Damn Fine Asana

I spent the weekend in Dallas at the Dallas Iyengar yoga Center. One of my all-time favorite asana teachers, John Schumaker was there teaching for the weekend. John is funny, smart, clear, articulate, kind, inspiring and with the perfect amount of ass-kicking intensity that makes me work very hard and leaves me very sore. It was a perfect weekend workshop, in my opinion. The asana was hard, but not impossible.  John's teaching tone was demanding, yet compassionate. The classroom atmosphere was fun, yet focused.  The alignment lessons  were precise and multi -layered.  I learned plenty of  new refinements and there was enough of the big, broad strokes that the new details were accessible, meaningful and applicable. I could go on but it was just fantastic in every way and just what I needed for my own practice and inner work. 

Probably at least once or twice in each class John gave a pep talk or a deeper teaching from the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali or from his personal experience. But mostly he taught 4 damn, fine asana classes. I might even dare to say that they were pristine asana classes. What I mean is that he simply and masterfully, from a lifetime of study, practice and teaching  taught 40 of us  "how to do the poses better."  What stood out for me was that there was no overlay of anything else onto the asana practice other than the unapologetic and  honest presentation of the  beautiful, challenging, engaging, humbling and empowering work required to practice  intermediate/advanced postures over the course of a lifetime. That's what I mean by pristine.  John let  asana speak for itself and in that same elegant and understated way, his professional, compassionate and warm demeanor communicated volumes as well. 

So, I know that themes are all the rage these days and "yoga for this" and "yoga for that" is the organizing strategy these days in terms of workshops, programs and so on. Shit, I just wrote a bunch of descriptions just like that for some upcoming programs that I am offering. Any teacher coming out of the world of Anusara has been well-trained to provide commentary alongside asana and any student from that community has been trained to expect it as well.  And all that has its place. And my guess is, based on  a lot of feedback I have received lately that many people would have found the kind of weekend I am describing to be a bit austere. Just so we are clear,  it is really no big deal to me that other people want a much bigger commentary during a weekend workshop than what I am describing and I am not taking issue with "yoga for this and for that" programming.  I am sharing my experience as a student and a practitioner right now. For me, last weekend,  the absence of that dialogue was  what was refreshing after several months of emotionally-laden yoga workshops, trainings and conversations. As a student, so full of my own ponderings, stresses and current challenges, it was  in the absence of embellishment and added meaning that I found a spaciousness to look at myself, my life, my current challenges, upsets as well as my progress and vision. It was fantastic. Truly fantastic. Like a breath of fresh air. Truly. (Did I say it was wonderful?)

I have long had a problem with the idea that yoga practice- be it asana, pranayama, meditation, mantra--is supposed to be anything- even inspiring. (Yes, I think it is a dark age and as yoga teachers we are uniquely placed to share the light of inspiration and to train ourselves and one another to function as a kind of beacon in that darkness and on another day I will write a VERY inspiring blog entry about this opportunity we have as yoga teachers. For the record, I am very into this.) And yet, to me the practice is not always inspiring. Practice is also frustrating, humbling, disappointing and full of loss, gain and the dynamic interplay between the two. Or maybe more accurately stated, the practice is always  simply what it is and I am the one who is inspired, frustrated, humbled, disappointed, and riding the currents of loss and gain with whatever meaning I am assigning to my experience on any given day. 

I think practice is more like a screen upon which we get to see ourselves. Every day I sit down to meditate is a bit different. In the opening few breaths of pranayama I always have the sense of, "Well, who do we have here today?" I suppose in the early days of our  practice  we need to borrow a lot of energy from the teacher so the positivity and perspectives  the teacher has can help us gain a certain momentum and direction into our own heart and mind. I think  in this way the themes and commentary can open a certain door. But over time, I think we need to learn to carry ourselves more and more. We need to become more  responsible for managing our own minds and sourcing the connection to our own inspiration by making use of what the practices we are doing are showing us. And once we are carrying ourselves, the themes and the commentary can (not always, but can and for me often do) start to feel like an imposition. What was once inspiring, meaningful and useful  can start to feel like dust on the screen and can even interfere with seeing myself as I am in the moment because I am so busy seeing so much of the person giving the "lesson." 

