Sunday Funnies

We can use humor to take the sting out of talking about hings that really, really, bug yoga teachers! Here is the series of yoga etiquette videos put together by Tejas Yoga.

Wild Yoga Love

The kettle whispers on the stove, I don’t put the whistle down because I like to keep the water hot for pouring over my stovetop espresso to make Americanos in the morning. It’s the easiest way to keep hot water around when one does not have a standard drip coffee maker. That whisper makes me think of yoga, the gentle seeping of yoga into my life, subtly reminding me to head to the mat before my days begins, Except that right now, I do not need gentle reminder, I need a sharp piercing whistle to send me running from the shower or closet to snatch the screaming kettle off the stove and hurl me onto my mat. I need a steamy, reckless love affair with yoga. I need to be swept off on a weeklong rendezvous with a sweaty pulsing vinyasa get away. 

I spent the last year in an amazing Teacher Train course at Tejas Yoga in Chicago’s bustling South Loop. It was an amazing year; steeped in the teachings of Hatha yoga under two of the most inspiring teachers I have meet, James Tennant and Jim Bennitt. Trust me, if you find yourself in Chicago take the time to go visit their studio! The thing I love most about my teachers is how subtly they integrate yoga into your life. You never once feel like you are being told how to do or feel about yoga; “My intention is not to make you feel the way I do about yoga. My intention is to be a support system for you to discover what yoga means to you” James Tennant says.  But his enthusiasms is infectious and even without meaning to simple things like making coffee and washing your face in the morning seem to take on a yogic style. So the past year has been just that for me, feeling, accepting, and noticing yoga in everything I do. Marveling at the subtleties and smiling as I engage mulabandha while push my lawn mower up an incline. It’s a gift you can’t really describe and I am grateful for the experience but now I need something different.

I need a Shiva Rea, a yogi who practically burst with joy and love when she teaches vinyasa flow. Like Shiva Rea I need to sway my hips over the mat, let my arms dance wide expanding my heart, I need to feel my heart beat along with beats dropped my MC Yogi and DJ Drez. I need to dance in my yoga out on the grass under the summer sun and sweat out all linger winter introspection. In my head I hear the words of poets like Rumi and Rilke who dove so deep into the love of God and Nature that words tumble out of them soaked in awe. I need to whirl like a dervish inside and let my limbs move through asanas like wind just before a summer storm. And the best part of this longing for wild love type yoga? It’s out there! Yoga is there to fit into any size need you have. It’s out here to envelope you in whatever kind of shape you are in. and it is out there to shimmy up beside you and dance like no one is watching!

Sunday Funnies

I had a different Sunday Funny to post today, but after yesterday's laughfest, at Tejas teacher training, about hashtags and abbreviations and how yogis Om, I tought I'd post this oldie but goodie.

Promo

This is me talking about my teachers Jim Bennit and James Tennant of Tejas Yoga Teacher Training and Mentorship. It was also filmed and edited by one of my yogamates Jacob Gigler!

Amy Mills on Tejas Yoga Teacher Training from Jacob Gigler on Vimeo.

If you are in Chicago and thinking about becoming a teacher or are looking for a way to deepen your practice go visit Tejas. You won't regret it!

2012 in Review

The sun has set on 2012 so in the tradition of every news organization, radio station, periodical and facebooker I will now post my year end list. Here are my top 5 things I am grateful for from 2012.

1. I had my very first (and probably only) art show. It was called 'Evolve: the turning of a chapter.' I don't know how good it was but it for me it was a challenge I thought I’d never rise too.

2. I turned 30! Finally! I've been waiting to be 30 since I was 16, seriously. Maybe I’m a Louie the Late Bloomer or maybe I’m fully bloomed but just don't realize it yet but I’ve always know the 20s wasn't where it's was going to be at for me. I grew up an old soul and lately it's like I get to be a child again, something about the distance I have come and the things I have survived have allowed me to find that childlike wonder from so very long ago.

3. Tejas. I've been teaching yoga for a while but I decided I was ready to go back to school so I re-did my 200 hour certification at Tejas Yoga in the South Loop of Chicago. Trekking down to Chicago almost every weekend of 2012 could get tiresome but I have found 2 amazing teachers and the type of yoga Community I have been searching for as well as trying to create.

4. I found a home! I spent a lot of 2012, and I do mean A LOT, without a home. I wasn't homeless by any means but I surely wasn't in a place of my own nor was there any feeling of being settled in the various places I was living. Yes there were a few different places. So now I have a wonderful little house that I’m happily renting with a big back yard, a white picket fence, a mud room, and an attic bedroom. It suits me and my dog just perfectly.

5. I have hope. See hope and I have a fickle relationship. I've spent the past few years approaching New Year's Eve thinking "Thank God that year is over, next year has got to be better!" But it never worked out and I felt like I was tripping over myself to see how fast I could self sabotage my life. But as the sun is coming up on the first day of 2013 I can look back and say "yes, I make some mistakes, but I have learned from them and I now have both of my feet on the ground, I am living with good intention and being true to myself not the image of me I was so busy creating, and I am ready to entertain the potential of good things happening in my life." So see here 2013 I’m not allowing hope that you will be a better year but the hope that I will be a better person.

Best wishes to you all. Stay well, stay warm and go hug someone.

Peace Y'all!

Advanced Practice Demo

Hello Yogis. I am in the middle cramming for my midterms so unfortunately I haven't been writing much. But to give you a taste of what I've been doing with my weekends since April here is an instructional video with one of my teachers Jim Bennitt at Tejas Yoga in Chicago, where I've been studying. Enjoy!