Amazing, amazing, amazing.
I am so grateful to Aram Raffy for taking time out to fly across the channel and come and join us here in Guernsey ton share his passion (and indeed mine) for Vinyasa yoga. Breathe, flow, breathe, move, breathe, present, breathe, be, breathe, accept, breathe, sweat, breathe, here, breathe, challenge, breathe, laugh, breathe, feel so wired that you need to calm down before bed a little, breathe, move, breathe, still, breathe, mind, breathe, spirit, breathe, body, breathe, laughter, feel so wired after class the next morning that you keep going all day and all evening, happy natural highs, doesn't get much better, next day can hardly move but you are still grinning. I LOVE VINYASA YOGA.
Aram is a joy. I stumbled across him a few years ago now on one of my many trips to London a where I just happen upon a yoga class...I loved his style and energy and returned again taking Ewan with me on my next trip and he loved the class too. Intrigued as I was to his background I came across reference to his teacher, Stewart Gilchrist, who happened to be running a workshop on one of my next trips to London. So I chanced upon it and was positively blown away by the similarity to my own teacher, Lance Shuler, albeit their accents are very different - Stewart Scottish and Lance Australian (well New Zealand technically).
Still, it was a joy to bring Aram to the Island and share him with many local students - and manage a couple of classes myself without having to traipse across the Channel! I have received a whole heap of positive feedback from Aram's time here, so that I am hopeful we can bring him back again - it is not everyday we have access to such a dedicated, energetic and well practised yogi who is male too, such a treat over here where most of us yoga teachers are female.
It has all come at a good time too. There are signs everywhere of the lessons to learn always. We just have to be receptive to them, that is the challenge! Still I cannot help noticing how often I have been reminded of the need for selfless practicing - dedicating our practice, our life then, for the benefit of others. It is always much easier said than done, but how liberating, to get ourselves out of the way. I love what the Dalai Lama says about this:
"We are visitors on this planet. We are here for ninety or one hundred years at the very most. During that period, we must try to do something good, something useful with our lives. If we contribute to other people's happiness, you will find the true goal, the true meaning of life".
I love even more that we can give so selflessly through yoga, to share the gift of yoga, to try to be useful in doing so. This blows my mind and makes me feel very happy to be alive.
Thank you so much Aram for showing up and teaching and taking the time. Please come back soon!!
As for the after effects, it did make me chuckle that the last two nights when I have been so wired, little monkey Elijah has slept badly, perhaps wired off the wired energy of my milk. Funny, but not so funny when you long for sleep!!! But still, this kind of practice makes you feel so clean, so energised and clean, and centred and grounded and balanced and present and all those wonderful things. Like Aram and indeed Patthabi Jois says, it is all about the practice. That is all you have to do, just show up and practice (and the turning up for many is the challenge).
I must admit that I was aching though, my muscles are not used to working so hard - strange now to think I practiced to that level every day for the 6.5 weeks of my teacher training in Byron Bay, wow, no wonder I felt to hug a tree each morning! Still a swim in the sea and Epsom salt bath this evening should sort things out...well here is hoping!
So thank you again Aram, please do come back and perhaps bring Stewart too, it would be a delight.
With love, light and ever so much gratitude.
xx
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