What's New at Jungleyoga...

Jungleyoga is Randall O'Leary's combination of yoga postures, breaths, Tantric philosophy and humor with an eye on transformation! Teacher Trainings are offered in Thailand in June 2010 and January 2011. I travel from place to place, bringing yoga and things India all around the world. There are many things here at Jungleyoga website, both reverential and humorous, and many pages to explore. You can explore the links above, or click on some of the newer pages down below... Have fun!! Thanks for visiting!!

It seems like we have about 15-20 people per day visiting the site, so thanks for your support and let me know if there is anything you would like more of on Jungleyoga.Net... OM

New Links @ JY

Slideshow of the Thailand 2010 July training!

Review of the latest Teacher Training Workshop in Thailand, July 2010!

New! Stupid yoga videos from YouTube.

Reggae Yoga Page!! Click Here.

You can click on the banner to listen to Reggae as you Browse Jungleyoga!!

Reggae Yoga Section

This month's Soundclash: Luciano Vs. Luciano!

Yes, you guessed it, the roots reggae singer Luciano goes head to head with Luciano Pavarotti, the Italian opera singer.

Which man will win this month's Soundclash??

Check out the details on the Reggae Yoga Page!!

Welcome to Jungleyoga News and Info Section

I am currently in Colorado, visiting my family; half of them have moved to Durango, a hip and active little mountain town. They call it a 'Victorian Mining Town', due to the fact that it had its origins in the late 19th century. The outdoors and literally just out your door and the sheer beauty of the area is staggering. There is loads of wood in the forests and it is an ideal place for mountain yogis!

The biggest current news is that the Jungleyoga Teacher Training Courses will no longer be held at the Blooming Lotus on Haad Yuan. The reasons for the change are not worth discussing, but the future is! At the moment i am not sure where we will hold the February Training, but our agents are on the case. I will let you know the moment i have any information. Hopefully we can hold it at Haad WaiNam if there is room. Otherwise, we may be off the bay, at a north side location. We shall see. As Bob Marley sung: "When one door is closed, many more will open." Jah guide us!

(Late July, 2010)I have returned to San Francisco from a month in Thailand, having gone for the summer Training. I hope to make the summer Training an annual event; in fact, excitement was so high this year that i hope to run a 6 week or 2 month workshop next summer! This should end up being a 500 Level Training, which will take about 6 weeks of classes!

More information on the 500 Level Training will follow in the future, check this space soon for more.

I will also be in BALI at the Yoga Barn teaching classes, September through December, 2010. I will put up the exact schedule when i get it, but i think they are mainly morning classes, starting 2 Sept. That will be fun, to be in residence for a spell! The exact times of the classes are:

Tuesday & Thursday 10:30am and Saturday 8:30am.

Hope to see you in some of the classes. Some workshops are going to be planned as well, more on that as it develops.

Bullsh*t Yoga News of the Month:

Just because it's bullsh@t does not mean it's not true!!

Indian Government Attempting to Patent thousands of yoga postures. Short article from the BBC:

"The Indian government is planning to patent nearly a thousand yoga postures. Yoga teacher Swami Pragyamurti and Dr Vinod Kumar Gupta, of the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library, debate whether yoga moves should be patented and how that could be enforced.

Dr Vinod Kumar Gupta says the practice will mean "the right to deny others to practice unless you take the consent" of the patent holder.

But Swami Pragyamurti is concerned about "the whole idea of trying to patent something as universal as yoga".

Link to the audio interview from the BBC. Hear it for yourself...

~Or~

American Yoga Teachers Still Trying To Lock Up Yoga Moves With IP

(from Tech Dirt.com, click to link to them)

Back in 2004, we first noted the rather disturbing trend of US-based yoga instructors who were trying to franchise their operations trying to copyright or patent yoga moves and prevent competitors from teaching them. Over the years, the problem has gotten worse. Back in 2007, we noted that there were approximately 150 yoga-related copyrights, 134 patents on yoga accessories and 2,315 yoga trademarks -- and the numbers have surely gone up since then. Last year, we noted that India was trying to put together a big database of yoga information, to try to make sure there was clear prior art to stop these instructors from locking up thousands of years of knowledge.

Reader Vidiot was the first of a few of you to point out that American Public Media's Marketplace Morning Report has an update on this story, and it's basically more of the same. American-based yoga instructors are still trying to lock up various yoga moves... and the Indian government is still rushing trying to block them. Unfortunately, it seems like things haven't really changed much, though I'm guessing that the article is wrong in saying that it's yoga "moves" that are being patented. In the past we noted that instructors were trying to copyright the moves, but patent certain accessories. Either way, it seems ridiculous that any basic yoga moves should be restricted at all -- with or without prior art. How you move your body certainly should not be subject to intellectual property protections, and it's sad that the Indian government needs to get involved at all.

