yoga with jeff
Based in household yoga practices of more than 40 years, Jeff’s yoga work will include group sessions, and additional content not focused exclusively on posture. That additional content will include 9 Minutes or LESS, and will include THE PRANA PROJECT. Jeff will share therapeutic, maintenance, and training that alternate between the Playful (Lila) and the Heroic (Vira). Look for an occasional Book Review, Interview, Creative Adventure, or Personal Note in realms practical and imaginative.
Interested? Want to learn more about the community?
Jeffry Farrell / yoga with jeff@jeffryfarrell
November 19, 2024
Note to accompany the 11/20/24 Livestream Wake Up
For me to do these morning wake up sessions without you in mind is pointless.
Although the world may prize self-reliance and individual effort, our true strength lies in our connections with other people. For any one of us to assert that we are ‘self-contained and autonomous’ is a self deception that leads to profound inner conflicts and ultimately to isolation.
In this thinking we find a simple and common struggle — individualism vs. our shared human connection.
Individualism may describe a path of liberation, but liberation divorced from others and a larger moral framework leads to an unbearable isolation and despair. Kumar and the Yoga lifted me out of that place more than 30 years ago and I have not gone back! For the past 25 years I have dived into the Householders’ life of family. When you might meet a yoga teacher who claims to be enlightened ask them about the last time they spent a week immersed in their family!
The turn to share in human connection is fraught with suffering of its own!
If by individual efforts we may succeed in terms of prosperity or worldly ambition or even in just reason, but ultimately fail in our quest for liberation, and if by the engagement of others we risk ambiguities and vulnerabilities and weakness, then what are we to do? What solution is there to this dilemma?
Surrender. By this I do not mean a passive acceptance of failure as destiny, but rather, I mean an active surrender of pride, an active embrace of humility. We are human.
The yoga awakens us to our own faults and limitations, and ultimately to a self-acceptance and fresh outlook. There arises the truth of our own dignity. And further, as we recognize the truth of ourselves good and bad, we find the truth of our own dignity. And then it is possible to see and share the dignity of others.
Wow. I must be feeling preachy tonight! It caught me off guard! My own pride?!
I blame it on my enthusiasm for the yoga and its results in me!
Being Consciousness Bliss!
The yoga awakens us to recognize every thought, choice and action
rippling outward and yoking us to the lives around us in common humanity.
Whatever time of day you may see this note, thanks for joining me in the Livestream.
Interested? Want to learn more about the community?
What else you may like…
Videos
Posts
Articles
Picking up hand balances again after years away.
What is needed for hand balances? How do they build? How do we enter and exit? Where is shtira?
Beginning again means asking familiar questions and looking for the answers in the posture, observing what doesn’t work, and what does. Learning twice, and twice again in Beginners Mind.
00:00:52
Morning practice, Wake Up With Yoga
I recorded this last night because I must be on the road during our usual time. Here we observe three planes of functional spinal movement with breath. I invite you to recall warm-ups of this past week and to practice from whatever you can recall. If you cannot recall, then reboot yr favorite livestream recording and use that.
This week marks the start of a new endeavor at the SAMURAI INTI Martial Arts Studio in Frisco. I’ll be teaching i a group class there at Sendai Sebastian Mejias ‘ dojo on Monday and Wednesday mornings.
00:08:18
APRIL 2025 CLASS SCHEDULE UPDATE
Here's Jeff's updated schedule (please note the upcoming change to Saturdays). Below the schedule, you'll find payment links for the in-person group classes.
Mondays, 9AM in FRISCO at Samurai Inti Martial Arts, 7410 Preston Rd., #105, Frisco, TX 75034
Wednesdays, 9AM in FRISCO at Samurai Inti Martial Arts, 7410 Preston Rd., #105, Frisco, TX 75034
Thursdays, 8:30AM in DALLAS at Carpathia Collaborative, 10260 N. Central Expressway, #210, Dallas, TX 75231
UPDATE APRIL 13, 2025: Saturdays, 8:30 AM in DALLAS *WILL BE AT A NEW LOCATION VERY SOON! Will likely either be at White Rock Lake or Carpathia Collaborative, not the Hillcrest location. Confirmation coming soon! This update was posted on April 13, 2025.
PAYMENT LINKS FOR GROUP CLASSES (you can also pay cash in person at the time of the session; take note of your subscriber and payment level):
Locals community subscribers at the free level, and the general public: $35
https://buy.stripe.com/eVadTm24V3fi77O6oD
Locals community supporters ...
Anatomy basics 2
This book was fundamental to body movement and awareness. Notice the three planes of functional spine.
Observing anatomy 1
If you ask a personal trainer, a pilates teacher, a yoga teacher, and a massage therapist about “core strength” it is likely you will get different answers.
We wish to observe the diaphragm as the central origin of neuromuscular action — activating channels of strength down through the lumbar vertebrae, hips, legs, feet. And likewise int he opposite direction up the spine through the thoracic spine, shoulders, neck and skull.
Here is an image for us to keep in mind and note how we humans hold together — feet to fingertips and eyes.
