2019 Intentions - Part 4 ; Yoga Studies

This post is number four in the series of posts I am making with regards to my 2019 Intentions. So far we have covererd

Part 1 Journaling

Part 2 Meditation

Part 3 Reading

Today's installment is to talk about my intentions to apply discipline and rigor to my study of Yoga. This post will cover a relatively wide range of topics that all fall under this category.

So hold onto your hats! Here we go!

Aggregating Learning from YTT and CEU

So I have already taken many classes, read several books so and I continue to attend Marni Task's Jivasara Teacher Training. I have taken several of Gina Schatz's workshops in addition to the anatomy weekend she does for Marni's YTT program. Aggregating is probably the wrong word and if I recall the right one I'll edit the post, but the idea is to begin to collate, organize, synthesize, and document everything I have learned so far. Part of this process I envision is that I will first go through the various notes I have from Marni's classes and consolidate those into one sequential notebook. I also would love to go through the Yoga Unveiled and create a written timeline of history of Yoga that is described in that movie. Perhaps making a poster of it so I can memorize it and really learn it.

Yoga Texts

I also want to continue to read the traditional, orthodox texts on yoga such at Light on Yoga by Iyengar,The Heart of Yoga: Developing a Personal Practice by T.K.V. Desikachar, Light on Pranayama by B.K.S Iyengar, Yoga for Americans by Indra Devi among others. I am skimming My Gita by Devdutt Pattanaik and it's really cool. I will need to go back and take copious notes in order to really absorb it, but I really like it. I'll also want to look at some other takes on the Bhagavad Gita like by Stephen Mitchell or Douglas Brooks. And maybe even a few different takes on the Yoga Sutras such as B.K.S. Iyengar's book. And more books from Devdutt Pattanaik who covers a lot of ground with his books.

Clearly I can read all of these books and it's only a partial list. For example there are a couple of interesting books on the Chakra system which might help me wrap my head around the chakra system - which right now is really outside my wheelhouse.

My current pattern for reading is after meditating in the morning, I read for about 20 minutes. But I don't only read yoga books but other books like Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach or Rising Greatly by Brene Brown, Refuge Recovery, etc. But to accomplish this, I'll need to start reading some of these at night or on the weekends. For now, I don't plan to make any changes to my pattern, we'll see where this year takes us.

My Own Indian Philosophy & History

The goal of this is to start putting together the timelines of the various traditions, vedic, vedantic, etc in my own hand with my own words. I hope to leverage the Yoga Unveiled dvd which runs through the history really, really well. At least in outline version to which I can then add my own notes from study of the texts above to flush out the history and the philosophy.

I hope to use this in my yoga classes to help weave themes. Even if I don't though I'll have a much better grasp on the history.

Adding Work Reading

One thing I decided to add to my general reading schedule is books that are for work. For example Drive by Daniel Pink, Lean and Agile Program Management by Johanna Rothman , Accelerate by Nicole Forsgren. For the last couple of years I have only read for fun or for "yoga" but not for work unless forced. This year I want to change that because I need to be able to grow at work as well in order for me to really help the people that report to me.

I will write one more post regarding my 2019 intentions and it'll mostly be a wrap-up, summary of all the posts.