1. Greetings
2. Embodiment of practice, no swami or guru or looking the part
3. Benefits of a Proper practice
4. Lolasana / L-sit / 2 knuckle handstand

Guru? In this day and age of 'consciousness glut', anyone who learned an Upward Dog on Youtube passes himself off as 'guru' or 'swami'. So allow me to dispel that doubt by showing you that what I am about to share with you is my private practice and that I am the perfect embodiment of that practice - with all its flaws and merits.

Lolasana / L-sit / 2 knuckle handstand

Benefits: I'm older than your Dad. But I'm strong, sometimes crazy strong. I don't get sick anymore. It's been almost 20 years since I got sick. No diet restriction except chili. No supplements - not even vitamin C. No maintenance pills. I have the bounce of a hormonal 18-year old and I am harmonized with my benevolent universe. That is yoga as I practice it. And this session is to share with you some of my insights and protocols.

1. Yoga-bio
2. Upward Dog / Downward Dog...that's it?
3. Looking for a teacher - India, Bali, Thailand
4. Defaulting to yoga books - Yoga Makaranda, Hatha Yoga Pradipika
5. Becoming my own Teacher

Becoming the Teacher: If I am going to inspire you with what yoga can do to enhance your life, let me tell you more about myself. What's my credibility to be giving such a talk? I'd been practicing yoga for 22 years now. In the first 10 years, I thought yoga was just Upward Dog / Downward Dog. The whole time, I was telling myself, "Sure, yoga makes me strong, but is that all there is to it?". I had to stumble upon a yoga book to realize that yoga is unfathomable. It ignited my thirst for knowledge. I wanted to take yoga as far as I can take it. Walking on water? Sure, if that's at all possible, I'd like to know how! But where do you find such a teacher? I found one here in Cebu - a gifted Indian guy. But it was short-lived as he had to leave for India. I haven't found another teacher after him. Not in Ubud Bali, not in Chiang Mai and not in India. Ultimately, I found them. Not just one. Most of them are dead. But they left their legacies - books, sacred texts, and more books written by their students. To cut the long story short, I had to become the teacher I was looking for.

1. corporate world
2. becoming a nomad - life in a backpack,no home, no money, no job
3. food on my plate, roof over my head
4. Burningman
5. divorce
6. benevolent universe
7. red pill / blue pill

Corporate World: I used to be in the corporate world, subscribing to what we all considered the template - work 9-5, get the paycheck, loan to buy a car and house and work the rest of your life paying off that loan. Money was ok, but I wasn't happy...like most people in the corporate world.

I left the corporate world, I left home and traveled with no money, no steady job, no property and nothing to my name. Everything I owned fit into my backpack. I was homeless, poor and nomadic. But in a nurturing twist of fate, I always end up in amazing hotels and resorts, I meet magnificent lives, I eat good food and I feel looked after.

Burningman: A few cathartic events happened that helped shape my thinking. I attended Burningman where you can run around naked in the middle of the desert, giving free hugs. And that transforms you fundamentally and forever. I wasn't the same person after Burningman.

Divorce: I also got divorced. This shattered me into a million bits. I realized that the future never existed. I just bought into it for my psychological well-being and emotional solace. With that realization, I threw the past and the future to the wind and lived in the present - as this talk is happening. The present is the only thing we can work with. The past cannot be undone and the future does not exist.

Red Pill: When you take the red pill to remain authentic, and your heart is in the right place, the planets align to protect you, to nurture you and to look after your well-being. But for that to happen, you have to acknowledge that it exists and that its reason for being is to actually look after you.

1. 3 BFF / Tripod
2. Asana only
3. Asana + Breathing only
4. Asana + Breathing + Mindfulness
5. Hack: apply in gym, walking in mall, climbing staits

In the execution of any yoga pose, 3 elements must come into play. Imagine these 3 elements as legs of a tripod. If any of the legs aren't there, the tripod fails. Same thing with yoga. If any of these 3 elements are not there, perhaps it's not yoga anymore but just stretching.

