Yoga Study Orentation at Yoga Center Minneapolis

Yoga Mojo is my online yoga journal, which will serve as a log for my experiences, notes, and things I learn over the course of the next year.

Why am I doing this? Because today I started teacher training at Yoga Center Minneapolis. This is a 200 Hour course which is acceptable for Yoga Alliance certification. You could say I've been bitten by the yoga love bug.

I've been interested in yoga for several years, and had been doing some yoga occasionally in the form of Sun Salutations (Sanskrit name: Surya Namaskar)for a long time. People kept telling me that because I am a Vata body type yoga would be good for me. Vata is the body type in Ayurveda that translates as "Air", and yoga it was said, would bring me balance. Last year in April of 2004 after I heard a radio ad for Yoga Center Minneapolis I made a visit to their website, it took me until August to get to the Center and take a class. It was then that I found out "getting to the mat is the hardest part", this left me chagrined, because I knew it was true, and the hard part was over.

Yoga to me represents one of the ancient ways, the others being the Eastern philosopies of Taoism, Confucianism, along with Traditional Chinese Medicine, and Egyptian/Atlantean cultures which go back even further in time.

Thus, yoga is one of the "Roots" that more contemporary ways of looking at human energy systems and sublte anatomy are built upon. Modern teachers of Chakra systems expand the envelope of knowlege and disribute information, but the roots they are building the tree of knowlege upon are no doubt rooted in yogic traditions. Using Chakras as an example, one can look at a book like Chakras, Energy Centers of Transformation by Harish Johari as being in the yogic tradition, while books like Wheels of Life by Anodea Judith, and New Chakra Healing by Cyndi Dale as coming from the more contemorary mind.

There is more to the whole enchilada than chakras of course. Rather than teach you how to eat the enchilada, yoga teaches you how to make the whole enchilada yourself, this is so you never go hungry. Practicing yoga gives one the experience of creating the enchilada from the ground up, rather than giving you a tasty morsel that leaves you wanting more.

When the opportunity came up to study yoga at the Yoga Center Minneapolis, I decided that I needed to learn to make the whole enchilada, so that when the time comes, I can teach others to make enchiladas, whether they know they are making enchiladas yet or not.

And that, my friends, is the whole enchilada.