As the saying goes… “once in a blue moon” or “once in a while,”  this trip as been everything about that.

 Top 10 things to do once in a blue moon:

10.  Take yourself out of your normal life and sit under a palm tree and do nothing but wait for the sun to set.

At Ko’Olina Cove

9.  Practice yoga at the crack of dawn because it’s so peaceful in the morning.

I practically get the whole lagoon to myself in the early morning

Someone’s gotta use this beautiful lagoon.. it might as well be me

8.  Leave the house with messy hair and no makeup.

Messy hair is in… wind blown is easy maintenance.

7.  Stop and notice the little things around you.

The smallest flower patch that no one probably ever looks at

6.  Encounter one of mother’s natures creatures.

See the turtle? I encountered a total of 6 of these creatures while snorkeling in Hanauma Bay and hanging out at the North Shore

5.  Forget about hugging trees, kiss a fish.

The humuhumunukunukuapua’a is the Hawaiian State fish.

4.  Eat pineapple snow

Hawaiian snow is a hybrid of shave ice and soft serve yogurt

3.  Hike to the top of a volcano crater and get an awesome view

The view atop Diamond Head Crater — an extinct volcano

2.  Eat a burger twice the size of your jaw opening.

Bigger is Better… especially after a few hours of snorkeling. By far the best turkey burger I’ve ever had!

1.  Jump off a perfectly good airplane with an adrenaline junkie strapped to your back.

My first sky dive experience with the crazy Kip on my back. This one deserves it’s own post soon

Now I’m ready to lead my retreat.  I’m so lucky I get to hang out with 11 very incredible yogis this week at Lumeria Retreat Center in Maui.  Our first class started tonight.. of course an inaugural class wouldn’t be complete without  local style grinds.

Deep friend spam musubi… it’s worth tasting with some kim chee

The Hawaiian plate lunch: laulau, kalua pig, lomi lomi salmon, and chicken long rice. The 2 scoops brown rice made me feel somewhat better

We’ll be working this off for sure in the week to come.

I was determined on this trip that I would face another one of my fears and go sky diving. Well long story short, there were no more launch points on Maui… All the sky diving in Hawaii is done on Oahu.  I was somewhat relieved that I could chicken out of this agenda.. but the better part of me didn’t let me off the hook.  So the next closet thing someone suggested was parasailing.  Nope. Turns out the season is closed for parasailing due to whale migration.  And the next closet thing is zip lining.  Nope.  All sold out.  There was nothing left on the whole island for me to come face to face with my fears… a part of me was relieved…

Until we stumbled onto Big Beach in Makena.  

Over looking Big Beach in Makena Maui

At the end of this vast crescent shape beach is a cliff.  We saw people coming down and people going up.  I asked one of the guys going up what was on the other side.  ”Another beach called Little Beach,” he said, and “it’s clothing optional.”  

My heart starts beating and I could hear myself say, ‘no way!’ but another voice triumphed and I saw another fear bubble up.  I was almost irritated that sky diving wasn’t available as I would’ve opted for that option instead. So being the fear conquerer that I am, I dragged my friend up the cliff with me. 

There was a mix of people.. nude, clothed, old, young, men, women.  No one seemed to give a hoot about anything.  People minding their own business or perhaps they were trying to mind their own business because if you didn’t you’d probably break public nudity protocol.. that is maintain eye contact and don’t talk to anyone.

A naked meditation

So much for protocol!  A nude man and his wife came over to talk to me to offer his service to take our pictures for us.  WTF!  He broke two protocols!  I politely declined.   Not long after that, another man comes over to talk to us and asks permission to take my photo while I was posing for my yoga graffiti.  WTF! again?!  I soon realize that there are no protocols… I made them up to cover up my fears… like I made up my “writer’s block” symptoms so I didn’t have to post about this experience. 

I didn’t even know I had a fear of being nude in public until the situation presented itself.  I sat there for a long time before I decided to go for it. I could hear in my head the debate I was having with myself.  ”Why are you so scared?  Just do it!  You’re never gonna see these people again.  You have a beautiful body.  No I don’t.. I hate my butt.  People will laugh at my funky tan line.  No they won’t.  Yes they will…”  Yak yak yak these two voices debated in my head.   

At the moment I witnessed myself having this debate, I chose to let go.  It sounds cliche, but it felt liberating.  It was a meditation like no other.  The tension melted.  The judgements dissolved.  The voices stopped.  I was in my body.  In my heart.  In my own business like no body’s business.  Completely present. It was pure joy.

