I'm thinking of preparing this salad later for a friend's birthday dinner using kesong puti instead of feta. Hope they'll like it. Some of the grilled vegetables can also be tossed in pasta and we'll have another dish. Might taste the same but I guess the difference will be that the salad will be tangy because of the vinegar and the pasta will be savory. I wonder if I can get caramelized walnuts later at the groceries to add to the salad. Maybe instead of caramelized walnuts, I can use honeyed cashews or pili nuts.
Wish me luck.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
No glow...
"Your face is clear but there's no glow...", a friend said.
Maybe because I haven't been eating well (by that I mean homecooked meals) for the longest time.
I need to take charge of the situation... but not now... in 5 months inshallah. For now... I'm just surfing along.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Dr. Weil Discusses Eating Mindfully
Dr. Weil Discusses Eating Mindfully
When I went to the Sivananda ashram in Neyyar Dam two years ago, silence is observed during meal times. It was to practice mindfulness while eating and be really aware of the different tastes that the food offers... experiencing the present... and "concentrating on the enjoyment of the moment".
Om.
When I went to the Sivananda ashram in Neyyar Dam two years ago, silence is observed during meal times. It was to practice mindfulness while eating and be really aware of the different tastes that the food offers... experiencing the present... and "concentrating on the enjoyment of the moment".
Om.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Yogas citta vritti nirodhah - Part 2 of 2
continued...
Yoga is control of the energies of the mind
Yogas citta vritti nirodhah...
Yogas citta vritti nirodhah...
Yoga citta vritti nirodhah...
Done. One hundred and eight repetitions.
“So, what is yoga?” While traditional practitioners understand that itself is not limited only to the physical practice that most people do nowadays, a study done in Australia reported that at present, yoga is understood as a form of physical activity which people engage in to increase health and fitness, improve flexibility and muscle tone, and reduce stress. Before yoga hit mainstream, yoga was practiced as a spiritual disclipine. However, at present, practicing yoga for spiritual reasons only come in the picture after the practitioner has been doing for a long time. But still, that reason only comes in 5th of all the reasons mentioned in the study.
“You still haven’t answered the question. Again, what is yoga?”
Yogascittavritti nirodhah. Yoga is the control of the energies of the mind. That's how Patanjali defined yoga in the Yoga Sutras. However, as I mentioned in the previous article, yoga has now become a popular form of physical activity all throughout the world and people have come to equate yoga only with asana practice. Studies have been conducted and have showed promising results in yoga's ability to improve health, fitness, and well-being, that even physicians are recommending it to their patients. I leave the discussion on yoga as a spiritual discipline next time.
There are many styles of yoga and most of the popular styles which are practiced in the West are now here in the Philippines. I did some data-mining a few months ago and here’s a list of the styles that now being taught in the country. They are listed according to the total number of available classes per week.
Om.
***
The author is a faculty in UP Diliman where he teaches yoga as part of the general service physical education program and as a mind-body training for the UP Pep Squad.
He has long retired his cheer uniform but still cheers for the UP Fighting Maroons every UAAP basketball season... (but really, that's only because I want to see the Pep Squad perform live). He is contemplating on teaching them the yogic technique of levitation thinking maybe that will help them win the next championship title.
Yoga is control of the energies of the mind
Yogas citta vritti nirodhah...
Yogas citta vritti nirodhah...
Yoga citta vritti nirodhah...
Done. One hundred and eight repetitions.
“So, what is yoga?” While traditional practitioners understand that itself is not limited only to the physical practice that most people do nowadays, a study done in Australia reported that at present, yoga is understood as a form of physical activity which people engage in to increase health and fitness, improve flexibility and muscle tone, and reduce stress. Before yoga hit mainstream, yoga was practiced as a spiritual disclipine. However, at present, practicing yoga for spiritual reasons only come in the picture after the practitioner has been doing for a long time. But still, that reason only comes in 5th of all the reasons mentioned in the study.
“You still haven’t answered the question. Again, what is yoga?”
Yogascittavritti nirodhah. Yoga is the control of the energies of the mind. That's how Patanjali defined yoga in the Yoga Sutras. However, as I mentioned in the previous article, yoga has now become a popular form of physical activity all throughout the world and people have come to equate yoga only with asana practice. Studies have been conducted and have showed promising results in yoga's ability to improve health, fitness, and well-being, that even physicians are recommending it to their patients. I leave the discussion on yoga as a spiritual discipline next time.
There are many styles of yoga and most of the popular styles which are practiced in the West are now here in the Philippines. I did some data-mining a few months ago and here’s a list of the styles that now being taught in the country. They are listed according to the total number of available classes per week.
