Downward Facing Blog

Everyone here who talked to me LOVED this training and mentioned how deep, thorough, and knowledgable Victor Chng is. We will welcome back Victor again in April 2009 for advanced teacher trainings and new specialized yin yoga “meridian series”.

Below is an article
published in Malaysia on 1st Nov 2008 by The Star newspaper. I can’t tell if I
am feeling speechless or …… ashamed.

Fatwa Council ruling on yoga on Friday

KUALA
LUMPUR: The National Fatwa Council will come out with a ruling on yoga exercise
on Friday, said Department of Islamic Development Malaysia (Jakim)
directorgeneral Datuk Wan Mohamad Sheikh Abdul Aziz.

He
said the ruling would come following an indepth six-month study that had been
undertaken after the matter was referred to the council three times.

The
ruling is related to the faith of Muslims who practised yoga, Wan Mohamad told
reporters after officiating a seminar on ‘akidah’ (faith) at the Wilayah
Persekutuan Mosque on Saturday.

Recently,
a lecturer, Prof Zakaria Stapa of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia’s Islamic
Studies Centre, advised Muslims who had taken up yoga to stop practising it out
of concern that it could cause them to deviate from their belief.

Yoga,
related to exercise and mental discipline, has been practised since 3,300BC for
improved health and is said to help slow down ageing, reduce risk of diabetes,
asthma and heart-related diseases.

The
daily exercise practice has many poses, positions and concentration techniques
based on ancient Indian tradition. Also, Wan Mohamad said he regretted the
attitude of Muslims in the country who were easily influenced by foreign
cultures to the point of affecting their faith.

“When
those involved take them as trends, such cultures can lead to a serious crime
according to syariah law (Islamic law) and this can destroy the family
institution,” he said.

Wan
Mohamed said the recent National Fatwa Council ruling to ban tomboyish
behaviour, that is women looking like men whether in appearance or dressing,
was to preserve the faith of Muslims.

He
said syariah law could be brought to bear on Muslims who practice culture that
could lead to a deviation of their faith. - Bernama

** Fatwa in the
Islamic faith is a religious opinion on Islamic laws issued by an Islamic
scholar.

David Life and Sharon Gannon are among the most well-known and respected yoga teachers in USA today. Despite the sensationalism in regards to their current popularity, the founders of Jivamukti Yoga are very down-to-earth.

Adrian and I first met David Life on the night of our arrival. My first impression of David: he  is stunning for a 63 year-old. I would never have thought he has passed his 50s. When we met Sharon the next day at the conference, Adrian was mystified  by her blue hair; kind of reminded him of “those days”.  As I found out in the next few days, Sharon was a huge fan of ———— “SLEEPING”. Just as I was concerned she might be having jetlag, or asking if she had plan for the evening, it was always “I think I’ll go back and sleep” She even chirped in her girlie tone  “I just LOVE sleeping”. I should look into it. Perhaps that’s the real secret to their roaring success.

Unless you have studied with them before, few people know what drives the Jivamukti couple. In the beginning , they were artists who were also political activists. They tried to shift the values of their culture through their art. Soon they recognized that the ethical percepts of yoga are in line with their activist views and aspirations, especially ahimsa and aparigraha.

Nowadays, Their students teach all over the world and have created centers in New York, London, Berlin, Munich, Toronto, Vancouver, and Charleston, South Carolina.

Sharon is particularly fond of animals and environment. She sees the space yoga can provide for this type of activisms. As she was talking about feeding garbanzo beans and lentils to cats, it reminded me of one of my favorite teachers - Dharma Mittra - , who tricked strayed cats into vegetarian by mixing ground green peas in their diet.

We wish we could have spent more time with this lovely couple. Adrian was getting more and more attached to them as days went by.  Although nothing concrete was agreed upon, David and Sharon were certainly enthusiastic about coming to Bangkok. That would be fun J

Many of you might not have known the reason why Adrian and I were not around over the last week. Not even some of the closest friends of ours knew. It was simply because we hadn’t been talking about it much. We should have.

