Happy New Year! Welcome 2021!

Happy New Year!!

It is finally 2021! The year that was 2020 is finally completed and most of us made it through. For the 350,000 plus Americans that did not make due to the criminal behavior of the US President, you have my sincerest condolences.

2021 will see Joe Biden become President, and we will see a vaccine delivered however slowly that may be such that we can get back to a non-pandemic lifestyle. It will be a time of celebration, of release, of great joy. There will of course be the normal life difficulties but compared to 2020, we will see a resurgence of optimism and spirit! And I hope for each and everyone of us best wishes and good health for the new year.

Change Your Brain; Neuroscientist Dr. Andrew Huberman

I just listened to this podcast. Wow, it was really good. It is Rich Roll's Channel on Youtube. I have been subscribed to Rich's podcast for several years now. I discovered Rich when he spoke at the Cleveland Vegfest in what 2016, maybe 2017. He was one of the keynote speakers, and his wife Julie Piatt co-taught the yoga class the kicked the vegfest of with my teacher, Marni Task. Mostly because via the Esselstyn's I knew he was a vegan ultra marathoner, but when I heard his story at Vegfest it was his story of recovery from addiction that really hit home with me (I'm a recovering alcoholic of 25 years) and the connection to a whole food, plant-based diet.

New Website: First Thoughts

I've been playing with Django again and playing with Google Cloud services though I may end up trying Amazon's AWS Services. Part of it is to remember what I used to know as well as learn what's new in the cloud service world. It's been close to a decade perhaps a little more since I've really played with it. It's kind of fun getting back into it even though I'm not a coder in and real sense, but I can do simple stuff - like a django website.

Arisa and I are preparing for when we "retire" from regular work jobs. However, we'll never have enough money that we can stop working so we are loosely planning our "second careers". We both have begun our own journeys along completely separate path than we would have ever imagined. We hope to combine our separate "specialties" into a multiple service wellness business. For me that means Yoga, Meditation, and whole food, plant-based dietary lifestyle coaching. For Arisa that means Reflexology and Kikou (気功), or it's more well known Chinese name of Qigong. It is similer to Reiki (霊気) which is probably more well known in the US than Kikou. Since we are thinking about that, I figure I can kill two birds with one stone and start on our new website as I learn django and all this cloud computing stuff.

Finally To Chapter 4: Kaivalya Pada

As you may recall, I am reading three different version of the Yoga Sutras - the first being T.K.V. Desikachar's translation and commentary, Swami Satchidananda's translation and commentary, as Edwin Bryant's tome. I generally read on sutra per day, and read it from each of the books. Often Edwin's version will have a lengthy discussion as well which is really educational.

Long story short, it has been taking a while to read through the Sutras but I have finally reached the last and final chapter Kaivalya Pada, or as one of them translated it Absolute Independence.

Progress is progress but I'd probably be making more of that if I were only reading one, but more importantly weren't taking a Yoga Sutra's workshop with Dr. Bryant Which I have now extended to include his study group, or Svādhyāya-śālā on Friday nights. This class is currently studyig the Sāṃkhya Kārikā. Dr. Bryant says on his website:

This is the primary text of the Sāṃkhya School – it plays the same canonical role for Sāṃkhya as the Yoga Sūtras play for Yoga. We can note that actually Yoga and Sāṃkhya were originally one system (as the Gītā also notes: V.3-4), with Sāṃkhya occupying itself primarily with the metaphysics of prakṛti, and Yoga with the practices leading to puruṣa.

If you are interested feel free to come on Friday evening's at 6pm. Check his side for the specific dates.

Magic 10 and Beyond

Tonight I am taking a workshop lead by one of my favorite yoga teachers, Jennifer Lenhart (Jivamukti Profile), and owner of Satasang Yoga in Berea. the workshop is based on the book The Magic 10 and Beyond by Sharon Gannon, co-founder of Jivamukti Yoga.

The Magic 10 itself is a series of yoga poses that takes about 10 minutes to complete. It moves the spine in every direction it can, with folds, twists and even handstand. It is a great warm up sequence for a long practice. If you are short on time, you can still get a yoga practice in.

The key to the book is the "beyond in the title of the book. The book goes into a whole series of activities that come together as a daily spiritual practice, allowing adopters to achieve greater peace and overall well being.

I am really excited to see what Jennifer is going to do with this. Whatever it is I know it will be good!

