With your students, be strict, but be gentle. Be loving.

Same with yourself:

Be strict, but be gentle.

Be loving.

Be disciplined.

If we were not disciplined at all, soon we would end up living in the street, with months-long beard, fat and laying on the ground.

So be disciplined.

Take care of yourself, do your work, practice some sports, eat properly.

But at the same time also be loving.

Don´t demand to much from yourself.

Be to yourself the way that you want to be to others.

If a friend comes to you saying he can´t do something, you are probably not going to say that he is stupid and that he should be able to do it. More probably you would say that we all have our times, our process, and that he should be gentle with himself and learn at his own pace, step by step.

Be to yourself like that.

Speak to yourself in that loving and understanding way.

For the past 4 or 5 years I have felt bored and lonely often.

I felt bored

Business was working more or less on autopilot.

I had a lot of free time and didn´t know what to do with it. I didn´t get any special satisfaction from work, but I also didn´t know what else I could do to have more fun.

So I travelled and walked a lot.

I felt lonely

Before getting married is more or less normal, because I was lonely.

But even after getting married.

I demanded from my wife that she paid more attention to me, instead of to her interests. Even if I knew that that was not right. I felt jealous when she dedicated time to friends. And I felt that I was just running behind her because I didn´t have anything better to do. So I felt useless, like a burden.

The tipping point

One day my wife (who never gets mad and is always in good mood) got mad at me because of my attitude.

That was the tipping point.

I saw very clearly that I couldn´t be doing that to my wife, that if I continued like that I was putting in risk our beautiful marriage, and that I was harming a beautiful person that was guilty of nothing.

The simple decision that solved both problems

I finally saw that I had to get involved into something that I wanted to do.

That´s when I made the decision.

I had 2 options:

1. Start a hostel
2. Follow the path of yoga

Starting a hostel was not an option in that moment.

First because the world was still recovering from Covid. And second because we were still finishing two renovations of our flats, and thinking of buying, renting or renovating a house in order to make a hostel felt like a huge thing, too big for us in that moment, in terms of energy and money.

Therefore the decision was clear: I would follow my interest for yoga.

I decided that I would become a Yoga Teacher

Ever since:

• I don´t feel bored. The day is too short to work, practice yoga, read about yoga and take care of the family, all of which are very meaningful
• I don´t feel lonely. I am very happy when my wife meets friends, because she is happy and because I can either join them and have fun or make use of the time for myself, for my things.

So having a goal and pursuing it solved my two biggest problems of the previous 4-5 years.

But I needed some time and especial conditions.

Sometimes we have to see the consequences of our actions or inactions.

Don´t look at others.

• They might be beginners doing mistakes
• They might be very experienced and you just can´t reach their level today
• And they for sure have a different body, mind and personal background which makes them different from you. You are unique, the same as they are.

So don´t look at others.

Don´t compare yourself to others.

Focus on your practice and on your body.

Today it was the first day at the Yoga Teacher Training Course at Nirvana Yoga Shhala in Mysore.

I slept bad last night due to jet lag.

6:30 already hard Ashtanga Yoga practice.

Plus 5 more clases related to Breathing (Pranayama), Anatomy, Meditation, Back Bending and Methodology.

Plus meals, taking care of the family and additionally I slept bad last nitght due to jet lag.

I am exhausted.

I wonder if this was the right choice.

Ahead of me there are 24 more days until the programme finishes.

I feel that when you are 40 and having a child it is even more challenging to swift career. I see that I don´t know a lot, that my body is not so flexible, that there is a lot to learn.

And I keep wondering if I am right for this direction, for this profession.

First days are always hard (I hope).

Actually one of the teachers told me: «Your body is not used to this training. This week you will have pain. Next week you´ll feel better».

Sometimes we have to trust that we made the right decision and let time take care of things.

I have been practicing regularly yoga for the last 2.5 months, since I decided that I want to lead my life in that direction.

In 5 days I will take part in a Yoga Teacher Training course in Mysore (India), which is something that I wanted to do since 2019.

But I feel a moderate excitement.

