in many layers, find a dance with both my own needs as well as common expectations. Drop the drama, because a lot it is simply there to create interest. The interest is present without a pushing of it, the hues are bright and interesting. The story is self told by just showing up, and getting out of my own way, let the light shine, let the light shine out the cracks.
The true moment will come with a jump, a leap into a world of unknowns, that leap is being foreshadowed with every body of water I jump in, every new culture I pierce, everyday I live, and as I write this blog. But the Drama can go.
My road as a teacher is also my road as an artist, and to step into the authenticity that I try to hold for my students, and my teachers, I see that to talk the talk, I must trust the walk, even if the path leads towards unknown land.
This is ‘a choose your own adventure’, only the choice leads to a leap, and the leap continues after the splash. A whole new world awaits, your presence.
Do it.
Open up.
Do it.
It’s the only way.
Go Bee Free
There are no answers only questions that re-create the previous questions, listen to the questions, and nurture their quality. They will nurture you.
Copyright © Lawrence-Jacob Milman, 2009. All rights reserved. The reproduction or transmission of all or part of the work, whether by photocopying or storing in any medium by electronic means or otherwise, without the written permission of the owner, is prohibited. Any unauthorised use or act in relation to the work appearing on this website will result in both civil and criminal liability.
