Blog

By Paulie's student Marie Stalder, France
I remember a fitness class when I was young, I came out and had to run to the public toilets because I was totally sick, my body had not supported the violence of these practices! And with you, it’s different, even when we talk about building muscle, it’s not done in the name of “holy musculature”, but in the name of a transition between 2 postures, made in the dance of a swimming frog in the air, happy, joyful and funny, aware of her limits because she can – or not – stretch out a leg or turn into a drop of water that sways peacefully in search of her center, and especially of the fact that the posture will be repeated rather than suffering endured. What joy. I see even more the treasures of your teachings when I begin to practice alone.

Yoga student Ashley Meyer said to us, “I was taught in Yin yoga anatomy theory at a workshop that my bones aren’t meant to bend in a way that would allow me to do certain poses. They told me I will never do the splits, but it’s not my fault, it’s my bones. They showed me other ways to practice, and I trusted them. I continued doing my daily yoga practice, becoming more flexible then I have ever been, but with a belief that there was a limit to what I can do." In response to Ashley's experience, I asked one of Paulie's students who is a real doctor what he thought of this Yin yoga anatomy theory. He replied: "It is not possible to predict what a person may physically accomplish by observation, medical examination, X-ray of skeleton, MRI or other imaging devices.

This practice is designed to take us out of the obsessive thinking and judgmental mind in order to restore and to enliven our primal essence that modern convention has alienated us from in many ways. It is our birthright, the wild spirit of keenly attuned senses and empowered physical awareness that is unfettered by social conditioning and which returns us to being in harmony with the natural world, with her rhythms and cycles.

The Phoenix is a mythical bird that is reborn from its own ashes; it symbolizes longevity and regeneration. The Phoenix embodies the FIRE element, the energetics of rising upward above the earth, of being ungrounded, the quality of lightness and free form spontaneity in movement. Picture yourself running barefoot across a paved parking lot on a very hot summer day; imagine how your feet would barely touch the ground and your gate would be brisk and springy.