The next Jungleyoga Teacher Training Intensive scheduled for Late January-Late February 2011, somwhere on Phangan, Thailand!The exact location is yet to be determined...And i hope to run a 2 MONTH COURSE in summer of 2011, meaning to you southern hemp-isphere types, July and August.

Description of the Thailand Jungleyoga Intensive and Training June and July, 2010

The summer trainings have been difficult to launch for the past few years, but i thought i would try again to make one happen. Even up to the last moment, we were not sure there would be enough students to run the course. However, thanks to the enthusiasm of Alecia (who gathered Celeste for the course) we got just enough people to make it happen.

Even through the emails the students seemed very nice and easy-going (traits i like very much in students). When we finally met at the Bamboo Hut restaurant on the night before the first day, my suspicions were confirmed: they were both pleasant and easy-going people! All throughout the training, everyone continued to be wonderful, kind, considerate and hard-working. As we gradually knew each other better, people became even nicer and the training become even more enjoyable! Thanks so much to all the students who gave such light spirit and enthusiasm! It made my work so much easier and full of fun!

We began the work with the fundamentals, as we always do. We began with the opening rituals and started to learn the mantras that we would do throughout the course. After that, we started to learn about the Swara Cycles, which are a critical part of the training. If you don't know, Swara Cycles are simple (generally) cycles of movement coordinated with breath. The main point is to develop the breath's rhythm and depth, not to accomplish anything in the physical body. That work comes later. So much of what is developed in the training is built on the Swara Cycles and the Prana that they create.

The second section of the morning practice is dedicated to the Asanas and the physical work. So we began by creating the foundations of the shapes and looking at the various kinds of poses, so we could eventually understand how they work and how we can use them. In the afternoons we held interesting discussions on the knowledge (jnana) that supports the practices. There were many very interesting discussions about a huge variety of topics, thanks again to the students for being so interested!

In the evenings we had either a meditation or another Asana class led by my wonderful assistant, Nola. Thanks to her for all her efforts to make the training a success! On Fridays we did the Homa, fire ceremony, which is a puja centered around a holy fire and powered up by mantras. It is a very powerful and transformational practice that make the mantras even more powerful.

By the second week, we were developing all the important basics and building upon them. I find it so important to build up the work from the beginning; this makes the later phases of the practice both powerful and comprehensible. So we spent some time on the simple postures and breaths and meditations (by the way, simple does not in any way mean easy!). Most importantly, we were working with backbends, core strength, arm balances, headstands and shoulderstands. The steadiness of the breath in Ujjayi was our main focus for the beginning.

By week 3 we were well into the more powerful aspects of the practice. We learned more of the mantras and developed our 'mantra shakti', our power to recite mantras for longer. We used about 10 mantras regularly, both in the morning and during the Homa fire puja. Week 3 saw a development in the different types of pranayamas including work with the nostrils (up to Nadi Sodhana) and pauses of the breath called Kumbhakas. There are literally millions of different types of pranayama, so we were able to cover the basics, but this was more than enough for most people.

In the Asanas, we kept developing the headstands, backbends and alignments for all poses, as well as understanding the energetic qualities of the poses. Certainly the breath work we did every day helped us to breathe well in even the most intense poses. By this time, the work on the fundamentals was paying off and student's poses were looking quite good! We could notice a big difference between the Training students and those who were only dropping in on the classes. Even though many others had more experience in yoga, the poses of the Training students looked both comfortable, well-aligned and open, with a flowing breath. This is what i like to see in postures!

We worked on Bandhas in week 3 amongst many other things, which brought us back to many simple poses but with a very different focus than before. Truly, yoga is a multi-layered experience!

In week 4 we explored the Chakras and different practices to connect with their unique energies. The work continued to be intense but gentle, and each day brought a new type of prana to us. The root chakra taught us about grounding and rooting, the second chakra showed us openness and adaptability, the third (fire) chakra gave us intensity and willpower, etc. It was a very interesting week!

Somehow, the time flew by and before we knew it, the training was concluding! Despite needing a break, most of us were still excited to do more yoga. One of my priorities in the trainings is not to exhaust the students. Yoga is intense and deep and cannot be learned quickly. Thus there is no need to take it too fast. Our gentle but continual pace paid off in the end; everyone was happy and charged up and ready for the next phase in their lives. I saw everyone's posture change, their bodies began to transform and even the look on their faces and in the eyes took a new appearance!

So thanks once again to all who took the training or visited our classes! Your support for Jungleyoga give me inspiration to work harder and make JY an even better experience for all!

OM Shanti Shanti Shanti