Bramacharya and the Hockey Team

Marash Girl's "in house yoga instructor" will be teaching the concept of "bramacharya" next week to a class of pro hockey players. Bramacharya is commonly translated "celibacy", her daughter explained. [What a crime to womankind, should the team take that concept of celibacy to heart, or to body, as it were!]

Marash Girl begged her daughter not to translate the concept of "bramacharya" as celibacy. 

"Not only will the hockey players turn their backs on yoga," Marash Girl warned, "but think what would happen if the  hockey players [and all young men] did follow that rule . . .  As T.S. Elliot warns in his poem 'The Hollow Men', 

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang, but a whimper.

Marash Girl can't control what her daughter will teach the team, but God willing, they, the hockey players, will reproduce.

Note:  Marash Girl's daughter explained that bramacharya literally means "walking with God" and though it has been traditionally translated to mean celibacy, a more useful interpretation for all of us, dear reader, might be "all things in moderation".

Roar like a Lion

Recently, a friend from Los Angeles related that on her way to work,  alone in her car, she screams uncontrollably, frustrated over the need to go to work every day, fighting the traffic, while she is a wife, a homemaker, and  a mother of young children.  She doesn't cry, she said; she screams.

Screams? Screaming is a sign of weakness.  Roaring is a sign of strength!  

All you working mothers out there --

Don't scream! R-O-A-R!

Roar like a lion! 

At Karoun Yoga (West Springfield, Massachusetts), the yoga guru teaches folks to breath like a lion; but Marash Girl prefers to roar. . . like a lion, of course!

So roar, folks, roar!

YOGA TODAY?

Yesterday was my youngest daughter's birthday!  My husband and I decided to drive out to Springfield to celebrate (an appropriate city to celebrate as Karoun was named for her birth day, Karoun -- the Armenian word for Spring). We planned to fete her at breakfast, lunch and dinner, but, as with all good intentions, we never left until mid-morning.

Okay. Skip the breakfast, skip the lunch.  Most important was the promise to take Karoun shopping at our favorite TJ's as we had to be back at 1:45, in time for Karoun to teach her 2:00 Yoga Class (the first of three classes she would be teaching that day).  

But she took me by surprise when she asked, Would you like to take my yoga class, Mama. Yoga?  I had on a pair of winter jeans and a heavy sweater.  I don't think so!  But here we are at TJ's and look, here's the activewear. And we didn't have to look for very long.  There at the end of a rack, as if awaiting our arrival, were light weight yoga pants in black (the only pair there, and in my size as well) and on the next rack  a long-sleeved top perfect for yoga and in fuchsia, a great color for Marash Girl!  But wait a minute!  This was not supposed to be a shopping trip for me!  My birthday was still months away. 

Changing our focus,  we soon found a wonderful dress and some yoga tops for the birthday girl!  Yay!  [And a strainer for her kitchen as well!]  Now we would be the perfectly dressed mother-daughter yoga team. 

Except who goes to yoga after lunchtime with no lunch?  We had only 20 minutes!  We looked out the front window of TJ's and saw across the way, you almost guessed it, a Taco Bell.  Taco Bell?  Some celebration! But we both thought better of going into a yoga class on an empty stomach, and 20 minutes is 20 minutes.  So into Taco Bell we went.

The secret, Karoun assured me, is to know how to order.  3 Deal Ones please!  (Deal One?)  For the uninitiated, a Deal One is a real deal: a small lightly spiced chicken and rice burrito with a bag of Cheese Doritos and a drink.  All for $2.  

Are you sure I'm not going to feel sick after eating this?  No, she assured me.  This is not the Golden Arches.  As long as you order right, you'll be fine.  And we were!  The food was delicious (though we skipped the Doritos as they were artificially colored --  you know the kind in the red bag) and we made it to Karoun Yoga 

 Photo Credit: KarounYoga.com

in time for Karoun to teach her two o'clock class, my second ever yoga class, and my first time achieving such poses as the tree, the stork, the butterfly, to name only a few of our poses that day.  I can't believe I actually did them, and all because of my talented daughter who teaches/guides yoga in her spacious Yoga Studio, the only yoga studio in downtown Springfield, Massachusetts:  Karoun Yoga.  Check it out!