How to Choke a Yogi?...Harmony by Karate Style

How to choke a yogi? Actually it's more like how to teach a Yogi to choke, and escape from a choke hold. Growing up my older brother enjoyed practicing wrestling moves on me, and I admit I loved being "airplane spun in the air" and various other activities that big brothers put their baby sisters through. Physical challenges have always excited me, last year I was happy to do the Fire walk with the Tony Robbins UPW event. This year, I challenge myself with the ongoing physical challenges in my weekly Karate class. I find myself slightly nervous when I enter the class. The instructors and classmates at Harmony by Karate are awesome!!! They are so helpful in the process of educating people in martial arts. Kudos to Sensei Oscar who guided us in a beautiful breath work movement based class in December, it really was awesome. Kudos to Sensei Adam who introduced Choke holds this week. WOW, was I nervous! I am not a fan of choking, kicking, hitting etc, and I am challenging my limits by diving into this awesome weekly class, so I am still working through the nerves! I cam sing in front of crowds of thousands, no nerves, teach group and private yoga classes to just about anyone, and no nerves, but ask me to spar with another person, and a different energy starts to spark inside me. It really is not in my nature, and I love the challenge! If I had the choice of styles of battle, I would prefer a battle of wits over anything physical, but unfortunately wits cannot get you out of every situation.

Once again, we partnered up and practiced "choking" and escaping. Sensei Adam demonstrated many methods and had us go through the movements. Towards the end of class I was partnered with my friend, Sensei Joseph. Sensei Joseph is no joke, he is an accomplished Black Belt, and while he is my friend, he is not afraid to challenge me. He could see my intimidation, and talked me through, pushed me to use my body and escape. While I tend to giggle in excitement/mini celebrate when I do the given task, especially because I consider myself still very new to the world of martial arts, I quickly learned it is more than just going through the motions. The amazing thing about Karate is "focus". A situation can arise within a second, and if you lose focus, you can lose a lot. Sensei Joseph literally flipped me over, and I did not even see it coming!!!?? It reminded me of days when my big brother would flip me over! I have to admit, it felt awesome, but it taught me the importance of "focus" in Karate and martial arts. In Yoga our focus in inward, observing our spirit, mind and body, inevitably becoming detached to the world, which is beautiful. In Karate, we have to have focus inward and outward because we are dealing with another persons spirit, mind and body, which is also beautiful. Karate teaches you to maintain focus in order to be ready for any circumstance. In true Sensei Adam style, we ended the class with grueling drills, that apparently someone does to him??? Maybe that is why he enjoys putting us through the gauntlet? Thank you so much to the family at Harmony by Karate for enlightening me, challenging me, and teaching me to deepen my focus.

Tony Robbins Unleash the Power Weekend

I had an outstanding weekend at the UPW event in New Jersey with Tony Robbins. Myself and my yoga students/friends attending this high energy event, jumped and danced out butts off, and made the commitment for massive change in our lives. I have studied Tony's methods for years, and even studied the people he studied. I tend to use his techniques with other people, in my yoga sessions, and I know that it works. However, I never used it on myself, because I had a limiting belief that I was not worth it. This weekend, I was not afraid of the fire walk, physical challenges excite me, and I know that my mind is the one that conquers them. For me, the breakthrough came at a personal level, which I know many people share. We can live our lives with the certainty of our job, of our finanaces, of our significance to our family or workplace, but if we have limiting beliefs on them it can impact our love. At the root of everything, we are all LOVE. While I have lived life with an abundance of love for everyone, I never realized how my love for myself was in need of improvement. I held on to negative circumstances, and negative words from people in my life, and allowed that to control my perception of my self worth. Which inevitably carried itself over in other areas of my life. I won't get into details, but let me just say, it was a true breakthrough. Now, while I have made changes, the world (negative people) will most likely tempt me to go back to the old me, but I torched that Sh*t this weekend, and feel brand new, I feel OUTSTANDING. If you know that you have been through a negative situation: Abusive relationship, rape, alcohol/drug addiction, food addiction, family members who verbally abuse you, job loss, business collapse, people who tell you that you can never achieve your dreams, know that these are roots that have affected many areas of your life...they are BS (a negative belief system).....and they can change in an instant. We cannot change the negative people, their comments etc, but we can change our reactions to them, which is power. Sadly, many times these negative people are our own family members. If you are in need of change, if you desire happiness, if you want to have the life of your dreams, then buy Tonys book, buy his CD Sets, or even better get to an event! And the people who say not to, well, misery loves company.