1. Movement - this is the physical part. It can be an actual yoga pose or even a gym workout or even walking inside the mall. Whenever appropriate, the physical part should be taken to your safety edge with proper form.
2. Breath - this is more important than the physical component. The physical part is simply to get established in the breath - slow, deep and steady breathing
3. Awareness - this is the mental component. This is much more important than breath. The breath is simply to get established in mental stillness

Forward Bend Exercise:
a) Movement: on Mountain Pose, without being mindful of the breath (just normal breathing), lift your arms up and bend forward with a straight back. Hold for 2 seconds and breathe normally. Come back up to Mountain Pose.

b) Breath + Pose: this time, empty your lungs and on the next full inhale, lift your arms up. Exhale fully as you bend forward, ensuring that your lungs are empty when you're fully stretched. Hold for 2 deep breaths, on the next inhale, with a flat back, lift your arms up and exhale coming back into Mountain Pose

c) Awareness + Breath + Pose: shut the doors to the outside world and bring your attention within you. At this point, the outside world no longer exists. With empty lungs, inhale fully as you imagine ingesting the full power that created the Big Bang, as you raise your arms up. On the exhale, come down into a forward bend while visualizing the body releasing all the toxins and all the negativities as you come down. Hold the pose while continuing the breath - long deep and steady breathing. Bring your awareness to where you feel the stretch. Where do you feel the stretch most intense? Behind the knee? On your hamstring? Or on your butt cheeks? Observe that stretching sensation with no judgment. Make 3 full breaths. On empty lungs, inhale fully again ingesting all the power that permeates within this universe as you come up with your arms up. Exhale fully as you take your arms down, reverting back into Mountain Pose, letting go as you exhale.

Homework: when you go to the gym, or climb the stairs or stroll inside the mall, be aware to incorporate breathing and awareness

1. free will?
2. 15-min timer
3. HW: 1-hr timer
4. objective

Do we have free will? When we go into auto-pilot, there is no free will. The only time we can exercise free will is when we are aware, only then are we mindful of other exercisable options we can make. But how do we develop awareness? Here's the hack as practiced at the Plum Village Center.

Life Hack: Set the timer for 15 mins. When the alarm sounds, stop everything you are doing, mindfully do a slow, steady and deep inhale. Hold for 2 seconds. Slowly and mindfully exhale. When the lungs are empty, resume normal breathing and resume whatever activity you were doing. This will develop awareness, reminding you to stay in the here-and-now.

Homework: set your timer every hour and try to stay aware after you resume your activities. Notice if you're sense of awareness extends from the previous.

1. flushing a river clean
2. drink 1 liter of water
3. nauli
4. HW: morning routine

We are 70% water. By hydrating with more water than we need first thing in the morning, we flush our system. Toxins are washed away. Doctors say that if people drank enough water, 50% of the world's illness will be gone.

Life Hack: take out your 1 liter water and calamansi and let's make it alkaline.

Homework: first thing in the morning, put calamansi + pinch of salt to your 1 liter of water. Drink up and do the stomach churning

1. Nauli benefits, shat kriya, diseases from the gut, my gut tells me
2. Hack: Phase 1 - 4
3. HW: do this at home after the water therapy, increase rounds

Stomach cleansing (nauli) is so powerful that in Hatha Yoga Pradipika (one of the bibles of yoga), it is one of the 6 purification processes. The stomach lining is cleansed, allowing for a greater surface area to absorb nutrients. Food debris is flushed away. Intestinal muscles are activated. Digestive metabolism increases. Nearly all diseases stem from the gut. If you gut is clean and optimally functional, you are far from any illness.

Life Hack: Phase 1, with a belly full of water, empty your lungs, hold breath, bend knees, hands on knees, suction the belly and hold until cannot, 3 rounds. Phase 2, same, but while holding breath, suction and release belly until breath runs out. 3 rounds. Phase 3, same but while suctioning belly, protrude the abdomus rectus (abs) until breath runs out, then 3 rounds. Phase 4, same as phase 3, but wave the abs sideways.

Homework: after your water therapy, do one round each. Increase no. of rounds as comfort level increases, max of 3 rounds.

1. what is tapas?
2. niyama, to activate siddhi, fortify mind, dojo
3. HW: in the next 7 days, do one tapas/day - cold shower, no elevator, walking

In yogic tradition, austerity (tapas) falls under the 2nd limb of yoga - niyama. This is best done outside the mat. Between doing things the easy and the hard way, choose to do it the hard way, with no complaints but with a whole-hearted embrace to do it hard. No reaction. When this is mastered, you laugh in t he battlefield of life while others succumb to self-pity or misery.

