Did you finish day 2?

Did you like the tabata?

My friend from @theyoga.club Liz @lizzoouli suggested I record my practice to check in on some asymmetries I'm balancing. She’s worried I don’t get enough time with a teacher for myself. I broke my ankle and rib last year getting hit by a bicyclist, and my wrist about a year before that getting hit by a car. I am really proud of my generally good attitude, outside of one meltdown phone call ( thanks @made_by_mara !!). Yoga has instilled patience and persistence, pragmatism and a solutions focused growth mindset. 10/10, would recommend. The yoga, that is. The getting hit by stuff is a 2/10.

If you need some support in your practice or healing journey, hmu. This stuff works.

Here’s some stuff I do in order to wrestle with the nature of reality and the infinite. It’s mostly stuff to affect physiological change towards general well being layered with meditation and mindset. These disparate systems encourage an emergence of something greater than the sum of their parts. It looks some kinda way.

Here’s some stuff I do in order to wrestle with the nature of reality and the infinite. It’s mostly stuff to affect physiological change towards general well being layered with meditation and mindset. These disparate systems encourage an emergence of something greater than the sum of their parts. It looks some kinda way.

This is really excellent

exploring adaptation from a place of curiosity tends to be helpful as practice for when the exploration is by neccesity.

When I got to Goa, I felt anonymous again.

In Mysore, I felt like everyone had heard. I was the ashtangi who got hate crime'd in the face after his house burned down. I wanted to be the tall pretty one. Or the smart one. But for now, I was very much the tragic one.

Luckily, Rolf wasn’t watching the news. I was just one more 6'3 drop back for him to do. And he was happy to oblige-- quietly sharing lite bits here and there in my ear about his work. But not so happy with it that I didn’t get assigned sone extra. Great.

After 26 years of shrinking myself for others, I got to just be the big one. You gotta gang up to take the big one down, and that's what was happening in real life. Literal gangs at home on the street, and little yogi gangs jockeying for status in Mysore.

When you question your ability to be loved by the universe, it is very helpful to see real love pouring out of someone else’s eyes.

Rolf didn’t need to know that I was stitched together with laughy taffy and titanium. Marci went to work on putting my physical injuries to bed and Rolf my heart. Neither needed a narrative. it is good, because I was so sick of my own story I couldn’t take it anymore.

As I’ve been working on my book-- it’s almost done -- the only part that I haven’t gotten into is my introduction into Systems Thinking-- through a gang beatdown.

I have known catastrophe again and again and gotten up to go again and again. This might sound like hubris, but check my receipts.

Rolf was able to help me see the interconnected nature of things in a way that makes the big picture possible. He also helped me understand how unspecial I was — while also feeling very very, very special. As Rolf would say, you do as you feel, and every day, the Yoga grows inside of you like a little plant.

In many ways, the development of my practice and the autonomy — the Santosh— the self sufficiency — means that there is less labor for my teacher to take on. Now i understand that my desire to be better in my physical practice was also so that Rolf had to do less for me.

Since he’s dead now, I will have to put my thigh down on the ground myself.

word

✨ Breathe Your Way to Peak Performance ✨

Ever feel like your breath is holding you back in sports? 🏃‍♂️💨 Discover how breath training can transform your game, from boosting stamina to sharpening focus. Whether you’re a weekend warrior or an elite athlete, mastering your breath is the secret weapon you never knew you needed! 🌬️💪

Ready to unlock your full potential? Let’s dive deep (literally) into the power of breath! 🌟

Visit michaeljoelhall.com

#BreatheBetter #PeakPerformance #AthleteMindset #BreathTraining

Between backbends

Transitions Playground
Saturday after Mysore

healing this ol’ cage one rib atta time

When I started practicing in 2002, there wasnt a yoga studio on every corner. Yoga hadn’t quite hit the granola standard yet (when its not just for hippies anymore). Practice in general was still counterculture, with lineage-based yoga studios having been established for a decade or two. It wasnt yet seen from a consumerist athleisure lens.
This was at a time when traditional yoga studios had begun to propagate naturally into smaller studios from their spry, allowing 30-something teachers to enter full time teaching, inside their own four walls. It was a time before the big boxes, the local chains, and venture capital from Wall Street. Yes, at one time, independent yoga studios were owned by people who had made exotic journeys and devoted insane amounts of time to their spiritual quests amd studies.

So what happened? Head to michaeljoelhall.com to read more.