Like so many things, for me it is not an all or nothing thing. As a teacher, there is also a difference between the kind of class I teach and the kind I like to take. There are similarities and differences between who I am as a teacher and who I am as a student and they are in conversation with one another, for sure. I suppose that is another entry for another time. 

At any rate, the weekend was pristine and John modeled to me what it means to be a damn, fine asana teacher and how profoundly inspiring that actually is.  It came at a great time because I have been thining A LOT about that very question and he didn't talk once about teaching he just showed through his example what a wonderful thing it is to go to a great weekend workshop. 

Below are rough outlines of the sequences he taught. (thanks, Anne.) Think long,hard-working holds. Not included is Saturday afternoon's class which was pranayama and inversions. 

Friday Night:

Supta Tadasana

Supta Padangusthasana- 1st stage (check Light on Yoga for pictures of the three stages he gives)

Supta Padangusthasana - 3rd stage

Supta  padangusthasana -2nd stage  

Uppavistha Konasana

Baddha Konasana 

Dandasana

Janu sirsasana

Ardha Baddha Pada padma pascimottasana 

Paschimottansana 

Padamasana

Supine lotus with no hands 

Sirsasana   

Urdhva  padmasana in sirsanana

Sarvangasana

Urdhva padmasanan in  sarvangasana

Pindasana 

Savasana  

seated meditation

Saturday Morning:

pascimottanasana
janu sirsasana
uppa vista konasana

upright sitting prep parsva uppa vista konasana
parivritta janu sirsasana -2X
ardha matsyendrasana 2
adho mukha svasasana
urdhva mukha svasasana
chataranga
several times from Adho mukha through chataranga
ustrasana- 3X
chatush padasana-2X
urdhva dnaurasana-10X
dwi pada viparita dandasana-5X

supta virasana,  if  can stay flat on floor, then  push up to  Kapotasana,  or  just stay in SV
kapotasana- 3X
adho mukha svasasana
adho mukha vajrasana

Parsva vajrasana
parsva adho mukha vajrasana
pascimottanasana

Savasana
seated meditation

Sunday Morning:

Childs Pose

Down Dog

Uttanasana

Sirsasana- 15 minutes

Parsva sirsasana

Eka Pada Sirsasana

Parsva Eka pada sirsasana

childs pose with chin on floor

Dandasana

Pashcimottansana

Baddha Konasana and go forward

Dandasana

Maricyasana I 

Dandasana

Malasana II

Dandasana

Bakasana

Bakasan from sirsasana II

Pasasana

Parsva bakasana

From sirsasana II

Urdhva kukatasana (or repeat bakasana) from Sirsasana II

Dwi Pada koundinyasana 

handstand

Pinca mayurasana

mayurasana

Urdhva Mukha svanasana

Adho mukha svanasana

Chatush padasana

Urdva Dhanurasana 7X

Sarvangasana- 15 minutes

Savasana

Seated meditation

Yoga Tips with Christina Sell - Handstand

I made this video clip for a recent online course that I offered on sequencing. (For more information on that course you can check it out- Part 1 and Part 2 Sequencing Strategies are still available online for purchase. Lots of juicy practical tidbits throughout the courses. I can't recommend them enough. Do Part 1 first, it has a ton of necessary background to benefit from Part 2)

Anyhow, I used these clips in my courses and realized that I could make them available as an offering to anyone who is interested. This week's Yoga Tip is about handstand. Good stuff for both teachers and practitioners who want some help getting up to the wall and learning to balance away from the wall as well. Enjoy!



Speaking of online courses I have put three new courses on the books, each very different from the other.

• Starting November 6th is the The Gift of Practice, a six-week course designed to support you in staying connected to your practice and to each other as a community during the holiday season when so often we feel "too busy to practice" which is always a sign we need to do just that! 