Life Hack: on the mat????

Homework: for the next 7 days, no hot or warm showers. No use of escalator or elevator.

1. Vipassana background
2. Observing pain with no reaction
3. Life Hack: chair sit vs wall / high plank / boat
4. HW: in traffic, observe everything without being

We subject the body to increasing discomfort while observing the mind if it's reacting or not - this is a mental exercise as much as a physical exercise. We choose to observe without reacting. Observing discomfort without choosing to suffer. Pain and suffering are 2 very different things.

Life Hack: sit down with no chair, leaning your back on a wall. This becomes increasingly difficult. How long can you stay here and not react? And how long can you hold this pose before the mind gives up? It's the mind that gives up first...not the body.

Homework: when in traffic, instead of being pissed, observe the mind if it can just observe your feeling without reacting.

With what I have achieved with breathwork (pranayama), I am drawn to conclude that the normal breath we take only uses up 10% of its potency. But that 10% is enough to keep us alive. Can you just imagine what it might be if you use close to 100% of its potential? But some people don't even know how to breathe. So to begin the program, we learn how to breathe right first and do some established breathwork techniques.

Benefits: With the proper manipulation of the breath, you activate more energy, this energy moves around the body preventing illnesses from even happening. Your strength is amplified.

There are a few established rules in yogic breathing:

1. only nose breathing, no mouth breathing
2. don't rush the breath
3. breathe deep
4. breathe slow
5. breathe steady

There are 2 air cavities in our lungs - chest and belly. There is a 3rd cavity - let's save that for later. Let's first breathe to the chest...empty balloon inside our chest. 3 rounds. Next, breathe to the belly...emply balloon inside our belly. Reverse, belly first then chest. Hold on chest/belly and wait til you feel like dying...then hunch and breathe on the upper back.

Spine straight, sit-bones centered and squared. Deep breathing, slow and steady, while restricting the airflow along the throat. You can make a slightly audible sound to keep your awareness into the breath. 5 mins.

Do abdominal contractions to push the air out of the lungs. The inhalation happens naturally. It's the exhalation that you have to force out. One minute, then empty the lungs and hold. Inhale and hold. Resume normal breathing. 3 rounds.

This is an alternating nostril breathing, designed to unblock the nadi passages. When the nadis are unblocked, prana passes freely, invigorating the entire system. When prana is moving, it's hard to be sick.

From empty lungs, breathe-in fully, exhale fully, breathe-in fully...no pause for 1 minute. Timer will alarm. Empty your lungs, hold the breath, straighten back and completely relax. Hold for 30 seconds. Inhale fully and hold again.

For newbies, just squeeze your butt cheeks and straighten your back. Hold as long as you can and gently exhale.

For advanced yogis, engage mula bandha, uddiyana bandha, straight spine, jalandara bandha on gyana mudra. Keep holding while visualizing the manipuraka consumed by blazing fire. Feel the heat. Feel the heat intensify.

1. definition...just a technique, no God
2. goal...enlightenment? emptying the mind?
3. benefits of a clear mind
4. last 4 limbs
5. benefits...Aha Moments, etc

The last 4 limbs of yoga is all about the mind. This tells you how important meditation is. When your mind is still, when your mind is clear...insights come. You see synchronicities, you see correlations, you see cause and effect. AHA moments spontaneously happen. You begin to understand the underlying intelligence behind all events, actions, and people. At the end of the day, you realize, the mind is everything. All of yoga actually points to mastery of the mind.

Goal: Should you aim for enlightenment? Emptying the mind? NO! Just aim to bring the mind back into focus when you catch it drifting. Do this and all is coming.

Natural breathing only. No more pranayama. Observing your natural breathing pattern.

Do heavy intense breathing for one minute. Now relax the breathing...normal breathing. Don't regulate the breath. Bring your awareness on the top of the head. Just observe without creating anything. You are just a passive observer. Observing without judgment. Observing with a calm and equanimous mind. Observing sensation, pleasant or unpleasant with no judgment. Now move your awareness to your.....