Unified Reiki at Unity in Oslo – Open House

Today and tomorrow there is an Open House at Unity in Oslo. There are lots of interesting workshops and lectures and you can also get free sessions and consultations with various therapists in complimentary and alternative medicine.

I am flying back from Warsaw early morning and will be present on Sunday with my Unified Reiki Master Jose Figueroa. Jose will be offering a free lecture about “The Mysteries of Healing”. I will be doing free Unified Reiki sessions and also talk about my Celestial Fitness concept.

Strength, fitness and nutrition workshop for yogis in Warsaw

I am currently in Warsaw with Basia and her mom Sofia Lipska who is an internationally renowned intuitive counselor and gifted healer.

Tonight and tomorrow I will do a workshop on bodyweight strength training and nutrition for yogis at Astanga Yoga Studio in Warsaw.  It is my experience that yoga practictioners can have tremendous benefits from combining the eastern methods with scientific western methods of strength training and nutrition. Correctly applied and in the correct amounts these western methods can aid the asana practice. 

“Ashtanga yoga, fitness and nutrition” workshop at Oslo Yogafestival

On Saturday January 30 I will be doing a workshop with Basia Lipska at the Oslo Yogafestival.

Oslo Yoga festival is the largest yoga event in Norway, with more than 40 teachers presenting 45 different workshops and classes.

The workshop we will be doing is named “Ashtanga yoga, fitness and nutrition for men and women”. Here is a description of the class:

“Basia and Jan present you with 3 TIPS to maintain a peaceful mind and a strong will and body. 1. a dynamic flow 2. power building tools 3. nutrition for health and power.
The flow is an easy introduction for all levels to the flow of ashtanga yoga. It is a vinyasa style of yoga postures designed to detox, strengthen and restore the body to its optimum and release the mind and heart to a state of peace and inner joy. Jan will then take you through bodyweight exercises aimed to strengthen the abdominal muscles, thighs, arms and back muscles and open the chest. He will also talk and give tips about nutrition for health, strength and power both from a eastern and a western point of view.”

Whistling Thrush – Ashtanga Yoga bird of navasana

We are back from our trip to Goa in India where we attended the Sharath Rangaswamy Ashtanga Yoga workshop.

Every week we had 6 morning classes of which 3 were led classes and 3 were Mysore style where you do the sequence at your own pace. Morning classes started at 5:30AM. After a few days we started noticing that every led class when we got up to a certain point in the sequence a bird would start singing this very weird and comical tune. Usually it would start singing when we got up to the navasana posture. Other times it would start a bit later. Maybe the bird started singing at the exact same time each day and the timing of the led class was a bit off.. I don´t really know… Anyway it was so comical that every day more and more people in the shala would start giggling when it started singing. We discovered that the bird is called “Malabar Whistling Thrush”. It sounds like no bird I have ever heard before. It makes this whistling sound/tune almost like a human. Apparently in the old times people would keep this bird in cages to ward off potential thieves.

Here is the bird. You can go to the Indiabirds web site to listen to listen to the hilarious singing:

Malabar Whistling Thrush

Floating overhead Lotus – Yoga Goa

We are having a great time here at the Purple Valley Retreat Centre in Goa. Here are some pics of Basia and me from the pool.

Purple Valley Retreat with Sharath Rangaswamy

I am currently in Goa, India with my fiance Basia for an Ashtanga Yoga reatreat at Purple Valley Yoga with Sharath Rangaswamy. Sharath is the  grandson of the late Sri K. Pattabhi Jois.

This is my first stay in India and my first time studying with Sharath. Two years ago I went to Sri Lanka for 6 week retreat with Anthony Prem Charlisi and Heather Duplex. Since then they have relocated their retreat to Bali

Classes starts tomorrow. After our TV appearance we flew from Warsaw to Delhi where we spent two day before leaving for Goa. I will report more from the reatreat and our stay here.

Preparing for the Unknown?

This morning Basia and I appeared on “Kawa czy herbata” (“Coffee or Tea”) on the polish TV channel TVP. Kawa czy herbata is a live morning show similar to Good Morning America. We were interviewed and also did a short ashtanga demo. It was fun and a nice experience. I will get a recording from the show later and put up a video on youtube.

The night before the show we were thinking about what we were going to do for the demo. We didnt have much time to prepare so I was a bit worried about not remembering what to do especially since this was a live show. This made me a bit insecure and resulted in feelings of irritation and also some anger because I felt that I did not have control of the situation. However when we got to the studio I realized that we did not have much to say about was going to happen. After seeing the makeup artists it was our turn and then everything happened very quickly. We didnt really know what was going to happen or what kind of questions they were going to ask. However we did fine and it felt easy.

So the lession I learned today was that it is not really any point in trying to prepare for the unknown and worry about things that you cannot control. Try and be calm and let things flow. Don´t worry be happy.

Chögyam Trungpa on meditation

In his book “The Myth of Freedom and the Way of Meditation” Chögyam Trungpa writes:

“Meditation is not a matter of trying to achieve ecstasy, spiritual bliss, or tranquillity, nor is it attempting to become a better person. It is simply the creation of a space in which we are able to expose and undo our neurotic games, our self-deceptions, our hidden fears and hopes.”

The practical value of Ashtanga Yoga Sun Salutations

When I was preparing for the alternative fair I was working 16-18 hours a day for more than a week. It was very intense but I was also very inspired. During that time I discovered the value of doing sun salutations from Ashtanga yoga during the day. I would work for an hour or two, and then take a short break. During the break I would typically do three sun salutations and sometimes also some Unified Reiki self healing techniques. This was extremely productive. It made me feel refreshed physically and mentally and also increased my focus. Usually after such a break I would see the things I was working on from a different viewpoint and also get new ideas.

Photo from “Basia Lipska Ashtanga Yoga” DVD shoot

Using yoga in this way was very different from what I usually do. My yoga practice usually consists of doing Mysore style morning classes 4-6 times a week. I usually do the primary series and at times the first postures from second series. This takes between 1.5 and two hours. This works great but doing sun salutes many times during the day I could feel a more “direct” and immediate effect compared to doing one long session once a day. This does not mean that one approach is better than the other though. It just shows that different practices can give different effects and results.

If you are already doing yoga and sun salutations I recommend that you try it several times a day just to get the feel of it and see how it works for you. If you are not doing yoga the best way would be to learn from a qualified Ashtanga yoga teacher (or a teacher of other styles). You can also learn the basics by watching some good videos such as this one from David Swenson. These clips on youtube explain the basics of Ashtanga yoga including ujjayi breathing, the synchronization of breath and movement, drishti (gazing point) and bandhas (energy locks). They also specifically show and explain the Sun Salutation A (suryanamaskara A)

Part 1

Part 2

You can also watch the sun salutations as well as the entire primary series with commentaries in the Basia Lipska Ashtanga Yoga DVD.  Contact me for more details.

Report from Alternative Fair (“Alternativmessen”) 2009

Here is my report from the Alternative Fair in November. It is written in norwegian but my previous summaries from the fair are in english. Click here to read the norwegian report in PDF format.

Here is the business card I used at the fair. The front is a combined yoga and fitness pose with my fiance Basia and me. It symbolizes the Celestial Fitness concept. Mind, body and spirit. The back lists my services.

This is me with my Unified Reiki Master Jose: