Ninie Ahmad: Off her yoga mat.

PETALING JAYA, August 2009 – When you don’t drink, not in the mood to party and when you are never into conventional fireworks and hazardous noise, how else can you celebrate Merdeka (Independence) Eve? Ever thought of a free yoga class conducted by Malaysia’s yoga celebrity?

The founder of beyoga and also the Official Yoga Ambassador for adidas Malaysia, Ninie Ahmad said, she has been counting the days to 2009’s Merdeka Day to commence her free yoga class for public on Merdeka eve.

“For years, I have never enjoyed partying and be stuck in traffic jam everytime Merdeka and New Year’s eve arrive. I respect my body by not consuming harmful substance just to validate a commercialized celebration and I believe, many more KL-lites are in the same boat with me.”

Since beyoga opens to public in May 2009, Ninie has been conducting free yoga classes she calls ‘Karma Yoga’ every Sunday 10.15am at beyoga Damansara Perdana with help of her key teachers at beyoga.

“We call it Karma Yoga as it is our way to give back to the public of what we have gained from them. The teachers do not get paid for teaching Karma Yoga class as it is of voluntarily basis. However, participants are highly encouraged to donate any amount of cash as they join this class and all donations from our Karma Yoga classes are to be forwarded to a chosen charity body or non-profit organization we have pre-chosen for the month. For example, collection for the month of May and June had been proceeded to Rumah Hope, PJ and we have selected MERCY Malaysia to receive our collection for the month of July and August.”

Ninie who also is one of Malaysia’s top female bloggers and has ‘pretzel-ed’ local celebrities namely Ida Nerina, Atilia, Ning Baizura, Jehan Miskin, Norazlina Redzuan, Wan Zaleha Radzi, Kavita Kaur and many more adds, “The best part about Karma Yoga class at beyoga is, although it is a free class, it is also the only class where we teach themed yoga.”

“Since all Mother’s Day and Father’s Day fall on Sundays, we did encourage public to bring their mothers and fathers those two Sundays. Instead of normal light stretches to warm-up, that Karma Yoga classes started with the teacher choosing a couple of participants to share what their mothers or fathers have sacrificed for them to raise them up.”

“Since 70% of the beyoga ‘s Karma Yoga participants are women, you could expect tears and overwhelming emotions filled the room!”

“We first conducted the Karma Yoga class during Earth Hour 2009 where participants practiced yoga poses surrounded by tealight candles and be asked to take care of Mother Earth as much as we take care of our body and family.”

Ninie also shares, “For the past two months, I have been conducting my Karma Yoga slots with yoga therapy and poses that can help boost immunity system to fight airborne virus and common cold especially with the current H1N1 pandemic scare.”

“While we are all bound to suffer from occasional flu, yoga practitioners are less likely to come down with sniffles and when we do, we tend to have much faster recovery rate due to yoga’s known abilities to regulate the immune system, keeping it strong to withstand infection.”

“Yoga’s stress-reducing ability is a primary reason to why yoga helps prevent if not cure common cold. Stress is a major contributing factor to catching a cold or flu as stress hormones cause the thymus to shrink in size causing it to poorly-function as a producer of immune cells.”

“For the Merdeka Eve Karma Yoga however, I plan to teach the class with yoga poses and flow that will help ‘free’ chemical, physical, emotional toxins that have been colonized and trapped in our system throughout our lives – in true spirit of ‘Merdeka’ (Independence), and maybe wear Jalur Gemilang coloured yoga attire that night!”

The Merdeka Eve Karma Yoga commenced 10.15pm until 11.30pm August 30th, 2009 (Merdeka Eve) and beyoga conducts Karma Yoga (free class for public) every Sunday 10.15am. For more information on beyoga’s other Karma Yoga classes, visit beyoga’s website http://beyoga.my or contact beyoga at 03-7728 6182 / 03-7729 6182.

(All photos courtesy of Erica Wong)

I prepared myself for the recent adidas FA Beijing with a lot of backbend exercises thinking I was in for ra’Yoka Level Green: Opening, errr.. by not exactly preparing as I know backbends have always been my favourites.

Little did I know, instead of traveling up the chakra chart, it shot down to Level Orange: Detoxification that I know will require deep twists and out-of-the-world painful hip openers, something like Yin Yoga Teacher Training Certification (TTC).

Our hips are the biggest joints in the body.

Toxins are mostly stuck at any joints of our body so our hips are biggest garbage pails in the body especially if we don’t detox, fast, cry / laugh (these are forms of emotional toxins’ releases as well) often.