• Starting January 22 I am offering a  12-session online Teacher Development Course that will take place over six months to give plenty of time for integration and incorporating the teachings into your own practice and classes.

• Starting February 11 I am offering an 8-session course on Making Peace with Your Body Through Yoga based on my first book. Similar and different to the first course I did on the topic this one will work through a chapter each month from my book Yoga From the Inside Out: Making Peace with Your Body Through Yoga and will incorporate the material from my book in a very direct way.

If you are on my mailing list you will get a notice about these in your inbox. If not, stay tuned for more details or email me directly. (Or hey, sign up for my mailing list! )

All sessions are recorded so live participation is not required.

Each program will have on online support group for continued conversation and community discussion throughout the course.

Another  thing you will notice is that each of  these programs is offered at a sliding scale. I am experimenting with this approach to encourage as many people as possible to participate. I do my best to pack as much usable content into these programs to make them a good value and yet I know that money is tight for people. Also, if you want to do two programs, these sliding scales are a way for you to do both at a more affordable price since the Teacher Training program is more "hard skills" and the other two courses are more "soft skills" and inner work.  Anyway, I have been very pleased with the response I have gotten so far with the tiered pricing approach.

All right then, more soon.

The Dangerous Intersection

Okay, well, here I am on a flight home from two weeks on the road. First, was a few days in California doing some filming at Yogaglo and second was a weekend workshop in Tempe, Arizona. Then I took a day to visit the ashram in Prescott and then I taught a teacher training with Darren down in Tucson at Yoga Oasis. In a lot of ways, the trip was wonderful and in a lot of ways the trip was difficult interiorly.

I am thinking a lot these days about something I read in Parker Palmer’s book The Courage to Teach. In the book he writes about how teaching happens at the “dangerous intersection beween private and public life.” He gives an example about those who work privately like therapists and those who might work publicly like certain kinds of lawyers or policy makers. He speaks about how educators walk a fine line between a kind of vulnerability that is required to teach not only a subject but the people who are learning the subject. He also writes about how that fine line exists in a dynamic tension with professional boundaries and the parameters of any given classroom. While each educator will ride that tension slightly differently relative to their temperament, disposition and teaching environment, the fact remains that we teach both the subject and the people learning the subject. We are in both an objective and a subjective experience as educators, regardless of the discipline we are teaching.

So, for today, I see those as the “terms” of teaching yoga in a way.  And from my vantage point today I see those terms as Parker Palmer suggests, as a somewhat dangerous intersection. Lean too far to the side of the objective subject matter and the teaching is cold, theoretical, removed from its human element and too esoteric for most students to relate to. Dive too far into the personal and not only does the teaching become  an “overshare” or TMI (too much information) but it can actually be somewhat dangerous to the inner life of the teacher, in my opinion and experience. When so much interior work is offerred up for public consumption, we run the risk of having nothing left over for ourselves or of  becoming identified with  public opinion and living  at the mercy of the rise and fall of our popularity polls.

Like with  so many “razor’s edge” kind of situations, I often feel at the mercy of a “damned if I do and damned if I don’t” dynamic.  I am a firm believer in the idea that “there is always a third option” and yet, I am finding that the third option is not always obvious, popular, understood by others or validated in the marketplace these days. The last few weeks I have felt like  Tom Cruise’s character in that movie Jerry McQuire. In the movie he is an agent for sports stars and he stays up really late at night reflecting about the flaws in the business he is and  writing a missive of sorts about how he wants to reform the system. Before dawn, after a late night of inspiration he sends out this vision statement to his clients and colleagues. The next morning they all applaud his sincerity, courage, idealism and so forth. And then, of course, he  proceeds to lose everything. I feel on the brink of writing a missive just like his about all kinds of things I find distasteful and unfortunate. And  yet, I am stopped- not for fear of losing everything but by the stark recognition that I am not convinced voicing my thoughts in their raw form would actualy help.