 There was so much to be talking about! It is the very first international Yoga Conference that Adrian was invited to teach at! AND, he was featured alongside two of the yoga “super-stars” – David Life and Sharon Gannon. I don’t know about you but it sure sounds like a big deal to me.

How could we have left this historical moment of glory slide away? The truth is: Adrian was too preoccupied with work that he simply didn’t have time to indulge on this gratifying moment of his. What a shame. In fact, he didn’t even realize the scale of the event up until the moment we were chauffeured into the Crocus Expo center.

Adrian was the featured teacher at the opening ceremony. How did it feel to be teaching in a room of 100s people? It was intimidating at first but strength and confidence soon caught up with him; he was the charismatic teacher that we have always known once again.

Adrian’s workshops received much raving reviews. We were told that the Russian practitioners loved the practice so much that they can’t stop singing their praises in blogs all over the internet! One of the participants told me now that she knew us, she would definitely extend her holiday in December and visit Bangkok as she makes her annual trip to Pattaya.

The Marketing Director that attended Adrian’s workshops was so impressed with the classes that she invited Adrian for a private teaching at Yoga Journal office. Apparently they have a Yoga center in the building where the staffs get together to practice. Not only that, the publisher of Moscow Yoga Journal was already in talk to work more closely with us in the future! How’s that for international recognition? Bravo!

Adrian teaching a private at the Yoga Journal office.

Farewell dinner with the lovely people from Moscow Yoga Journal: Oksana (Marketing Director), Kathuna (Publisher), and Ekaterina (Deputy Editor-in-Chief)

Now, although it’s not uncommon to have students requesting for photos and autograph, it was quite another experience signing a yoga mat. “It felt like a rock-star” as Adrian secretly revealed his little “guilty” pleasure. Luckily for the Russian fans, although Adrian is now back with the Bangkok yoga community, they can still take glimpses of Adrian as the local TV station broadcast interview of him during the conference.

Just shortly after Moscow, Adrian is already scheduled to teach at another conference organized by Thailand Yoga Journal. Come join Adrian for his workshop on Chakra Mediation this 1st and 2nd Nov. 

Have you ever wondered who is behind Yoga Journal Magazine, the world’s largest yoga magazine? The name is John Abbot, which I mistakenly heard as John Edwards, and continued to think so for the next two days. Since one of our interests is analyzing names, Adrian and I were totally at awed with what a great name that is! It speaks authority and has a political tone to it. Now for those of you who have the slightest interest in America politics, it wouldn’t have taken you long to have known John Edwards is INDEED a politician, whom was a Democratic nominee for Vice President in 2004. There ended our name analyzing game…..

The man behind the largest yoga magazine in the world.

For the few breakfast times that we had together, John Abbot nonchalantly shared with us his impressive experience from Spanish and French language interpreter for the State Department, to international investment banker with Citicorp, to owner and president of the Yoga Journal magazine. Having lived in so many countries around the globe, the well-travelled John Abbot declared Paris and New Zealand as favorite places he’d like to call home.

Not only is John a keen businessman, he is also a dedicated Iyengar yoga practitioner. In fact, he has been studying personally with Mr BKS Iyengar himself for six years now. In his own word “Iyengar is one the very few truly inspiring persons in the world.” John has high regards for Mr. Iyengar’s therapeutic knowledge and is awed by Iyengar’s dedication to the practice in spite of his old age.

For a man who has seen and met so many great yogis around the world, I can’t help but feel proud when he praised on my adjustment “Clean and clear, right to the point. Very impressive” And as he continued to compliment on my practice, I started to blush and feel uneasy….. And ran away….Phew~  :p

John is scheduled to make his annual visit to Mr. Iyengar in India next February. He has mentioned his interest to visiting us in Bangkok en-route to California. So, all you Bangkok yogis get ready. Who knows he might just put you on the cover of Yoga Journal next J

Namaste Greetings!
Allow me to introduce this month’s hot yoga goddess; mother KALI:

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Sonic Yoga

DJ Fallout and Vinyasa FLOW guided by Adrian Cox
Coming to elements on Wednesday nights in July

It’s perfectly reasonable if you think I’m nuts when you read this. I don’t really care. It’s also perfectly reasonable if you get done reading this and get jealous… almost everyone does when I tell them the story of my last trip visiting aliens. As some derive from my writing already- I’m somewhat skeptical of these things already. If you know me at all- I don’t elaborate weird stories out of nowhere… but this my friends, was true.