Yoga Sutras; Svadhyaya, Satsang

I've enrolled in an Embodied Philosophy 6 week workshop studying the Yoga Sutras with Edwin Bryant. I actually began reading his book The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali earlier this year in cominbation with two other versions (The Heart of Yoga by T.K.V. Desikachar and The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali by Sri Swami satchidananda) and I found Bryant's the most accessible to me. I also liked the Heart of Yoga which is more than just the Yoga Sutras. The last section of that book includes Sri Deskikachar's translation and commentary on the sutras so when I got their I decided to take do a comparison reading

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!

2019 Intentions - Part 1: Journaling

Like every year, I hope to get back to blogging more. I'll touch on the why of that for this year in a later post - assuming I ever make more than one or two posts. This post is intended to be a post about just one intention or goal I have for 2019. I have about 10, many of which are interrelated. I am hoping that by delving into each one I'll get a little bit more traction towards accomplishing them this year.

So my intention is to journal every single day of 2019. At least once a day. Now, I'm not going to freak out if I miss a day, I've done enough all or nothing resolutions to know they don't work if you are really trying to create a change. My focus is to set an intention(s) or goals that I want to achieve by the end of the year. So when I say I'll journal every day I mean by the end of the year journaling on a daily basis will be an establish part of my day-to-day activities.

Weekly Tao Te Ching Verse - Week #28

UPDATE: I have now I idea how this got published with Verse 26 and 27 in it instead of Verse 28. Verse 26 and 27 were already posted here. I am updating this post with Verse 28.

What a busy week this was! We finished the Engine 2 Seven Day Rescue, at work we did planning for the quarter, worked with one of my teams to do an agile assessment that should help them create their OKRs for quarter one. I subbed at Hyland for the wonderful Colleen Alber on Tuesday night, had dinner with a friend on Wednesday night, taught my sober yogis class at Soul Stretch Yoga on Friday night, and Fitworks on Sunday. I got home late Friday night having a long talk with one of the people who came to the yoga class and discussion our. I overslept and missed Marni's class but I made it at Cleveland Yoga on Sunday morning.

But Tuesday and Thursday were the days I was really jazzed about. On Tuesday, some participants got their "after blood work done and we met at lunch for the results reveal.

Here we are with the peace sign of Rip's "Peace, Engine Two, Plant Strong" mantra. Can you see who joined us for the lunch? Yup, Jane Esselstyn of Health Care is Self Care and Rip's sister, more importantly my friend.

Weekly Tao Te Ching Verse - Week #26 and #27

So I missed a week. Thank goodness it wasn't an resolution for this year or I would have already failed. Luckily, I don't really do resolutions anymore. I am going more for intentions. A friend of mine shared hers with me they were really well constructed. I still am working out doing mine right. For now they are more like a task list. I will share them in detail at some point, just not today. They are all centered around two main things with a little 12 steps stuff. Those to main things should not surprise you if you know me; Yoga and Whole Food, Plant Based eating.

Weekly Tao Te Ching Verse - Week #25

Happy New Year!

So we have entered 2017. I will continue to post once a week until I have posted all 81 verses.

This last week was slow at work due to most folks haven taken PTO to spend time with family and friends over the holidays. Due to the fact that Arisa and I used most of our PTO on going to Japan this year we worked most of the week. Which was kind of too bad since my oldest, Elly, is in town for the week.

Luckily I was able to find time to organize with the Dietitian at the Hyland Wellness Center an plan to participate in the Engine 2 Seven Day Rescue. We'll be starting it a little after the official start simply due to the corporate calendar. We'll start with a "launch" on Jan. 5th, and the challenge will begin on the 10th. For those opting to, we'll have biometric screenings with simple blood work at the start and end of the challenge. It should give participants a good snapshot of how quickly a plant-based diet can improve your health. The really great thing is we already have 20 people signed up and this is with most employees out on holiday. I am confident we'll get to close to 25, maybe more. Which is pretty darn amazing since it was all planned at the last minute.

Weekly Tao Te Ching Verse - Week #24

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas, a Happy Hannukah, or Happy Kwanzaa. Or whatever other holiday floats your boat this time of year. Although I no longer consider myself a Christian, I do celebrate Christmas since I was raised Christian and family traditions around the Christmas Holiday.

I taught my last "community" class at 3Sisters at least on Friday nights because it will conflict with my Sober Yogi class I teach at Soul Stretch in Westlake. I also taught my weekly Fitworks class as well as subbing on Wednesday night. I am now over 50 hours of teaching since getting certified. Still have a long way to go as a Yoga instructor but so much better than when I was first certified. Still need to find my voice in terms of expressing and talking about themes. Well themes with a spiritual bent anyway.