Usually I am a quite emotional person. And if I like something, I like it a lot.

But lately I have been feeling a bit neutral. I do my practice, I don´t get any especial reward apart from the gratification of having done it.

• Maybe my mind is playing again agains me
• Maybe it is the equanimity that yoga might be bringing me: Nothing is that good. Nothing is that bad. Everything is neutral.

I want to believe that it is the second, because I feel energetic in general, flexible, and my mind is way more focused than months ago.

But it still makes me a little bit concerned.

Just a little bit.

Several months ago I asked myself,

What were by then my biggest dreams.

They remain the same now.

So here they are:

1. Living in New York for at least one month, ideally for at least two months and dreaming REALLY BIG, for at least 1 to 2 years, so that we and our daughter can get the language and even the accent.
2. Owning a house where we run a hostel and where we practice yoga everyday at least once a day

Long term dreams are beautiful.

They set a guideline, a goal.

For the last 3-4 years I am having a inguinal hernia.

That is a little lump in the groin region, that apparently comes from inner organs that go through the muscle wall of that area and can be felt, touched and even seen from outside.

With certain movements of daily life, with coughing and others it can come out or in and it is quite disturbing. Apart from the fact that it could turn into something problematic with time.

I realized that the posture Downward facing dog made the lump go inside, disappear.

After breathing out and having lungs and belly empty of air, in the moment of re-filling with a new breath I felt that the lump went in.

For the last 2.5 months I have practiced yoga quite often, around 5-6 times per week and I have felt a remarkable improvement in my inguinal hernia.

It doesn´t come out that often and when it does, it´s quite small.

Even,

In the last days, I have realized that there is nothing to bring inside,

That in Downward facing dog there is no lump, nothing goes inside because there is nothing outside.

I don´t want to say that I am completely healed, because I still feel it outside once in a while, but it´s much better, almost gone.

I can hardly believe that just by practicing yoga this sickness or disorder is healing by itself.

Note: I am not a doctor, this is not advice; I am just sharing my experience.

The gaze during yoga practice is key.

Not only because it helps to calm your mind, but also because it helps you achieve your goals.

When you are stretching in any posture, use the eyes to set your goal, look at that spot where one day you want to reach. And sooner or later it will happen. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but one day it will happen.

It also works for life.

Don´t go without a goal in life.

Set your eyes (or the eyes of your mind) where you want to reach and sooner or later I can garantee you that you will get where you one day wanted to be.

It is said that breathing is the best tool that we have to connect with our soul.

But our gaze is a fantastic tool, too.

During the practice of yoga, one often feels that the mind is elsewhere except on the yoga mat, even when you are deeply breathing.

In those moments, you can easily realize that your eyes are all around the place, looking here and there, non stop.

Then,

Focus your eyes on one spot and keep breathing.

You will notice the power of the two tools working together.

Also during Savasana in Bikram Yoga practice it is said that you should focus your eyes on one spot. Not only it helps to stop the mind from wandering, but also it makes it easier to connect with yourself.

Важна тодько практика

Important is only practice.

Do your practice.

You will not get the benefits of yoga neither by reading about it, thinking about it nor discussing about it.

It´s not important if you set yourself to practice yoga twice a week and you never do it.

Just do it.

Be constant, be perseverant.

Practice is all that matters.

Benefits come with the practice: body becomes stronger and more flexible, mind gets calmer, your inner resistance to practice diminishes when practicing constantly.

Just set your mat on the floor and practice.

Don´t overthink.

Just do your practice.

It happens the same in businesses, in sports and in any other abilities like cooking, dancing, reading… Important is only practice. If you are just thinking about doing something, starting a business, preparing a recipe, but you never get into action, nothing will happen and you will never see any improvement, any result.

It also happens when studying subjects like Physics, Chemistry, Maths or Geometry. You can be studying all the theory, but if you never try to solve any exercise, you will hardly understand the matter. By practicing you get to understand the theory.

This short text in Russian language is the little welcome sign that you see at the front door at Bikram Yoga in Saint Petersburg.

It is so short and straightforward.

Важна тодько практика: Important Only Practice