Ok truth be told, I don’t have any idea if my upcoming trip to meet the ET’s will actually pan out or not, but it’s worth the try.

The other night I woke up from an extremely vivid dream because my wife was stroking my face. I guess she was consoling me as I was shouting and yelling… naturally, as I was pretty freaked out in my dream. Normally my dreams aren’t too clear- but this one was the lucid kind where you’re immersed in a whole world…

My friend Marisa and I were picked up in a craft and whizzing along a green terrain with a lake underneath. I didn’t know what the aliens wanted from us and it was uncomfortable.

Today I went to go plan the trip with the trip leader… a Thai healer of some good repute. He handed me the directions to the place and the photo on the page showed what I saw in the dream! He gave us the instructions to eat vegetarian until the trip and meditate a lot. He also handed us Kwan Yin amulets to put on our third eyes to beam the aliens love energy. I just love saying that…

So in case I disappear from this week on, I might have been abducted… frankly, I’m kinda into the idea :-p

The other morning around 6AM I got a call from my brother Ian telling me that my Dad had an accident in the Taiwan airport- he fell suddenly on a set of stairs, cut his head , arm, and shoulder on the sharp edge of the stairs. He was knocked unconscious and couldn’t remember anything.  The Eva air staff told us we must meet him and take him to the hospital when he arrived.

That’s the kind of call that wakes you up immediately.

In the past year I’ve watched my Dad age exponentially, losing a lot of vitality along the way. Although  I’ve never dealt directly with death yet, little else in my life has so far really driven home the point of my own mortality as watching my Dad approach the end of his own life. 

While we waited for him to be wheeled out of customs at Suvaranabhumi airport, my brother told me that of the dream he had just ten minutes before the EVA air staff phoned him…

In his dream, he was walking along with a family member and suddenly a guy comes out of nowhere with a stun-gun zapping the family member to the ground. Ian wakes up suddenly, heart racing, and then a few minutes later the call…

Have you had dreams like this yourself? I find dream-premonition fascinating. From where do these messages come from? Why do they communicate in symbols?

There are many models of the mind, from Freud’s concept of the un-sub-and super conscious mind to yoga’s view which is that what we operate from as our ego is really hovering atop a vast network of omniscience and creativity. If only we slow our ego operations of the mind down a touch then we can draw solutions and knowledge from the sea of consciousness within.

From this model we assume that everyone has the basic  resources within to be self-actualized, happy, and healthy. Yoga extends that further and suggests that we are innately blissful- but since I don’t really know what that actually means- in terms of daily life- I’m currently just calling it happiness.

The point here is that a lot of solutions reside within your unconscious mind. The key is trancing-out enough to access them. Meditation is a wonderful way of touching this sea of consciousness- stepping out of the way of the ego and touching the limitless self within. Hypnosis, yoga nidra, and deep relaxation also serve the same function. 

A technique to access your intuition

The other day I was sitting with an acquaintance propose a business deal to me and it was necessary for me to  assess her level of honesty, since under the deal I would be parting with my own money! I use this technique to let my unconscious mind speak to me, to get out of the ego.

When observing someone- widen your eyes so that you register the peripheral  vision while staying attuned to what the person says. Notice how your mind goes into an altered state immediately. In this state, you will be able to pick up more details that your conscious mind wouldn’t register. You will get more intuition, and more harmony with the deeper levels of being.

I’ll have to verify later if my intuition about that woman was accurate… It would be fantastic if it’s as accurate as my brother’s dream- even when they herald bad news!

The antidote to a noisy city life!

 Come float and drift your way through this silent, Friday night hip-opening flow class with Adrian Cox.
You will de-stress your body and soothe your senses with chill-out yoga, Tibetan chimes, dream-like ambient music,
candle light, incense, and zero chatter. All levels welcome!

Join Friday nights only in June at 5:45PM