Happy new year everyone! If you're like me who gained two kilos from indulging during the holidays, then it's time to clean up your system with a yoga detox workshop. I"m facilitating this workshop next weekend on January 8, 9 and 10 at Life Yoga Center at Bonifacio Global City in Taguig.
Food indulgence, weight gain and all night revelry with the company of kith and kin are practically toxins that can catch up with you, as they lower your immunity and make you prone to general aches and pains.
The "New Year, New You Yoga Detox" is a weekend yoga detox designed to shed off the toxins accumulated through kundalini yoga and meditation and a two 'detox-in-a-bottle' cleansing kit formulated by fitness nutritionist-chef and weight loss specialist Nadine Tengco. The kit consists of six bottled detox juices, a cleansing soup, a digestive enzyme bottle and 5 grams ground fiber taken every two hours starting at 8am.
Yogi Bhajan said "Juices must not be drunk, but 'eaten' thoroughly, 'chewed' and mixed with saliva. Vegetable juice fasts are good for losing weight, detoxification and cleansing the organs, cells and tissues of the body."
If you want to detox your body, mind and spirit, the schedule begins on January 8 (Friday) at 6pm with a kundalini yoga and meditation set. The six juice bottles will be distributed that evening for consumption at night. The workshop and cleansing program continues on January 9 and 10 from 10 am to 3:30pm.
To prepare for the juice fast, take plenty of raw vegetables and fruits in your diet at least two days before this weekend to minimize shocking your system. While on the cleanse consume 2-3 liters of distilled water per day and to include peppermint tea which is good for its calming and strengthening effect on the nerves and for indigestion, nausea and flatulence.
Start the new year right and choose to set your year with a cleaner and healthier you. Life Yoga is located at the 2nd floor of 8 Forbestown Town Center, Burgo Circle, Fort Bonifacio Global City, Taguig. The earl bird rate of P7,359 is until January 3 (regular rate is P7,650) which includes the yoga and meditation and the two-day juice fasting pack. To register, call 886-7500.
"I am not a guru or a healer; I am just a mirror to allow you to see things as they truly are” says Pi Villaraza when asked what he does.
I joined Pi’s detox, healing and energy training program in Bahay Kalipay in Puerto Prinsesa, Palawan last Labor Day weekend. He said that "Bahay Kalipay is our home. Because of the nature of our work in healing and detoxification, people naturally come to us to visit, heal, train and to center themselves. Thus, we decided to open up our home… to accommodate others while retaining as much of the basic simplicity we find as effective conditions for the work that we do." This includes hand pumping water that apparently most foreigners find charming.
I first met Pi when Rosanna Escudero invited me to do “Inner Dance” last March. He struck me as someone stripped off Ego –very simple in a t-shirt, jeans and sandals and extremely articulate while making all these “crackling” sounds.
Pi learned the ancient Filipino healing modality of the Babaylans after undergoing a vision quest that took him to the States in 2002 where he met powerful teachers and spirit guides that eventually led him back to the Philippines to do a walking pilgrimage around Mindanao like a hermit without money or contacts; and ended holing up for two-years on a deserted beach in Palawan subsisting on coconuts. He said “I felt a powerful urge to detach myself from all external sources of energy – family, money, friends and the many distractions of the world.”
He later coined it “inner dance” because of the dance-like movement generated from the internal energy. After a powerful session that night at Rosanna’s which was cathartic, my left side - the piriformis and ITB injury from the marathon- that has been bothering me for the last six months somehow felt better.
Pi describes inner dance as “Those who undergo the experience will soon find that it is not a dance, really, but more of an inner work that unifies mind, body, and spirit. It is a meditation that allows one to access powerful forces that simultaneously silences the mind.” Anna, who neither dances or practice yoga, was trance-like, gracefully twirling her hands and arms, moving with the music even doing back bends! She kept going for almost two hours. Short clip here:
The program consists of raw food live enzyme diet with a one day coconut flush, eco-tourism (visit to the Hot Springs or if the weather is good, sailing), organic gardening, handicraft (how to make a dream catcher), and healing and energy workshops which included daily Inner Dance, massage, Inner Yoga, Meditation, and self-processing spirituality. The workshops are experiential and interactive. He said “At the end of the stay, the goal is to have made a healing difference in specific physical, emotional and spiritual blockages the participant wants to focus his release work on. The secondary goal is to teach self-healing and simultaneously how to heal others.”