From a Yoga perspective: The principal Ahimsa: of non harming to all living beings- well it begins with YOU!, and Tony will get you there. The Principal of Santosha: Contenment/Joy - The weekend is like an amazing ROCK Concert, you will ooze santosha from every cell, and Tony even touches upon Diet and the need for an alkalized diet. This is information we all need, as healthy as my diet is, even I learned.

We live in a world, where many of us have family members who have had cancer, friends, and if not, you know someone who has had cancer. We know people with diabetes. This is toxicity. This is a situation that is an industry, created so pharmaceutical companys and the medical industry and government make BILLIONS, at our and our loved ones expense.

Do you want to live a life free of disease, body pain, headaches etc? You will learn how disease is the body's way of telling you that you are toxic, and need a cleanse. For me, I have loved an alkalized diet for a long time, never get sick, and healed myself of a major neck/back injury just weeks ago.....because I eat the right foods, do deep breathing (Pranayama), and yoga. What I never understood was peoples complaint, that "I don't like the way it tastes", when I would ask them to eat the greens. WELL THAT IS BECAUSE their body is so acidic it is craving more acid. Parents, when you use the excuse that your kids don't like the taste, you are responsible for that child, you are helping make them acidic which can lead to diabetes, cancer, and so many health problems. If this is something you can avoid, wouldn't you like to? Do the test for yourself, maybe test your Blood Ph, or eat a dark green salad....if you don't like the taste, you my friend are ACIDIC. Acidity brings on disease folks. If you don't like veggies, green foods, or drinking water, and you primarily eat white breads, sugars, sodas, meats, milk, junk foods that are marketed to you and your family's, you are actively choosing a slow suicide. One thing I hate, is the greed of our governments, pharmacy and medical industry that would rather feed people more drugs that create further acidity, contaminate and promote acidic foods, rather than inspire health and wellness. Even perscription drugs have commercials? Come on people? Lets wake up. The science behind yoga, the principal of Ahimsa non harming goes far beyond what we could dream. They did practice that diet to remain healthy and disease free.

Tony Robbins Meets Bamboomoves

The worlds most famous life coach, Tony Robbins is coming to Seacacus New Jersey this November! Since the owner of Bamboomoves, Michael Baez is a big follower of Tony, we had the lovely privilege to have a guest speaker visit our studio for free. The amazing Joshua Wenner came to Bamboomoves last Saturday to introduce some folks to the Power of changing habits, setting goals and unleashing the power within. I myself have been a fan of Tony Robbins for years, and believe in his approach to helping people overcome negative habits and create positive change. Our minds, our thoughts both work to create our body and create our lives. If our mindset is one of scarcity, and negativity, that will be our surrounding situation, however, if our mindset is one of abundance, and positivity, the sky is the limit. Many people think that it is mumbo jumbo. Try for yourself, think of a time when you felt sad, depressed, overwhelmed with grief, and check how your body posture is, now switch it, think of a time when you felt on top of the world, lucky, loved, creative, prosperous, notice how your whole body is smiling. When our body smiles, our life does too! If that didn't work, sit quiet, and imagine yourself cutting into a lemon, is your mouth starting to water? Habitually we associate lemons with sour, with taste, similarly, we make associations with situations/people/jobs and our lives. Wouldn't it be great if we could change all the negative associations we have made and succeed? This is similar to the Yoga practice in the sense of uniting Mind, Body and Spirit. For those of you interested in attending the Tony Robbins Unleash the Power within, visit his website for more information.

Thank you Joshua for taking the time to share such a wonderful workshop with us. Thank you Denise for sharing the lovely picture!

Life's Tune Up's @ Bamboomoves

Last week, I attended an amazing event hosted by Bamboomoves. A Health & Wellness Seminar led by Loren Slocum. Loren is one of the speakers for Tony Robbins. Loren introduced the tremendous turn out of people to wonderful health concerns. She touched upon eating/chewing slow to ensure proper digestion, eating real foods as opposed to processed as often as possible, staying hydrated, and so much more. She touched upon the rise in Type 2 Diabetes in North America, primarily with kids. We need to cut out the sugar, white flours and other nastiness so our kids learn better eating habits. She spoke about grazing, 4 small meals, rather than wait till your starving to eat which may spike your insulin. Loren was truly a breath of fresh air and a wealth of knowledge. It was such a privilege to attend her seminar. Some other tips: Juice your veggies and fruits, try "Juice Plus" gummies for kids (low sugar, high in goodness gummies), Stay hydrated with a good amount of water, and monitor your poop (we need regular bowel movements to keep the colon clean). For more information about Loren visit: www.lorenslocum.com. You can also find Loren in Fiji conducting the famous, Anthony Robbins workshops. The seminar was wonderful, and the tremendous turn out was as well. It is so great to see people be pro active about their health.