namahatta.org - Congregational Development Ministry

One of my Bikram yoga teachers told me about Joel Pier, a Hare Krishna devotee who teaches Bikram Yoga. My teacher told me that Joel is a senior instructor at Bikram's teacher training, and she saw him chanting the maha-mantra on his beads every day around the busy teaching training schedule. She also said that he taught all the classes at his studio for the first two years - quite a commitment.

Veni, vidi, vici - I came, I saw, I conquered.

This past weekend I competed at the National Yoga Asana Championship in Melbourne. Manoj, leader of the "Sitapati Cheer Squad", wrote a detailed report.

The Yoga Asana Championship is in 12 days time in Melbourne, Australia. The Sitapati Bishnu Charan Cup Challenge has been a lot of work and has involved a lot of people. We'd like to thank a few of the sponsors and supporters who helped us get this far:

Yesterday I was feeling listless and demotivated after mangal-arati, the 4.30 am spiritual program at the local Hare Krishna temple.

There is no daylight savings in Queensland, so the sun now comes up during the program. This places it a long time after the brahma-muhurta hour - that's a 48 minute period about an hour and a half before sunrise that is the most potent time for spiritual practice. Before I went to NZ it was dark until after the program finished.

Courtesy of Madhava Ghosh came the insight: "Pain is weakness leaving the body".

Pain in yoga practice is not "injury" - it is the attempt of the system of the body to maintain the status quo. One part rebels, complains, tries to change the equation: "Leave things as they are - it's harder to change than it is to stay the same, and I'll make it harder for you..."

It is the duty of the practitioner to push through it, to take it to another level.

I'm in the Australian Regional (National) Finals for the Bishnu Charan Ghosh Cup Yoga Asana Championships, to be held in Melbourne on November 30. Currently I'm training in Auckland, New Zealand where there are no less than three Bikram studios - with two in adjacent suburbs even, and with interleaved classes (for example, you can go to an afternoon class starting at 3pm, 4pm, 5pm, or 6pm!).

Creatine administration was shown to significantly improve performance in cognitive and memory tests in vegetarian individuals involved in double-blind, placebo-controlled cross-over trials. Vegetarian supplementation with creatine seems to be especially beneficial as they appear to have lower average body stores, since meat is a primary source of dietary creatine.

- Creatine Supplements: Mental Performance, Wikipedia

I forgot to mention in yesterday's post "Why Dairy Makes You Stiff that dairy products are acid-forming in the body. They result in the same lactic acid build-up that I described in Why Drinking Green Juices Makes You More Flexible.

You can read more about it here: Latose and Lactic Acid.

Last night I had some Parmesan cheese. Not a lot, just a little bit, over my beans and rice. This morning in my Bikram class I felt stiff, and was clearing my throat of mucus continually.

Doing the same thing every day, like clockwork, I notice variations like this. I had a similar experience a couple of weeks ago - the day after I drank 500ml of organic milk.

For the past four months I've been drinking two or three caps of Oxyrich, an oxygen donor, in a litre of water.

I drink it during my Bikram class, in the water breaks, and the effect has been to almost completely eliminate the soreness and stiffness that I used to feel the day after a class.