Welcome to the adventures of the Yoga Union yoga challenge 2016 in the new Breathe Building. The Yoga Challenge begins today, April 1st. The goal is twenty classes in thirty days. I will be doing the challenge and regularly blogging about it. Yoga Union has been doing the yoga challenge for the last nine years. This will be my sixth time doing the challenge. It was the yoga challenge back in 2011 that took my practice to a new level. I started to understand the idea of a lifelong practice of knowing and understanding my body as I never had before. My first yoga challenge happened at a turning point in my life, and I have been hooked every since. Every April I redefine my relationship to my yoga practice, as I take the challenge and see what happens. Spring time is about the sprouting of new life and the rising up of the energy that has been churning under the earth all winter. New challenges begin to present themselves, and new resolutions also begin to appear. My heart is overjoyed this year to share my yoga challenge blog with the Yoga Union community. It is an honor to be a part of this community and to have seen all the changes happen, especially over the last year.
My question this year is about strength. Strength in the physical structure, strength in the mind, and strength in the community that surrounds us. The more I practice and deepen my study of yoga, the more I think about the duality of strength versus flexibility. I think about the opposing forces of movement versus stillness. These are the yin and the yang of each other, and somewhere in the middle is the balance. They are all equally important and full of lessons.
In this month of April, I will also be doing the Nourishment Program through Prema Health. This will include adding daily self care practices and taking out things that don’t serve me. I look forward to this month of challenges. I hope you will join me as I blog my way through it!
Verse Thirty-Three- from the Tao Te Ching:
Knowing others is wisdom;
Knowing the self is enlightenment.
Mastering others requires force;
Mastering the self needs strength.
He who knows he has enough is rich.
Perseverance is a sign of will power.
He who stays where he is endures.
To die not to perish is to be eternally present.
Thank you so much for this verse from the Tao Te Ching! Invaluable.
For sure! This is the ultimate Savasana quote: “To die not to perish is to be eternally present.”