The Space Within Us - Introduction To Yoga, Body and Breath

Drishti is where we look, what we focus upon. In this day and age with technology begging for our every glance it is imperative that you are able to stop, and focus on one spot. This attention, this discipline is called Drishti. It is a key principle in yoga that will help calm your mind, your body and teach you how to let go of the world and sit with the most important one, the world inside of you. Happy watching my little yogies and yoginis. Thank you for watching and being here, I know it takes something to harness theses skills and even harder (for me too) to not be physically with you....if I had my druthers we would all be together, in the same room, sweating and Focusing, together.

When was the last time you took a full inhale and a full exhale? Do it now, and experience just how shallow you are breathing. Ujjayi is and intentional breath, it is a disciplined breath that allows the student to generate heat within their body. In this video we break down this Ujjayi breath. Initially you may feel silly breathing like this, and though by the end you will have a greater respect for your ability to learn this age old practice. If you are breathing, what we call pranayama in yoga, You are doing yoga. Therefore, when you begin using your breath, intentionally, guess what happens? Transformation happens. Your brain literally becomes alive again, your body become invigorated and Awake! Happy Ujjayi my friends. Thank you, I appreciate your time, energy and love.

I LOVE talking about Bandhas. I think because I taught fitness for about a decade, and was in the gym for the prior 2 decades, and grew up doing dance and gymnastics. In all ways fitness was birthed, from yoga. We practice similar concepts yet we call them different names, different terms. If you have ever held a high plank you understand what it feels like to "hold" a position. In order to stay in a high plank certain body parts must be engaged. For instance, a pelvic tilt isn't just thrusting your hips forward, there is a deep internal muscular contraction that Must Happen, in order to protect and engage the muscles. Then, once those muscles are engaged the skeletal system can move in a fluid, protective, and power way.

Teaching this is not easy and has taken many of my students YEARS to even understand. Then one day I get a txt saying, "Andrea I Finally Get it!" lol.....no actually, the bandhas GOT YOU! "Wonderful", I reply!

There is no timeline, no finish line, you do not Nail this concept and never have to work it again. You do not "arrive". Yoga grows as you do, and it ALWAYS meets you exactly where you are. It is the greatest mirror. The only one that comes close, are my children and the love of my life. In that know that is why we call yoga, a practice. :) The practice of being you. The practice we begin again, again, and again. The see, to begin to observe the most important human on the entire planet, you...just like every-body else.

The more you develop the ability and wisdom of the bandhas, the greater ability you will gain to do forearm stand and dance your legs in the air, like I do. It does not make you more ridged, it makes you more fluid and supple.

Enjoy!

There is a deep refiners fire that is held in a physically demanding asana practice that translates into our entire lives, this is the concept of Tapas. In this video you will learn about this type of heat and how it is generated inside or our bodies, the benefits it carries and well, to be honest, a lot of humans quit when the burn begins. When I feel the burn, I welcome her as an invitation. The hold of the bandhas in chair pose i.e. my quads are building up with lactic acid - an isometric contraction where the muscle does not shorten or lengthen, we just sit there and feel that burn! I LOVE IT!

Maybe one day you will too. If you already are familiar with tapas in the body, then you can see how tapas can be generated from our breath. It can even be felt in an uncomfortable conversation. Have you even gotten irritated, angry or upset and left the room, or shut down the txt stream? I know I have. When the going get's tough, the tough don't run.....they get going. And this IS the tapas world. We stay, we soften and we breath. If we do not, we will pass out. Tapas teaches us to feel the heat, the burn, the irritation and stay there anyway, softening, allowing and simply letting the practice melt us, our fears, our irritations, our inside bull shit that we are holding onto.

Tapas is how we let go of excess old stale energy and dis-ease. It is the fire that is needed to cleanse and rinse so that Freedom and Life can be lived, with passion and purpose, without the shit we humans hold onto. That excess, that old, that hurt, that pain lives inside of you, and tapas, I promise IS the way through it.

In short, learn to crave tapas.

Happy heating up!

Experience a flow, focusing on the generation of heat, of tapas. This is a good way for the student to get started, putting all the videos into actual motion, the practice.

Student will be able to do a 6 minute flow, learning how to stay with my voice - breathing and moving, and feeling the heat and staying with it.

Thank you for watching.

While there are many pathways to Yoga, and the term is more broad than most ever understand, more encompassing that you or I realizes, I love the power of a vinyasa practice. Vinyasa is linking breath to movement. In this lecture I go through a flow with Charles, pausing when needed so that student, like Charles has time and the ability to be in the conversation....different than a conversation happening online and not being a part of it.

I want you to feel a part of this conversation, like I am speaking to you, because I am. By the end of this video you will have done the How To Yoga, with me, Andrea. I want to thank you for being in this course. I honor your path, as you honor mine. I respect who you are, that is authentic and genuine, as you respect my authenticity and my genuine candor, in return.

The practice calls all, who listen.

Namaste.

Good work. You have now completed my How To Yoga and are now eligible for the 21 days of yoga, meditation, and my book. My book is called, Gypsy Living. It contains 21 chapters, thus I created 21 yoga flows that I filmed (painstakingly might I add) through out old home, in the epic Southern Utah. I now live in Puerto Rico with my family.

You will also get 21 meditations, filmed in my sanctuary that my husband and I built, together.

My 21 Days of Yoga program has a big chunk of my heart in it. It was while I was filming and reading and creating this, that my father was diagnosed with metastatic renal carcinoma. It was his passing away, the ultimate savasana, that left me unable to give what I had worked endlessly on.

It has been 3 years since my father died. And for some reason, I now have an ability that was inaccessible to me before.

I give you, my past. I meet you in the present, raw and real in my words, allowing myself to open up to my past, my prior zest for life and yoga...a lighter version of myself. It feels like a lifetime ago that I created this all. This was before life gave me a bitter dose of reality, my Dad's death. Many of us have experienced death, pain and isolation. All this before the world shut down from a pandemic that cut us all off from true, deep, soulful connection.

I have no idea what the future holds, for when pain is deep is stops us. When life as we know it, ends, the pathways that were always open, feel shut down.

Maybe together, we can open.

Maybe you and I together, can move.

Maybe together, you and I can breath.

And maybe in these simple, yet impactful ways, we can create something pretty fucking phenomenal, together.

Thank you for reading, for watching, and for moving and breathing with me. I am doing not doing this for you, I am doing it for me.

I do not believe in healing the world, I believe in healing myself. If we all take our own healing into our own hands, no body needs a savior. If we all learn to go within, we do not need pills, or doctors, parents or therapists to tell us what our problems are. If we focus on listening to our own hearts and heads, instead of tic toc, the news and others that attempt to poison us with their hidden agendas, WE can free ourselves. Not externally, internally.

And once free, anything is possible. Once you and I do not care about pleasing others, we can learn to please ourselves. Once we embrace the deep truths of the Universe, the deepest archetypal truths that just ARE, like love and connection then we lose the masks, we lose the roles, we lose the fake parts of ourselves. To simply do one thing, love our own self.

Know thyself. My 21 day yoga, meditation and book program will guide you into that space.

See you there.

XO
A