Purely Padmasana

Yay! for nude beaches!  Check! another fear crossed off the bucklet list!  Hmmmm… nude yoga class next?  LOL 

This has got to be one of those things I need to experience.  Check this out by the Yoga Slackers:

I think I wanna be the person in the front… looks like a very yummy shoulder/chest opener… a couple more arms thrown in there and it could start looking like Ganesh.

This morning as I was catching up with facebook friends, one of them, Tyrah posted this video on “Love the Process” a woman’s journey about hooping.  Ok, so I secretly have been wanting to try hooping and in fact know someone who is an instructor.  But why have I not tried it yet?   For the same reason why most people don’t try yoga even when they actually know someone who teaches it.  After watching this, hooping is tacked onto my buckletlist for this year   Enjoy!

“Watch for hesitation or you might miss your chance…”   LOVE IT!!! I’ve watched this like 10 times!  No kidding.  Thanks Tyrah for your inspiration and I hope to see a video of you hooping too

Last year I applied to be a lululemon ambassador and on their application was the dreaded “Goals” section.  What was I to write?  I’ve learned that setting too many rigid goals deter us from living in the present.   Instead we begin to live life in the future and perhaps even fear that we won’t meet these goals.   When the present doesn’t fall in line with our future goals/plans we get devastated.  Don’t get me wrong, I still think goals are important if you perceive them as a “map” to get you where you need to go.  Simply setting goals and waiting for them to unfold is a waste of time.  I wouldn’t have enough hands and feet to count the number of times I’ve set goals when I was a “corpie” and then never see that list again after it was reviewed by the boss.  Hours wasted on thinking and writing something down that sounded “smart” to impress the bosses.  Why in the world would anyone want to write their goals for someone else to approve?  There lies the problem.

When I wrote my goals on that lulu app, it was for me and my personal growth.  Here they are were:

1.  take my hubby to a yoga bootcamp by 12/2009 DONE 9/09

2.  complete my Baptiste certification by 12/2009 DONE 12/09 submitted and 05/10 approved!

3.  complete Baptiste Assistant Training Workshop by April 2010 TBD.. new workshop has not been scheduled yet

4.  Meet Paige Elenson of Africa Yoga Project and travel to East Africa to spread yoga to Kenyans by 2011. Still possible.  Crew going there 4/2011

5.  Learn how to swim by summer 2010. Registering for swim classes next week!

6.  Participate in a sprint triathlon by 2011 with my husband and register my kids for a kids triathlon event. In progress – completed my first 5K 4/2010

7.  Go on a family yoga vacation by 2012.

8.  Own a fruit bearing tree by 2012. Off to a good start.  Planted my persimmon tree this summer

9.  Go back to visit my birth place – Thailand by 2013.

10.  And obviously to become a lulu ambassador. DONE!  6/2010!  Those sneaky lululemon heads surprised me on the last day of teaching at the Palo Alto store.

photo credit: lulu palo alto

It is amazing when I look at this list and don’t remember putting too much effort into getting these checked off.  I think what worked for me was to make the goals general with no rigid tasks or expectations of being perfect or even expectations to get them checked off.  They were there as a road map and the journey began!  Thanks lulu for challenging me with my own BHAGs and then challenging me to take my yoga further into the community!

Anyway, this year has definitely been the year of doing and creating and coming out of my comfort zone.  Acroyoga has been one of those bucketlist activities.  It scares the crap out of me.  I’m nervous about inverting.  I’m scared of heights.  I don’t trust people and hate touchy feely ra-ra groups.  Hmm how did I become a yoga teacher you ask?  LOL

Sarah flying me from cannon ball into a pike

I find I’m addicted to it.  There’s something amazing about being suspended in the air and giving up all control.  The base (person on the bottom) is the one in control.  There’s so much non-verbal communication that get’s communicated that there is no room for any stories, crap, or BS.  Unlike yoga on the mat, everyone has to be 110% present or things could not get so touchy feely and more like punching and swearing.  In acroyoga, you can’t simply move body parts and act like you’re present.  You’re responsible for your partner(s) as they are for you.  Breath is vital.  Relaxation and calm not only calms your body but also the other bodies.  “Be light” takes on a deeper sense of meaning.  You have to literally make yourself light by freeing yourself from any fear or doubts and just be in that moment.

I’m learning that fear is always there but it’s a choice whether we let it control us or allow it to help us grow.  Each time I go to class, I still get butterflies and put up my walls of resistance whether I’m the base or the flyer.  Fear rears it’s ugly head and doubts of “I’m not strong enough or I’m not flexible enough or I can’t do that” floods my head.  Acroyoga has taught me to simply try it.  Big deal if you fall.  Laugh and try again.  These are simple rules that I live by already but it’s funny how sometimes we choose which principles we will follow for any given moment because it’s convenient at that time.  We all need that extra push to take us to our edge… a place where we can grow.