- Bikram Yoga - the original hot yoga.
- Hatha Yoga - the generic term for all asana-based classes which cannot be classified elsewhere (of course, all of these are really just forms of hatha yoga but for some reasons, when you go to yoga facilities, hatha yoga is used to classify generic classes.)
- Ashtanga Yoga - the traditional method taught by Sri Pattabhi Jois
- Vinyasa/Flow - all other methods which uses breath-movement synchronization technique.
- Hot Yoga - generic term used for any class done in a heated room.
- Gentle Yoga - a more restorative and relaxing style of class.
- Power Yoga - almost similar to vinyasa/flow but inspired more by the ashtanga yoga tradition.
- Iyengar Yoga - created by BKS Iyengar, a contemporary of Sri Pattabhi Jois. Uses props like blocks, belts, blankets, ropes, and chairs to help the practitioner sustain the pose longer.
Om.
***
The author is a faculty in UP Diliman where he teaches yoga as part of the general service physical education program and as a mind-body training for the UP Pep Squad.
He has long retired his cheer uniform but still cheers for the UP Fighting Maroons every UAAP basketball season... (but really, that's only because I want to see the Pep Squad perform live). He is contemplating on teaching them the yogic technique of levitation thinking maybe that will help them win the next championship title.
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Yogas citta vritti nirodhah - Part 1 of 2
Yoga is control of the energies of the mind
It was in November 2001. We won the UAAP cheerleading championship for the third straight year a couple of months back and were still high with cheer spirit when my teammates and I found this poster announcing free yoga classes every Sunday at the COD Shopping Center in Cubao.
“That’s cool, maybe we can learn some new moves and use that for next year’s routine,” we thought.
A year back, I was already reading this Sivananda Yoga book that I found at the library and sporadically tried to practice the asanas in the living room of a 2-storey-2-bedroom apartment in Katipunan that I shared with six other friends. Three of us shared one tiny room and I could only have my privacy in the toilet. For a state university instructor who earned less than USD300 per month, the privacy of my own room was beyond reach.
Fritz and Jill went one Sunday to the free yoga class. Both said the class was awesome so I joined them the next week to experience my very first yoga class. The class was taught by this hippy-looking-red-haired mestiza. Her name was Sandy Carmona, one of the frontrunners of mainstream yoga in the country, who later became an influential person in my own journey. She instructed us to lie down in a pose called, savasana which means corpse pose. You were not suppose to move any muscle in the body until the end of that segment because it was in itself is an asana, or yogic posture. The idea is to remain motionless and as still and steady as possible observing each sensation that one feels in the body. You’re not suppose to scratch your nose or your butt, nor slap that mosquito that’s enjoying your Type AB blood. Sandy then led us through a 90-minute long of moving meditation that made me sweat like I never had even in my years of movement and sports training.
“Whoa!!! So this is yoga.” (If there was already Facebook, I would be “like-ing” this status many times over.)
I would later learn from Sandy that yoga is much more than what we were doing on the mat. Yoga is a way of life, a discipline, and a holistic approach to health and wellness. Oh, and did I tell you that you couldn’t buy sticky yoga mats from Toby’s back then? You have to order it from the US. I’m not even sure if Lululemon had already reached the Philippine shore.
“What’s a Lululemon?”
You don’t know “Lulu?” Hmnn... let me put it this way. If you think Nike is expensive, then you’ll think that Lulu is beyond expensive. One Lululemon top is already worth 1/3 of my salary in UP when I was still an instructor. Of course now that I’ve been promoted to assistant instructor level, that’s equivalent to ¼ of my current salary. We’ll discuss this whole Lululemon-thing in another post.
For now, let’s go back to yoga and I will let you ponder upon the meaning of yoga according to Patanjali.
“Who the hell is Patanjali?”
Dude, do your research. You can check him out on wikipedia later. Just sit, close your eyes, and repeat this 108 times.
Yogas citta vritti nirodhah...
Yogas citta vritti nirodhah...
Yoga citta vritti nirodhah...
To be continued...
It was in November 2001. We won the UAAP cheerleading championship for the third straight year a couple of months back and were still high with cheer spirit when my teammates and I found this poster announcing free yoga classes every Sunday at the COD Shopping Center in Cubao.
“That’s cool, maybe we can learn some new moves and use that for next year’s routine,” we thought.
A year back, I was already reading this Sivananda Yoga book that I found at the library and sporadically tried to practice the asanas in the living room of a 2-storey-2-bedroom apartment in Katipunan that I shared with six other friends. Three of us shared one tiny room and I could only have my privacy in the toilet. For a state university instructor who earned less than USD300 per month, the privacy of my own room was beyond reach.