So this sounds a bit dramatic but I feel a bit like this character these days looking out at the yoga industry and even at my own participation in its culture. I want desperately to find a healthy way to relate with and respond to what I see and yet I find myself increasingly worried about the tone, tenor and overall thrust of this particular time in the  marketplace. And, I find myself increasingly less interested in and unable to explain my thoughts about it to others because the climate is often volatile and charged. I kind of hit a bottom last week and I have to find my best way through it.

In last week’s blog entry I promised to think and write more about the outcome of my comments and I have thought a lot about it. I thought a lot about what would be the best response to share publicly largely because of this “damned if I do and damned if I don’t” scenario I feel is very present relative to the entire Anusara saga. Truth be told this particular situation feels like a very dangerous intersection for me between public and private, between personal and professional, between secrecy and discretion, between skillful means and playing politics. What I do know is that entering in the public discussion has tended to be enervating, exhausting, upsetting and depleting for me personally.  For me- this is just me- I can not process my own feelings and be present to other people’s feelings at the rate and speed that social media makes possible. 

I think understanding happens slowly. I believe this is true for  both self-understanding and the understanding of others. For me it  requires tremendous inner work, self-observation and great tenacity to stay present to myself in the face of the conflicting feelings, stories, perspectives and thoughts of others. I recently worked through some conflict with one of my best friends and it tooks us-- very good friends who love each other- several hours of talking to get to real understanding about a misunderstanding we had. At some point in the few hours,  somewhere in all of it there was this opening. There was a moment when I truly heard him and saw his side and felt the magnitude of his experience. I heard him loud and clear, my friend,  tell me that I had hurt him. It was a moment in which I was able to let my own story go for a moment. I  still had the things that I was upset about, the narrative about the ways that I was hurt and the ways our conflict had affected me and yet, there was this moment when I saw my part and could honestly give that seeing to him and, as a result, own up to my shortcomings, their consequences and then ask for his forgiveness. All in all, it was great but my point in sharing all of that is that this is someone I know very well and it took us several hours after several months to reach a few moments of real and true understanding.

I think it has to do with the senses, honestly. I am not slamming social media, I am not running an agenda on that, I am not masking some big statement with a personal share. (I am a bit tentative/defensive and wanting to be clear about this  as people read that into my last entry and it was not my intention.  I am someone who participates in the social media experiment and can see its great uses and also its downsides. Okay, just so we are clear....) So, I think that intimacy and what it takes to truly connect with people at the level of the nooks and crannies of our humanity- not at the level of humor, social chit-chat, a rant, an opinion or an inspirational quote- but at the level of where we live in our tender places, in our wounds, in our most sacred places of meaning- is  calibrated at the speed of nature, the speed of the senses and requires more time and space than what most social media forums can provide.

I am not saying that some good stuff doesn’t happen, hasn’t happened and will not continue to happen through social media forums. I know great things do happen, did happen and will keep happening. And like so many people said with the Anusara stuff- for better of for worse- it is what was there at the time to work with.  I get that. I am just saying that the speed and the scale was and is too much for me to benefit from and my opinion is- JUST MY OPINION- is that long-term healing may happen for some in that way but for others it may also require a different intervention-- a “next chapter” if you will- than what served to get us to this point. That was the point of my last post.

I suffer these things because my personal values around relationship-that we each  be heard, validated, seen in our struggle to express ourselves honestly and live authentically are beyond what I can manage at the scale of my public life. I believe deeply in dialogue and the process of coming to understanding together through sharing and through risk-taking vulnerablity and fearless accountability for ourselves.  I do my best to operate like this and yet I am increasingly skeptical that it can happen online, in the classroom and/or in a large-scale endeavor. The time alone required is prohibitive. Not everyone is invested at the same level. The boundaries and “guidelines for engagement” are not shared and mutually agreed upon. It is too easy to harm ourselves and one another unconsciously.  

Anyway, without too much more personal sharing its a big question for me that I am living into. The situation is a bit of a dark night of the soul in a way because I am in that state of seeing that the way I have approached this intersection up until now is more on the dangerous side in terms of my own energy. This insight means that I must go about  forging a new way for myself and yet I do not really have that part figured our beyond knowing I need to shift.  