The Fourth Limb of Yoga - Pranayama

So this year I have been slowly reviewing the the 8 Limbs of Yoga in order to figure out what my intentions for 2016 are going to be. Clearly, since it is already November, this process will transition to preparing for setting my 2017 intentions. As we get closer to the New Year's or early next year I'll review what I had defined, what I achieved and see where we end up. But let's keep moving forward.

Which means, next up of the 8 Limbs is the fourth one, Pranayama.

Weekly Tao Te Ching Verse - Week #23

This weekend started off with my Sober Yogi Hour followed by a Life Is Good discussion. After YTT Anatomy weekend last weekend, I was back to teaching my class at Fitworks. I also subbed at Stat Crossfit at 8am on Sunday before heading to my weekly infusion of Marni Goodness. Went grocery shopping and Christmas present shopping then spent the rest of the day cooking, watching football (Browns, ugh).

Weekly Tao Te Ching Verse - Week #22

This weekend started off with my Sober Yogi Hour followed by a Life Is Good discussion. Spent most of the rest of the weekend taking Gina Schatz's Anatomy class for Marni Task's YTT program. I skipped out early on Sunday to take my fellow YTT grad Kim Hackman's restorative yoga class at Confluence. I may or may not have snored.

Weekly Tao Te Ching Verse - Week #21

This weekend started off with my Sober Yogi Hour followed by a Life Is Good discussion. Took my weekly infusion of Marni Task goodness on Saturday morning before teaching at Fitworks in Highland Heights. Sunday I headed out early to take Lori Palmer's yoga class at Soul Stretch in Westlake.

Sober Yogi Yoga at Soul Stretch Yoga in Westlake

So if everything goes according to plan, Soul Stretch Yoga in Westlake will open its doors for business this Friday Dec. 2nd. I am also happy to announce the inaugural Sober Yogi class on Friday at 6:30pm where we will begin the journey of exploring the integration 12 Step programs, the 8 Limbs of Yoga, and a whole foods, plant based diet in recovering addicts lives. After 60 minutes of an All Levels Vinyasa flow we'll have an hour long Life is Good discussion recapping all the good things that have happened in the last week because we are sober.

The class is a donations based class, and we are suggesting a $5 donation. All donations received during the month of December will go to The Lantern Center for Recovery in Cleveland (http://www.thelantern.info/) . The Lantern Center's mission is to provide quality sober living to chemically dependent men and to educate and assist people with recovery from drug & alcohol addiction. So if you want to donate more please feel free!

I am a recovering alcoholic of 21 years, a recovering smoker of 4 years and a SAD (Standard American Diet) recovering addict. My class is open to addicts of all persuasions with the only caveat that your are committed to your recovery process.

I do get a lot of questions about classes for friends and family. While the Sober Yogi class is for recovering addicts only, the Roots of Recovery classes are open to everyone impacted by addictions - friends, families, and the addicts themselves. Check the Soul Stretch Website or Mindbody for the schedule details.

If you know someone who may be interested, feel free to share this post.

Weekly Tao Te Ching Verse - Week #20

So this was a "long" weekend since it was Thanksgiving. I subbed on Wednesday night at the Highland Heights Fitworks which was pretty fun. For Thanksgiving, I pretty much cooked all day long and took it all down to Mom's apartment and Judson Manor .and we had a really good time. We had an extensive conversation with Mom about how she is struggling with the transition to her new abode. As nice at it is it's not the house she lived in for 25 or 30 years of her life. It was really good to get "real" with her.

Weekly Tao Te Ching Verse - Week #18

Started the weekend off doing a double at 3 Sisters followed by Marni on Saturday morning. Taught at Fitworks after Marni's class at Cleveland Yoga then subbed for a friend at Stat Crossfit in Avon.

In the afternoon I was Metrohealth auditorium for PlantBasedCLE's screening of Food Choices. And we had a great panel discussion including Dr. Pam Popper, Jane Esselstyn, Brian Hart, and Patricia Slimbarski.

The Third Limb of Yoga - Asana

In two previous posts, I reviewed the first two limbs of Patanlji's 8 Limbs of Yoga, Yama and Niyama. Those two limbs contain the equivalent of the 10 commandments; the first five focus on how to treat others, the second five on how you and your actions. The third limb is the one most people seem to consider Yoga until they really begin to practice. Actually for many people this is all there is even knowing seven other limbs exist. And that's okay, but the goal I set at the beginning of the year was to be more yogic.

So we need to dig a little deeper and understand it in context of all 8 limbs.