Cape Men's Yoga

Reconciliation Day Yoga  Dear Yoga brothers, So much has happened in the last week. Many of you will have been feeling the national outpouring of grief for uTata Madiba, Nelson Mandela who was laid to rest on 15 December. We have been caught up in tears, in memories, in tributes, in debates and most of all re-inspired by his legacy to remember one of yoga's most profound lessons - our own happiness is born out of our relationship with others and our ability to use self-discipline and empathy to build a truly worthwhile life, one of compassion, one without harm, one that loves peace and reconciliation. Though he chose a path of armed insurrection against the minority government, and paid a heavy price for this, within his 27 years of incarceration, he was able to use this isolation to reflect on what really matters in life. Instead of sinking into madness or anger, he came to learn that anger is the killer, the deceiver, the toxin in the human heart. Instead he found forgiven...

Samyama is a concept that features prominently in the Yoga Sutras by Patanjali. Patanjali was either one very wise yogi or a series of authors who honed yoga teaching down to a tight and clear philosophical treatise. Samyama refers to the power of the yogi meditator to study something with great attention, to enter into its character, elements and meaning, and to deeply understand it, including being able to take on some of the characteristics. This could be understanding an element like the Earth, or watching the cycle of our emotions, to understanding how the body works, to being able to understand the flow of life energy through the body. So who cares? This morning I had a dream about teaching concentration and the power of the mind. I would not describe myself as ordinary. My life has been pretty eventful and interesting. My mind was I guess like most people - full of instability, moments of anxiety, looking for good sensations, running away from bad ones. In my thirtie...

It is a humbling experience. Imagine having a dream about connecting people and sharing life-skills to bring men into a supportive network of yoga practitioners in the full sense of the word. And then it happens! Twenty-one men gathered at the beautiful Bodhi Khaya retreat centre between Gansbaai and Stanford in Western Cape Province for a weekend of yoga and meditation. The theme of the weekend was exploring four basic elements: air, fire, water and earth and how these link to our understanding of ourselves and the India yogic system of chakras. The focus was on the lower chakras which are associated with the main elements and which are governed by the heart. One can take this literally or figuratively. In either form it creates a framework for considering how our body is truly made up of other elements which have come together in such a configuration that it permits us to be alive. And on another level it is a metaphor for how we live, how we balance our habits and attitudes to ...