It was one year ago that I resigned from Anusara yoga- to the day. And honestly, I feel a bit  beat up from the year. I have made some big mistakes in judgement that have cost me tremendously and the learning curve has been immense. Be that as it may be, my vision has not faltered. I resigned from what I saw as an increasingly popular yet unsustainable (and for me personally, undesireable) approach to yoga with the vision of teaching yoga in a way that offered people access to traditional teachings and practices in an atmosphere of dignity and nobility. My vision was to create programs and trainings that would help people plant the seeds of yoga in their hearts and lives so that was is good, beautiful and true about the tradition would be  alive inside sincere practitioners and be perserved for generations to come through their lives of integrity and discipline. 

A year ago Darren and I called the project School of Yoga and we recently dropped that name in an attempt to avoid some drama but the vision remains unchanged. We recently changed our minds about some programming as well, but the vision is unchanged. Our commitment to our work together remains unchanged. We could not have foreseen the changes in the larger community and in our friendships but those changes are this year’s changes and next year will bring its own. We can count on that. As far as I can tell, its a bit of a dark age and so I expect some more problems are also coming. And yet, I have to say,  I have a vision of Light. I really do.

In that spirit I may change my involvement with certain aspects of the industry to greater or lesser degrees and hopefully find a way to write my own rules a bit but one thing I know for certain is that I can not offer what I do not have and so, as a teacher, my prana is precious. Yes, one very cool outcome of this most challenging year is that recognition alone: My prana is precious. And following very close on the heels of the insight is my knowledge that only sustained practice culitvates prana. So, it comes back to that. Wouldn’t you know it?

next chapter

Well, I am turning in here from Tempe, Arizona where I am teaching for the weekend at Hegel Yoga. I spent Thursday and Friday in California timing some content for Yogaglo and last weekend I was in Hollywood, Florida teaching at YogaOne. It seems like between teaching, practicing, family time and answering emails, writing course descriptions and developing curriculum for upcoming projects I am without as much time for fun writing and musing these days.   However, that does not mean that I do not have plenty on my mind, of course.

I have been talking to people in all my travels who have been sorting through the rubble of the dissolving of the structures once knowns as Anusara yoga and its been a very interesting thing to discuss, reflect and be part of. The aftermath continues to ripple through different communities of practitioners and students in various ways but no one seems untouched. Between feelings of relief, disillusionment, homelessness, worry, gratitude and so on, people continue to process their relationship to the way the events have unfolded and their part in all of it. And like I have written about a lot this year, everyone’s story has both simliar and different elements. 

I think for me I mostly feel a lot of relief because I found the label of Anusara a bit too small as time went by. And I think this is unfortunate  because my understanding of what the method and style was all about was that it was fairly wide-open as a means of practice. In my understanding it could encompass flow-based vinyasa style yoga, start and stop analysis, movement, stillness, talking, silence, music and no music, depth and lightness and an endless array of variations and expressions of the postures themselves. AND YET, as the community got bigger and as more people wanted to be part of the movement, and in the effort to define the system and manage its parameters, the definitions and expectations narrowed and became more constrictive and contricted in various ways. So there I was feeling Anusara was one thing and yet also being held to an ever-narrowing standard for teaching while being told I was free. So I think these mixed dynamics lived at the heart of my dissatisfaction and frustration which then filtered into my energetic field and I was often on edge, defensive and struggling to present an accurate representative class but becuase of the limits I also felt  unable to creatively offer my truest understanding without having to explain, compare and answer to “reports back to the office”.  

The ironic thing about this is that having left, I am probably- in some ways- the most Anusara I have ever been. Meaning, I am the most in touch with my heart and my own creative freedom, the most in my own flow. I have told a lot of people that the week surrounding my resignation was a mini- satori for me in that I suddenly really “got” Anusara. I had stepped out on a limb in a big leap of faith, was met with tremendous support internally and circumstantially and I had the direct experince of following my heart and being carried. Indeed, my finest hour as an Anusara yoga teacher happened once I resigned. Ironic to the say the least. 