For a yoga instructor, I am not proud to share that my hips openings are not as impressive as I would like them to be. That was why I got stuck for years at Ashtanga Primary Series for I was not able to do Turtle Pose (Kurmasana) without assistance until recently.

True enough, I was suffering in most of the poses especially Seated One Legged Pigeon Pose (Eka Pada Kapotasana) and Revolved Side Angle Pose (Parivrtta Parsvakonasana) that are deemed pain-free even by some beginners to yoga ‘_’

After 16-hours of repeating ra’Yoka Level Orange that consists a lot of Uddiyana Bandhas

whose benefits include

• Massages abdominal viscera, the solar plexus, the heart and lungs
• Increases gastric fire; improves digestion, assimilation and elimination; and purifies the digestive tract of toxins
• Stimulates blood circulation in the abdomen and blood flow to the brain

(Source: YogaJournal.com)

and all possible Warrior (Virabhadrasana) variations and twists,

which work magic to

(Source: YogaJournal.com)

PLUS after undergoing fruit + veggie (with no sugar, no caffeine) diet for seven days, we started to feel lethargic and if it’s not too demotivating – shitty.

Prior to the ra’Yoka TTC, we have been warned that this Level Orange: Detoxification (or pretty much ANY detox) will only work if we get one of these post-detox effects (PDE):

• Fever (the only way organ and body cells get to regenerate and be reproduced)
• Breakouts (to discharge chemical toxins that our digestive system is not able to release)
• Depression (some people hardly get angry or scream at others so this effect might be expected)

God knows how we all prayed hard to not get the first two PDEs as:

1. We’ll definitely get quarantined at our home airport and we can’t really say, “Don’t worry, Officer. We just got back from a Detox TTC!” can we?
2. Some of the girls are the faces of adidas billboards throughout Asia so they can’t afford breakouts either.

Although, it takes as simple as one processed food / any chemical agent to break our hardworked detox.

As expected, I felt even more lethargic as I touched down KL.

I locked myself in my room for two days, refused to see or talk to anyone and just fed myself with clear water & fruits throughout.

But I was not used to feeling that low and I did not feel good, of course.

For that 48 hours I hid under my blanket, I kept hearing “Get rid of my possession that made me unhappy and has been burdening me a lot” – MY HAIR.

So, a week before Beijing, I had hair (well, ‘almost’) this long

and shortly after Beijing, I chose to let it go.

All the perming / straightening / colouring / highlighting / chemical treatments my hair went through, are being put a stop to. And I have never felt better.

When I was ready to start teaching at BE Yoga again, a couple of fellow yoga instructors shared that they felt exactly the same (depressed, sad, suicidal) after their Yin Yoga TTC.

We might not break out in acne (as most yogis choose meat / caffeine / sugar-FREE & organic diet), we might not get sick as often (an hour of yoga class everyday produces enough heat to regenerate body cells which is to 1- why drinking water in yoga class is not encouraged 2- after every yoga class, you’ll feel instantly rejuvenated, almost post-fever feeling with no fever, of course) but you’d be surprised of the amount of emotional toxins the yoga instructors held trapped inside the hips joints.

The unpleasant experience post-detox is a surprisingly sore reminder that we are all humans afterall.

For those of you interested to experience an hour of Detox Yoga, BE Yoga and I are holding another Karma Yoga class (F.O.C Class For Public) on Merdeka eve, 10.15pm to 11.30pm at BE Yoga, Damansara Perdana.

This Detox Yoga held on the eve of Merdeka Day is an alternative for yogis who choose NOT to validate Independence Day in form of meaningless noise, unhealthy substance and conventional celebration. Detox / Merdeka Eve Karma Yoga class will consist of poses / flow that will help ‘free’ chemical, physical, emotional toxins that have ­­­­been colonized and trapped in our system throughout our lives – in true spirit of ‘Merdeka’ (Independence).

P.S. If you are worried you’ll breakout, fall sick with fever or get depressed, fret not as an hour of yoga a year IS NOT ENOUGH to release all the physical / chemical / emotional toxins completely especially if you’ve never done it before / eat steak everyday / been indulging preservatives and sweeteners for the past 20 or 30 years of living in this body.

So I say, do whatever it is you need to do to let go of things that make you unhappy be it – badly treated hair, toxic friends, unhealthy relationship or even negative-vibed blog as keeping them in our system will only turn them cancerous one day.

Let’s all have a Meatless Monday and an organic week ahead!

Love and light.