All right. Hello everyone it's me Ethan in this video today I'm going to tell
you how you can transform your ashtanga yoga practice right now during the
lockdown. So, I am out here in the beautiful little town of Port Alfred
South Africa staying in my family home and we have been on lockdown together
for a while. I'm now starting to hear stories from my students around the
world that some of them are just entering the lockdown or some of them
are having the lockdown extended so it looks like we're going to be in this
situation for a little bit longer than expected. I am still feeling very happy
and healthy and free out here during the lockdown but I understand that the
situation presents a lot of challenges for yoga teachers and for students
around the world. I think it's fundamentally important
that during this time we see the yoga practice as the grounding force that
holds everything else in life together. There are a lot of things right now that
need to be put on hold and maybe some things need to be picked up again at a
later stage and looked at to see if they can be continued
but the ashtanga yoga practice is not one of them
Yogis during this time you need to take responsibility for your practice
whether you know it or not if you've been practicing Ashtanga by the
traditional method for any length of time, since the first day you stepped
into the Mysore room, you unrolled your mat and stepped up ready to learn Surya
Namaskara A, you have been building towards dealing with situations exactly
like this. The ashtanga yoga practice is a self-sustainable practice and it is a
long-term practice. When we're on the path of ashtanga yoga we certainly try
our best to be on the path of a spiritual seeker and I can't imagine
that you would go very far down the road without learning to practice on your own
it is important during this time that you do not see the practice as this
harsh daily discipline that you need to put the body through because when you
take on that mentality you very quickly lose sight of the fact that this
practice is a ritual, and it is a ritual that we move through consistently with the
specific intention of keeping the body and mind in balance and staying in our
ideal level of physical and mental health
sooner or later on your journey you will have to learn to practice by yourself
without the tremendous energy of the group lifting you and carrying you
through difficult practices and without the commanding presence or the nurturing
presence of your teacher watching over you as you practice if you are at a
stage where you feel that you would benefit from taking online classes
fortunately these are now available in glorious abundance there are some very
very highly respected teachers offering classes online during this time but
understand this, when you take these classes the benefit of that is
specifically that you remain connected to a community of people who are similar
to you while you might otherwise be feeling a little bit isolated and you
also receive the observation of a teacher who might give you some verbal
cues. These classes should not be used to reinforce this dependence on having
somebody watch you every time you practice. You need to learn to be the
observer of your own practice to observe your movements and your breaths while
you practice and observe the tendencies that you have during the days and weeks
of the lockdown. I'm not saying that you need to
constantly be making progress in the physical practice, that you need to be
going deeper into the postures or that you need to be advancing in the sequence
at all during this time the lockdown situation presents a glorious
opportunity for you to lean in and integrate yourself practice and when you
do that you come away from it with this unshakable self-confidence knowing that
you will unwavering you step up bravely facing yourself practice on a consistent
basis no matter what the external circumstances are. That is a tremendously
empowering way to transform your practice during this time. Okay
Yogis thank you so much for watching the video share this video if you want
to if you don't want to then don't do it. I very much hope to see you all soon. I
hope that you'll all stay safe.
Thank you [Music]