Recently there was another scandal in the yoga community (Bikram was charged with a second sexual harassment suit). I thought about how disappointing the yoga/spiritual world can be. But I also thought that the great majority of yoga teachers that I know, are people filled with integrity, who work hard,  and are trying their best. I wrote this for them; I wrote this for all of us.

"This…

Metta is a Pali word which translates as "lovingkindness." It is one of many kinds of meditations that you can do. Sylvia Boorstein describes it in her book Don't Just Do Something, Sit There as "a structured formula for benevolent well-wishing." A few days ago I went to a friend's house for a meditation session. He led a group of us through a practice of metta.…

Dear Readers:

I am so thrilled that my writing has been published at Elephant Journal. I wrote a series of reflections from taking part in Gil Hedley's dissection workshop. Below is the link and hopefully you can check it out. I also copied the article and pasted it.

Mostly I can't wait for my parents to read this.

With love,

Maria Cristina

http://www.elephantjournal.com/2013/02/reflections-on-gil-hedleys-6-day-dissection-workshop-maria-christina-jimenez/

For…

I went to see my bodyworker and during our session she asked me about Anusara and John. I resigned from Anusara Yoga literally a year ago today (February 16th), so I've been reminiscing about it. On February 3rd, 2012, we in the community learned via a now defunct website about the unethical behavior of the man many of us called our teacher. John Friend was someone whom I studied with for over 10…

Reminiscing about India... 

I was thinking about the many temples we went to in India, the many Gods and Goddesses we saw. Sometimes I couldn't tell which deity we were looking at, even if I was standing right in front of it. The faces seemed to merge between genders, male becoming female, and vice versa. My impatience would set it and I would turn to the person next to…

When you are teaching yoga, there is no way to be sure about how things are going, except that feeling that you get during class and especially at the end of class. You never know though. At times I'm teaching a class and feel bound by doubts or by automatic-pilot sequencing and the same repetitive stretches. Other days (the best!) there is an opening, a window of some sort cracks allowing…

Someone asked what was the worst experience I had in India? What was the most challenging moment? I answered pretty fast, saying that it was seeing the beggars: the men, women and children begging for food, bringing hands to mouth and asking for help. They would follow us, all the way to the entrance of the temples when we went in. Hours later they were there when we left the temple, following…

My friend Felix asked what was the best experience from my trip to India, the most memorable moment? I took me a while but I landed on a moment. told him that it happened at the Thillai Kali temple. Two days ago I arrived…

A friend who was at my anatomy workshop asked me to repeat something I had said. Here goes:

"All fascia is connective tissue but not all connective tissue is fascia. Connective tissue is one of the four main tissues of the body. The other are nerve tissue, muscle tissue and epithelial tissue. Tissues are a collection of similar cells with the same functions. Cells are made of organelles.…

Yesterday I taught my three-hour Anatomy workshop. It was a huge success. There were 38 somanauts (*a word coined by my teacher Gil Hedley which means "explorers of the body") at Black Dog Yoga in Sherman Oaks. I had gotten a little (to say the least) obsessive in the last two months, spending about two to five hours every day preparing for this workshop. Literally. Every day I would wake up and…