Saturday, November 8, 2008

Saturday Morning

Wow- I have just been busy and away from a schedule of sitting and writing on my blog. I cannot believe it has been since Wednesday when last I updated this.

Thursday was a busy day in Austin. I had acupuncture, then met Anne for a stroll around Town Lake with the greyhounds and then we went for soup at Mr. Natural. We parted ways- I went to therapy, she had a meeting and then there the Thursday night classes at Westgate. I really had a good time teaching on Thursday. (I almost always have a pretty good time teaching. Have you noticed?) I taught a padmasana class at 4:30 that peaked in padmasana in sarvangasana, which was fun. And then in the 6:00 flow class we did a basic flow to music. I am actually enjoying teaching one class a week like that- a lot less technical, focused highly on moving with the breath and a heart theme. That type of practice definitely has its place in the scheme of things.

Yesterday, Mark came down and we practiced. We used a sequence from Patricia Walden, which was pretty fun. I am pretty darn sore today though. We worked a lot on drop backs, headstand drop overs and ekapda viparita dandasana which was good. I do enjoy using Iyengar sequwnces for deep backends and seeing how differntly and simliarly they preapre the body for the poses in comparison ot the way we do it Anusara Yoga. When we got to urdhva danurasana we both felt great but when we got to headstand dropeovers we didn't quite feel as open as we do in an Ansuara-style sequence. Strange. But in general the prep is way more sattvic in Iyengar Yoga Land. In general.

But then that is kind of interesting. Because in those classes the work is grueling and rajasic in a way Anusara Yoga isn't because of the atmosphere, the intensity of the average Iyengar Yoga teacher, the demand for exacting precision clarity and the impending confrontation that is always lurking around the the corner...(yes I know that I am not being politically correct this morning. Oh well, it is my blog, after all!) But just looking at the sequence and doing them without alone in a practice the actual progression of poses is way more sattvic.

After that I cleaned up ate some food and went up to Breath and Body to teach as a guest teacher in their teacher training program. It is a great studio and the trainees were all excellent students and practitioners and I got to talk about my favorite thing which is teaching yoga. Okay- well, I do like practicing yoga better than teaching it, but I love discussing all that is involved- inside and out-- in teaching yoga and being a yoga teacher. I never tire of talking about that so given an opportunity to talk to teacher trainees is my idea of a fun night. And Desirae, the owner of Breath and Body is such a kind, generous and fun person. She sent me home with kombucha, a hoodie, a check and a big dose of inspiration. Does it get much better than that? I think not.

This morning I slept in, did my morning practices and am catching up on some computer work. This afternoon Kelly and I are planning on doing something outside since it is an unbelieveably gorgeous day. As fun as it was to practice yesterday I was a little bummed to have spent 3 hours inside on a day as fabulous as yesterday was. Well, today is equally as gorgeous and so something in nature is definitely on the agenda.

More tomorrow.

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