Fritz and Jill went one Sunday to the free yoga class. Both said the class was awesome so I joined them the next week to experience my very first yoga class. The class was taught by this hippy-looking-red-haired mestiza. Her name was Sandy Carmona, one of the frontrunners of mainstream yoga in the country, who later became an influential person in my own journey. She instructed us to lie down in a pose called, savasana which means corpse pose. You were not suppose to move any muscle in the body until the end of that segment because it was in itself is an asana, or yogic posture. The idea is to remain motionless and as still and steady as possible observing each sensation that one feels in the body. You’re not suppose to scratch your nose or your butt, nor slap that mosquito that’s enjoying your Type AB blood. Sandy then led us through a 90-minute long of moving meditation that made me sweat like I never had even in my years of movement and sports training.
“Whoa!!! So this is yoga.” (If there was already Facebook, I would be “like-ing” this status many times over.)
I would later learn from Sandy that yoga is much more than what we were doing on the mat. Yoga is a way of life, a discipline, and a holistic approach to health and wellness. Oh, and did I tell you that you couldn’t buy sticky yoga mats from Toby’s back then? You have to order it from the US. I’m not even sure if Lululemon had already reached the Philippine shore.
“What’s a Lululemon?”
You don’t know “Lulu?” Hmnn... let me put it this way. If you think Nike is expensive, then you’ll think that Lulu is beyond expensive. One Lululemon top is already worth 1/3 of my salary in UP when I was still an instructor. Of course now that I’ve been promoted to assistant instructor level, that’s equivalent to ¼ of my current salary. We’ll discuss this whole Lululemon-thing in another post.
For now, let’s go back to yoga and I will let you ponder upon the meaning of yoga according to Patanjali.
“Who the hell is Patanjali?”
Dude, do your research. You can check him out on wikipedia later. Just sit, close your eyes, and repeat this 108 times.
Yogas citta vritti nirodhah...
Yogas citta vritti nirodhah...
Yoga citta vritti nirodhah...
To be continued...
Friday, October 15, 2010
Atha Yoganusashanam - Part 2 of 2
Part II...
- This studio is probably the ultimate destination for the urban yogins as it offers a wide range of classes that suits one’s schedule and preference. It became the first Yoga Alliance-registered school in the Philippines in 2007 and commissioned AYRI (now KPJAYI)-certified ashtanga teacher Alex Medin to conduct its teacher training for two years. Pulse Yoga now has three studios – Makati, Greenhills, and New Manila.
- If you’re only interested in yoga as a form of physical activity and want value for money, then Fitness First is probably your best choice. Aside from its regular fitness programs, FF also offers flow-based yoga classes in most of its branches. Their instructors have 200-hour credentials and are trained in creating mind-body workouts that can range from gentle to challenging. If possible, choose a branch that has a separate mind-body studio. You wouldn’t want to come into a group exercise studio that still has that sweaty atmosphere from the previous Body Combat class. Fitness First has started its operations in the country in the early 2000 but it was only in 2006 that it started to offer yoga as part of its regular program.
- Prana Yoga offers three types of vinyasa- or flow-based classes: dynamic flow, gentle flow, and hot flow. At present, classes are being offered at the Metropolitan Club in Mandaluyong.
- This eco-friendly studio uses only recycled, non-toxic, and biodegradable materials in constructing the practice place. Located in the heart of Makati, Bliss Yoga offers mostly power and vinyasa flow classes, but has recently added ashtanga vinyasa into their program.
- EchoYoga is Echostore Sustainable Lifestyle’s yoga wellness program aimed mostly for beginners. The program offers a variety of classes and creative workshops that focus on building home practice. Classes are offered at two venues in Makati: Salcedo Village and Legaspi Village.
These studios are the more popular places to go to for yoga classes. I will write about other less fancy and not-so-popular yoga studios in my next post . These places may not offer you herbal tea or hot towel upon your arrival but for sure, the teachers offer the same genuine teachings based on many years of personal practice and/or professional training.
Om. Om. Om.
***
The author is a faculty member in one of the state universities in Quezon City where he teaches yoga as part of the general service physical education program and as a mind-body training for the university cheerleading squad.
On weekdays, the author teaches yoga in a small makeshift yoga shala with floor covered with not-so-smelly old judo mats, but on weekends, he gets upgraded and teaches in the yoga studio of a high end spa in Mandaluyong complete with aromatherapy and tranquil spa music where one can request for lemon water before and after practice.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Atha Yoganusashanam - Part 1 of 2
Now, the journey to yoga begins...