Of course, that was last October and by Feburary a ton of shit had hit the fan and all kinds of karma seemed to come due for the community as a whole.  And as the story surrounding the “dark side” of Anusara came to light not only were secrets exposed relative to John and his behavior but the dark underbelly of the community’s unresolved angers, jealousies and hurts was also exposed. This is not an indictment or an accusation or even a criticism but I mention this becuase in my various disussions with people these days, one thing has been consistent: people feel a bit traumatized not only by what John did and said and didn’t say and so forth but by the way the community processed the events  and in some ways cannibalized itself. More than one person told me that the reason they left Anusara wasn’t what John did but was that observing the way the story unfolded on various social media forums was so upsetting and revealing that they severed their ties rather than continue to participate in such a spiteful and angry yoga community.

So we are clear,  this is not some big “yogis do not get angry” sort of proclamation or anything like that. I am all for being real, authentic and for processing emotions in a forthright and honest manner. I am instead, musing a bit on where all those dynamics  actually leave us now and how best might a fractured group of practitioners continue to  move forward effectively. 

One thing that seems clear is that local communities have rallied together in some really cool ways. I find myself wanting to nest a bit more, teach out of my studio in Texas more and to do those things that help me connect to my practice, my friends and my family. And in my teaching work I see workshops are  smaller and yet also more tender and soft these days as people seem more tentative to trust, to re-engage and to know where to place their faith. Again, that’s not a criticism- its more of an observation. I think in some ways such reticence might be a very smart response after being hurt.

I do think its important though for us to reconnect with each other in mearningful ways, to mend the hurts in our hearts, to forgive ourselves and each other even if we have boundaries that require seperate lives, locations and so forth. Every relationship has a limit that, once crossed creates irreperable damage. That is just the way of interpersonal dynamics. No doubt, as we walk through life  we will have break ups and dissolved unions. And yet, forgiveness exists as well and can be cultivate internally even if external boundaries stay in place. 

At any rate, its been a helluva year and everytime I see folks I know from my days in Anusara, like in Florida, in LA and here in Arizona, I feel a bit mended and healed because I know that the most important threads have not been harmed. My favorite thing in Anusara was my friends and what seems to be lasting are certain connections to people I care deeply about. Some friendships have fallen away and others have emerged and become sustaining influences. 

So I could write more but mostly my point is that I do know the Facebook Forum Wars do not have to be final chapter to this story. I think we can and that we will write a much cooler storyline for this upcoming year. Mostly I am interested in watching how it develops. 

The Gift of Practice

Well, I can't believe so much time goes by these days between blog entries. It seems to me that my time on email and administration duties has increased leaving me less time to ponder life and practice via my blog writing.

 Anyway, I spent the weekend in San Marcos hosting George Purvis, one of my favorite Senior Iyengar teachers. I met George many years ago, several years into my studies with John Friend and I told John I was going to George's workshop with my sister and he said, "Tell him I said hi." 

So I did and then found out that George and John were long-time friends and practice buddies from "back in the day" and George pretty much took me under his wing like a kind uncle and helped me tons and taught me lots. That was probably over 10 years ago and I study with him when I can and continue to enjoy his down-to-earth humor and utter and complete lack of pretentiousness. And he never fails to help me learn and grow. 

"Back in the day" refers to their mutual history in Iyengar yoga but also their youth and the very real fact that these guys, and their friend Sam Dillon, were doing yoga in Texas in the 80's way before yoga was cool and certainly before it was trendy for men to do yoga. (And shall I repeat that this was happening in Texas which is not exactly a liberal haven.) I like thinking about that as a teacher  and practitioner who caught the wave of yoga's popularity in this last two decades because I think it is so important to remember whose shoulders we stand on and what a great service so many teachers did for us all in paving the way for the diversity we now take for granted in our larger yoga community. I started yoga in 1991 and it was not exactly popular then but it wasn't really weird either.  I have watched it grow in popularity and public acceptance over the years such that many of us are able to teach for a living which would not have been possible even 20 years ago. 