Here was my growing edge that evening: handstand on two warriors.  First of all, I’m not at a place where I can do handstand without a wall.  Some days I can’t even do a handstand because of a previous wrist injury.  So what the heck am I doing here?  Facing my fears!  It helps when the floor is soft and the person behind has sticky super glue hands

Davide is the super glue behind me

Another crazy fear facing move was this threesome.  Davide is the base on bottom.  He is holding Nadia’s legs which is in plow.  I’m doing a tripod headstand in between Nadia’s leg.  Didn’t realize until we all came down that if I had flipped backwards, my head would’ve been chopped… oops!  Super glue, please stand closer next time

Straddling up into tripod headstand...this could definitely become the guillitine

This is the real reason why I love acroyoga:  therapeutic massage.  I would often come to class tired and achy but by the end of class, all the inversions and massages we give each other leave me in a state of bliss.

There's an positive side of giving up control to the base... massage!

The spider man

By the way, I don’t normally go to class in jeans but what a badass I am to fly in jeans   Yay for acroyoga!!

After trying to prepare myself for this run the last month or so, I still arrive the morning of with a ton of doubts and resistance.  It was freezing cold for my taste and my legs did not want to move even after a hour of yoga prior.  Body sure does have a mind of it’s own.  As I look around me and see people of all ages, sizes, and experience, I catch myself judging not others, but myself… the harshest kind of judgement… if that old man beats me… If that person can do it… If that kid… if this, if that….

Stop it! I remind myself that it’s a “fun run.”  Wasn’t feeling like it was gonna be fun but as I wait at the start line surrounded by a bunch of excited people, I open myself up grace’s presence.  On your mark, get set, GO!  The earth moved the group forward as our feets pitter pattered on the pavement.  It sounded like rain on the rooftop.  It was hard to resist the rhythm of this flow and my frozen calves moved to it.  There is great power in group energy! Before I knew it, I was shedding my layers and found my own rhythm without any worries of how I was going to complete this.  Many past me up and Darren took off finding is own rhythm.  Everyone was in their own rhythm challenging themselves to reach their own personal goals.  Mine was to just complete it. The kids inspired me to have fun and the older folks inspired me to appreciate the experience.

15 minutes into the race, there was hardly anyone next to me and I was left alone to think as my mind wandered.  For the first time, I thought where is the finish line?  How far did I go?  What’s left?  Trying to figure out what was ahead, I felt my legs were gonna give out.  Until the cross guard cheered us on and blurted, “you’re more than halfway done,” like he read my mind.  After a big sigh of relief, I focus back on my breathing.  Yes, deep ujayii breaths carried me through.

Turning the last corner and seeing the crowd of people, I gain my second wind and sprint in to finish at 31.23 mins.  I surprised myself!  Never in my life was I able to run a 10 minute mile.  LOL in your face, my asthmatic, doubting, stiff leg self! Yoga has taught me well:  “Doubt your doubts!” “You never will surprise yourself if you don’t try something different!”

31.23 minutes!

Darren finishing at 30.07 for his age group

The prize for finishing -- hugging the bunny

The Kids had fun too! They did a quarter mile around the lawn:

The star runner of the family - having completed 10 miles total from her school's running program

Go Jazzy Go

A budding runner

No fair! Kids get metals and a bunny hug

We finish where we started and it all begins again -- where's the next race?

Today was day 3 of my “training.”  30 minute interval training alternating between running and walking.  I was surprised to see how well I did.  I was always afraid to run because of my childhood asthma and then it was because of my knees and then it was because I didn’t have shoes, yadah yadah ya.  As I ran today, I thought of all the things and fears that I “run” away from.  How often do we run away from our problems? or things/people that challenge us?

The power of staying with “what is” helps us bring clarity to our situation.  At the moment, it might be more convenient to flee and be done with it, but what can you learn from fleeing?  Nothing except feed your fears even more.  The next time you encounter a similar situation, your fear is on heightened alert.  Staying and flowing with “what is” doesn’t mean you become a door mat and get run over either.  The magic lies in being present.  When we are present, we can make better choices.  As Baron Baptiste says, “When we stop reacting, we can create.”

We truly have the power to create anything and everything.  The difficulty lies in making that choice.

I am choosing to run by flowing and taking things as they come.  It’s not important to me whether I win this 5K or not, but I know that my heart is happy as I leave tread marks in the face of my fears.

Planning this summer’s camping and yoga retreat weekend with some amazing people!  Stay tuned for this one..