His organic garden set-up is in a way similar to Peter Caddy's, the founder of Findhorn Community in Scotland. There is a compost heap, potash (lime) and some guidance with the garden deva (through Daniw) who introduced mulch from the coconut husks to insulate the soil and protect the seedling. I planted my first organic tomato plant (left photo) in a terrain of mostly rock and coral and mixed with compost and all the essentials.
The experience was worthwhile and to me, downright full of integrity --from the simplicity of the place down to the simplicity of our food intake.
I learned a lot from just being simple. Inner dance is really a journey inward. The raw food diet, inner dance exercises, quieting of the mind are all tools to release mind/body/spirit from so-called blockages. With this release, I have more energy and am now more mindful and aware---ready to listen and see the signs that will help me toward a healthy, happy life…filled with peace from within.
Pi has helped others with medical conditions such as glaucoma, cysts, migraines, psoriasis, depression etc. Perhaps with this new found learning and practice, I can start by healing myself (treat simple aches and pains) and maybe in the future, advance to helping others mirror themselves.
Pi and Danui will be traveling to Singapore and will be in Manila on May 20 for a one-day workshop. To find out more about inner dance visit http://innerdance.multiply.com/
Also, to watch Pi in action, check out Epi Quizon's video "The Dancer Within":
“You’ve been feasted on!” exclaimed Dra Roberto Romero, a leading clinical dermatologist in the Philippines and the third doctor I’ve seen in two weeks to treat the insect bites all over my body. The bites have not subsided since my 3-day detox weekend stint at Tiaong, Quezon two weeks ago and in fact, the bites have spread on my face and the ones on my arm turned black and blue.
We were a total of four patients at the Philippine Breast Center Network’s “Tiaong Breast Haven” (photo). Unfortunately, I was the only one bitten! Dr. Romero refers to my case as the phenomena of the pheromones. She said that I emit a particular scent that attracted the arthropods of Tiaong. They left their mark (saliva, even eggs) on my skin. The lumps, itchiness, swelling manifested 2 to 3 days after their sting. We're talking about an anthropod party, lots of anthropods, because my arms, chest, back, legs and face are ridden with bites.
At first I thought I had the ‘shingles’ because it was spreading all over my body. I went to see the first doctor and she said it was an allergic reaction and injected each bite with steroids and prescribed antihistamines (cost me an arm and a leg!). The second doctor also diagnosed allergy and again injected each bite and prescribed oral steroids.
Dr. Romero’s advice was simply to “suffer” and not go back to Tiaong where the arthropods there love my scent. The next bite she said could be deadly! She prescribed a cortisone ointment and to avoid foods that will cause my bites to flare up. My condition will last for another 6 to 8 weeks and meantime I’m wearing long sleeves to cover the bites. Otherwise, will scare some people because it looks like chicken pox marks!
My scent is different from anybody else and I hope this doesn’t deter anyone from going to Tiaong Breast Haven, a two-hour drive from Manila. Danny Meneses set-up the facility as an “alternative venue for empowering women afflicted with the disease - to confront, overcome and live with breast cancer with full honor and dignity.” His wife Rosa who passed away in September 2000, survived 43 months without chemotherapy or radiation. Danny’s protocol is quite intensive and based on the natural approaches of Rudolf Breuss, Max Gerson and Sat Dharam Kaur. This consists of fasting, raw vegetable juice and narra and turmeric tea , and twice a day coffee enema. The therapy is to remove the metabolic waste from the body, free the cells membranes from protein build-up and provide the body with the necessary essential vitamins and minerals while fasting. The coffee enema eliminates estrogen by-products, environmental estrogens and toxins from the colon and the liver. For more info, contact Danny at pbcn@iname.com or visit www.pbcn.org.