I recently had an opportunity to sit down for tea with Judith Lasater, another pioneer in the modern yoga movement and we talked about how yoga is changing and how best to honor the shifts and respond to the current trends and yet preserve  what is most valuable from the tradition. It is an interesting question for me these days as I can see and feel that as we grow and change and models of power and authority become questioned and deemed outdated there is a tendency to get radicalized in one position or the other. We cry "progress" and let go of tradition. We cry "tradition" and fail to adequately respond to the demands of  very real shifting sands of time. Somehow I think we are poised on a precipice where the tension between these positions has the opportunity to  usher in a new paradigm of authority, power and community. 

The more I talk to people the more it seems to me that this shift is happening - or attempting to happen in various domains. I  see it in yoga because that is where I am most frequently looking. But my Christian friends say their communities are experiencing similar themes and I think we can see it politics, education and business as well. 

This weekend was full of great tidbits of alignment and awesome stories and I was really inspired by the depth of the oral tradition of Iyengar Yoga. I also enjoyed seeing how many things I learned from John were present in George's teaching and probably traceable to their common Iyengar yoga teacher, Ramanand Patel, who John gives a lot of credit to in the Anusara Yoga Teacher Training Manual. 

Obviously, as things progressed and grew in Anusara, we moved farther away from those shared roots but I have such love and respect for Iyengar yoga that that move wasn't great in my view, although for others they were happy for the shift. At any rate, these themes create  an interesting reflection for me since I am in the process of shifting my own orientations and I do want to bring forward what I love about Anusara and Iyengar yoga into this next phase of my own personal synthesis. It can be easy to just leave lessons, techniques and ideas behind so as to create a separation but I think that is not necessary nor ideal.

Before I end this little note for the day, I have  a plug for an upcoming online offering. This program is geared  for the holiday season, when time is tight and so is money so you will notice that this program has tiers of financial contribution outlined to offer as many people a chance to participate as possible. My main purpose in offering this program is to support people in staying connected to their practices- both the internal ones like compassion, forgiveness, clarity as well as the outer one like meditation, pranayama and asana- throughout the upcoming season. No big homework or heavy-handed anything is in the curriculum, just an offering to keep us connected through meaningful conversation and shared intention. 

Have at it and spread the word, please.

THE GIFT OF PRACTICE

The holidays are notoriously busy and stressful for many of us. During times of stress it is essential that we maintain a regular relationship to our practices  to feed our spirits and nourish ourselves in the most positive ways possible. This six-week webinar with Christina Sell is designed to provide you with a community of support through the holiday season so that you can maintain a strong connection to your life-enhancing practices, your health-related goals and your Heart-based values.

The course curriculum is centered  around  a weekly web-based conversation with Christina, with each week focused on specific themes relevant to the time of the year. Christina will suggest practices and provide asana sequences and will be available to answer questions from participants. We will create an online forum for further connection and discussion throughout the season. 

Yoga practitioners and students of all levels can expect to find support for their practice and teachers will find inspiration for their classes and workshops. The program is offered on a sliding scale to encourage participation and in recognition that money as well as time is often limited during this season. 

A subscription to yogaglo and a copy of Light on Yoga by BKS Iyengar is recommended.

Week #1: Establishing Aim and Intention
Week #2: Please Practice
Week #3: Forgiveness is For Giving 
Week #4: The Power of Self-Love
Week #5: Cultivating an Attitude of Gratitude
Week #6: The Power of Play

PLEASE NOTE: All Sessions will be recorded. Live attendance is not required or necessary. Recordings will be available for 90-days following the completion of the course and you can listen as often as you like. The recordings are not available for download. 

Dates: Tuesday Mornings, 10:00am Central
  November 6- December 18

Tuition for the Six-Week Course:  $120
 If money is tight and you can not afford the full tuition, here is how you can still participate:
$35- use coupon code 35
$50- use coupon code 50
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