The burning incense masked the smelly aikido mat in the 4th floor of a dilapidated building in the heart of Cubao. New age spiritual music was playing softly in the background. I lay down on the mat with my eyes closed as I followed the voice of the red-haired lady who would later become my teacher and guide in this path. One and a half hours later, I was drenched in sweat. Lying back down in the relaxation pose called savasana, peacefulness filled my being. That was my first yoga class experience. No marble floors, no fancy lounge areas, and no trained staff to welcome you with tea, lemon water, or hot towel. That was yoga almost 10 years ago.
Yoga has now become a popular form of physical activity that most fitness and wellness centers offer it as part of their group exercise programs. Fitness First, for example, has flow-based classes that focus more on increasing strength, flexibility, and balance.
Specialized yoga studios have also sprouted throughout Metro Manila in the last 5 years making yoga accessible to most Filipinos, or at least to those who live in the area. Some of these studios are dedicated only to one particular style of yoga while some are multi-styles offering most of the popular forms being practiced in the West. Most of the popular studios are located in Makati and Ortigas but there are also several small and less popular places where one can start to learn this mind-body discipline.
Here is a list of places where you can study yoga. I listed them according to the year of operation.
- Ananda Marga Yoga Center (www.yogainmanila.org) - 1967
- Ananda Marga is probably the oldest organization in the Philippines to offer hatha yoga classes which are open to public. I believe that in the beginning, only those who are spiritually-inclined joined their classes because of the philosophical and wholistic focus of the organization. Yoga was not a mainstream activity until the early 2000.
- Iyengar Yoga Center Manila (www.iyengaryogamanila.com) – 2004
- This is the only authorized center to teach the Iyengar method in the Philippines. Iyengar yoga, named after its developer, BKS Iyengar, focuses on precise anatomical alignment and uses props such as belts, ropes, blankets, blocks, and chairs, to assist the practitioner in performing the yoga asanas safely and for a longer period of time in order to increase body awareness. All IYCM teachers received their certification to teach the method from the Ramamani Iyengar Memorial Institute in Pune, India.
- Bikram Yoga Manila (www.bikramyogamanila.com) – 2006
- Owned by businessman-turned yogi Tristan Choa, Bikram Yoga Manila, was the first officially sanctioned Bikram Yoga studio in the Philippines. Bikram Yoga, developed and popularized by Mr. Bikram Choudhury, is a method consisting of 26 postures performed in a 105 degrees Farenheit (40 degrees Celsius) room. It is currently the most popular form of yoga being practiced in the country based on the number of classes being offered per week. Bikram Yoga Manila has branches in Makati and Quezon City. Two other studios received authorization to teach the method: Sundar Bikram Greenhills (http://bikramyogagreenhills.com/) and Bikram Yoga Eastwood (http://www.bikramyogaeastwood.com/).
- Yoga Manila (www.yogamanila.com) – 2006
- Yoga Manila was formed by 15 dedicated men and women who wanted a space where they can deepen and continue their practice together. Most of them studied with Bela Lipat and Hoze Arando in the early 2000. While Hoze, together with my first teacher Sandy Carmona, introduced ashtanga yoga to the Philippines in 2000, it was Bela who brought Paul Dallaghan to the Philippines in 2003 and stoke the ashtanga fire in most dedicated ashtangis during first half of last decade. YM offers mainly led and mysore-style ashtanga classes. Slow flow, pre-natal, kids yoga, and meditation classes are also offered in different YM locations.
- Vinyasa Yoga Center (http://vinyasayogacenter.com/vinyasawebsite/) - 2006
- Vinyasa Yoga Center opened its door in the heart of the Ortigas business district in 2006. It offered mainly hatha vinyasa classes with long-time practitioner and ISKON monk, Pio Baquiran as its primary teacher. Hatha vinyasa yoga basically derived inspiration from Krishnamacharya’s teaching of linking 2-3 postures in one fluid sequence. The intensity of each class varies from gentle to vigorous which makes hatha vinyasa yoga an interesting style for anyone regardless of age and fitness level. The focus of each class also varies depending on what the students need.
To be continued...
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Paul Dallaghan on asanas and koshas
Guru Brahma
Guru Vishnu
Guru Devo Mahesvaraha
Guru Sakshat Parabrahma
Taismai Shri Gurave Namaha
Monday, October 4, 2010
World Vegetarian Awareness Month
For activities that you can do this month,
visit the world vegetarian day website here.
***
Thanks to Chona for sharing the info.
It's been more than a month since my last post. I wasn't planning of posting anything until I read Chona's entry on the world vegetarian awareness month.
This week is the last week of classes at the university. My tue-thu pe2 yoga class will be having a vegetarian feast tomorrow so it will be our way of celebrating this campaign.
Om.
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