Flying lessons.  The best thing for a sore bum is to not sit on it so go fly.  We practiced a little bit on our own cause bimonthly classes is not feeding my addiction to this practice.  New poses learned:  The walnut.  Check it out:

Friday night – San Francisco Yoga Journal conference with Seane Corn and Michael Franti.  Another item checked off my bucketlist.  For the past year, I’ve wanted to go see Michael Franti live but everytime he had a concert, I was unable to attend (hmm it was prolly some excuse I had).  Not this time! It was a fun night of yoga, music and running around in spirals like crazy kids.  Imagine a huge room full of adults (prolly 100+) holding hands.  One end of the line starts running towards the center of the room and then everyone follows.  A spiral starts to form in the center as the line coils in.  Imagine some parts of the line running fast and some parts slowing down.  Wheeeeeee!  It was like a human roller coaster.  I never had so much fun doing such a silly and simple act of running.  And yes I need to work on my cardio and also find a bunch of friends so we could do this outside on the lawn!

There is a fun truth to random acts of sillyness or even funny looking pants (or fun pants to wear? NOT!).

Doing the block walk

Here’s one of which Niko had this week.  An hour of fun with some plain’ol yoga blocks: It takes skill, concentration, and balance to walk through this maze of yoga blocks!

The nugget for this past week I walk away with is how can I serve my community.  Seane Corn challenged us.  How can I serve?  How can I take my practice beyond my mat?  During the class, she asked us to set an intention and take a 40 day challenge to service.  I could not find an intention to set… one that would resonante with me deeply and one that would be a honest act of service.  One that I wanted to do and didn’t feel like I was forced to do it.  I’ve thought about this for several days now and have still yet to set an intention.  I am feeling the feeling of wanting to resurrect YogaRiffic Kids again.  I’m not sure if teaching group classes is my intention, but I am feeling an overwhelming sense of joy from what I am learning about living like a kid.  Running like mad in a circle and walking on yoga blocks was the highlight of my week.  Gotta be something in that right?  Well I got 40 days to figure this out and do something really meaningful. Michael pointed out some resolutions that people usually make.  It’s the usual list we make over and over and over to lose weight, eat healthier, quit smoking, yadah ya.  He says it doesn’t work cause we don’t have an action plan and when we do, it’s unrealistic to follow.  A facebook friend posted this week that we spend more time planning a vacation than we do planning our life goals.  Some of us don’t even have goals.  Hmm you wonder why you feel stuck.  Lately I’ve found myself saying, “Same ‘ol stuff, different day” quite a bit.  I have a list of things I want to accomplish, but they usually get thrown out the door because I don’t have time or the money or this or that to accomplish it.  Well in the next 40 days, I will set some intentions for my life around service, career, health, finance, and FUN!  No more excuses because we are our own bus drivers!  Oh I will have an official buckelist too.  These bucklist things have been floating in my head and it needs to be declared!

Niko’s preschool class celebrated multi-cultural day today and his teacher asked me if I could come share some things about our country with the class cause he’s one of the only non-Indian kid in his class.  Hmmm I agreed to do it.   I struggled with the project and what I would present cause there was just so much info that I would have to present from the country of China, Philippines, and Laos.   Ok, I know I’m lame but I don’t have much historical knowledge on all these countries.  I grew up in America and my parents weren’t that traditional.  We had our family traditions that I didn’t think was anything special when I was growing up. The only thing I have is bits of the language.   Hubby was american born and doesn’t even speak either one of his native language.

I realized that perhaps sometimes I struggle to find my authentic self because I’m not grounded in my roots.  I’ve grown up in a place where external influences heavily taint my true self.   I’ve masked myself with layers of social domestication because I wanted to fit in.  Not too many people know where Laos is because it’s a small country and not as glamorous like Thailand.   Universe is probably trying to tell me something again because this past Christmas I met an older white guy who knew more about Laos than I did.  I’ve never even met anyone who even knew where this country is and then given the opportunity to speak at my kid’s classroom about my country… coincedence? These past few years, yoga has slowly helped me peel away the layers and started to reveal my true self.  Sometimes I find things that I don’t like about me, but the process of finding that part of me helps me to grow and become what I know not what I can become.

I’ll add this to my bucketlist of adventures for the future to visit my homeland.  In the meantime, I’ll make use of my library card.

One last note… we went to dinner at Elephant Bar again.. ordered the same salad and they forgot to add the walnuts to the walnut citrus salad again!  I know times are hard, but don’t advertise candied walnuts in a candied walnuts salad if you don’t want to give it to us!  I wonder how many patrons were robbed of their walnuts!  I’m so glad yoga has given me the skill of awareness.