Friday Morning

What a fun day yesterday- I worked all morning and then met up with a few of our local Anusara Yoga teachers- Lauran Janes, Brigitte Edery, Chris Muchow, Sam Rice, Jason Lobo for a practice in the mid afternoon. We had a great time- lots of strong back bending work with no fluff and no fanfare- just how I like it. We did some good sun salutations, a long headstand and then preparatory work and then right into the back bends before we got tired. We got to very deep urdhva danurasana, dwi pada viparita with the head up and the classic form with the head down and legs straight, then lots of kapotasana (which is coming right along for me and for many others in the room!) and then into natrajasana, eka pada rajakapotasana 4 and padangustha danurasana. We finished up with a few forward bends and a shoulder stand and went on with the day. Doesn't get much better than that except if scorpion pose is thrown into the mix! Oh well, next time.

I found the practice totally inspiring and fun and I left very elevated and happy. (Of course, that might have been the back bends... but still, whatever it takes!) I took great enjoyment in having such wonderful practitioners to meet up with- each of whom was self-maintaining, honestly interested in learning, totally ready to help each other and committed to advancing their own practice. Very fine company indeed.

After practice I came home and cooked dinner for Mom and Dad and Anne and Jeff and my cousins Andy and his wife, Machelle who are in town. We had a wonderful time together eating and sharing family stories from past and present.

One of the the things I like to do when I am at home- other than practicing yoga with my friends is cook. I cooked a lot yesterday- while I was working I had some things going in the kitchen for lunch(very yummy squash, zucchini satay wraps from my Ayurvedic cookbook) and then cooking dinner was a lot of fun. I made whole wheat pasta, ratatouille (also from my Ayurvedic cookbook) and the guest each brought things to contribute to the meal. It was a really lovely way to be together. Something about cooking at home is very grounding and nurturing to me and it always help me feel anchored and settled. And let's not forget that eating food cooked at home is a wonderful thing to do and in almost every case- better tasting, better for you and cheaper.

This weekend is the final weekend in the Anusara Yoga Teacher Training at Breath and Body so I have some last minute things to do to prepare for the weekend and some loose ends to tie up before I head out next week so I best get on with it. I don't leave for another week but once I am gone, I am out of town for the better part of the month and then I come home for two weeks and then I go away again for close to six weeks. There are some very fun things on the horizon and I am looking forward to all of them but I do need to organize myself well in advance to make it more easeful.

All right- onward with the day.

Monday Morning

Admittedly, this could be all the back bends talking, but I must say that I have been feeling extremely happy and inspired these last few weeks. Not that I have not had my share of upsets and personal bumps in the road but I was coming home from a lovely practice yesterday afternoon with Gioconda and Hannah and I felt such a deep sense of well-being and happiness.

By the way we rocked out yesterday. I woke up yesterday feeling the kind of soreness from the Shakti Shop that spells "open but not tight" and so I know from past experience that when I feel that way and I go deeper in the same direction the result is usually good. And it was. I worked out a sequence that was inspired by what Peggy taught in her advanced class last week with a few embellishments, side trips and additions and voila- we went very deep.

It was very fun to have friends there and to have a camera because we would photograph our poses and then examine what was and was not happening and try it again. I think this was the 3rd or 4th scorpion and the balls of my feet are on my head and not just my tippy toes, because I kept looking at the photos Gia took on the way in and the way out and could see where I lost my melt, where I lost inner spiral and so forth.
This may have been the easiest and best feeling pigeon that I have ever done and I am happy with it. (However, next time, I need to bring my legs in closer. They are running a bit amuck with outer spiral! Still, I am happy about this pose.) And compare it to the one over in the right column of this blog and you will see I have made some progress in getting my chest more vertical and open. And getting my hands in was not a big war. Like I said, I am totally happy with this and I have lots of things to work on. How anyone EVER gets bored with asana is beyond me. Seriously, there is always something to be working with and some way to be improving and going deeper.

And the sequence was a radically different approach to the bends than we used in the Shakti Shop. On Saturday we used lots of movement, more flow, lots of standing poses and quad stretches and so forth. Yesterday we got there with long timings, no standing postures, more props and a twist between each preparatory back bend. So many roads.....

Here is yesterdays plan we worked from:

• 10 minutes chair backbend
• chair bharadvajasana (1 minute each side)
• Chandra Namkaskar (10 minutes)
• Urdhva Mukha Swanasana (1 minute)
• parivritta trikonasana (1minute each side)
• rope 1 -20X
• bharadvajasana 1, on blanket, at wall, with rope (1 minute each side)
• parayankasana over a block (5 minutes)
• standing maricyasana- at wall,with a chair and rope
• pinca variation with feet on wall, legs parallel to the floor
• jathara parivarttonasana- straight legs- (1 minute each side)
• ustrasana- legs apart- (1 minute)
• ustrasana- feet and legs together- (1 minute)
• maricyasana 1, twist only
• danurasana (1 minute)
• pasrva danurasana
• twisted lunge
• urdhva danruasana
• dwi pada viparita dandasana- head down.
• scoprion prep on chair
• scorpion pose
• kapotasana
• AMS
• hips stretches
• uttanasana
• parsva uttanasana

okay- onward through the day. Oh, I also have to say I have been working really hard these days refining TT curriculum and I am 100% confident that these upcoming Immersions and TT's I am offering will be the best ever. I have been combing through all my notes from past trainings and consulting with colleagues and putting it into the most organized presentation ever. I am so excited about it.

Wednesday Morning

Well, I am up early this morning with a cup or tea and getting ready for the day. I woke up thinking about things this morning and found I just couldn't relax enough to get back to sleep. I do not feel worried per se more that I am extremely aware of all I want to accomplish before heading out to Tucson tomorrow morning. Also Kelly has been sick so I didn't want to risk waking him up by turning on my light to read for a while.

Yesterday went by in a flash. I had a chance to square some things away with some upcoming projects and that always feels good to me. I took a walk and then did a long asana practice in the late morning while my kitcharee was cooking. I did some lovely back bends and drop backs and used many of the discoveries along the way in my 4:30 class. After my practice I ate the cooking kitcharee and then got a lesson together for my online mentoring group. Then I went up to the Castle for my class. We worked with the theme of resolutions and keep resolute action in the legs, kidneys, pelvis and shoulders with the back bends.

It was really a class about the loops, as they apply to drop backs, but I didn't name them as such- we worked more from the actions involved and it seemed to go well. We used the wall to help support the drop back work and a lovely partner assist to come up that minimized momentum and really empowered the legs. I thought the class went well, although I was a bit tired from just getting home yesterday night. I also forgot that being the beginning of a new year, there would be lots of new folks in class, which there were. Hopefully the detailed, specific and intense work was not overly scary to them and I will see them back in class again. Everyone managed the work very well; whether they liked it or not is another story!

On a happy note, Kristen was back in town from Boulder and will be moving back in a month so it was fun to see her. And Pammy was in class again so it was as though order was restored to my personal yoga world. It is a funny thing about how people come and go from class. Even through there is a sense of continuity in classes for me, the reality is, over the course of a year, subtle shifts happen where a class which seems like it is very regularly attended by the same people can slowly morph until there is a totally different group there. On one level such a shift is almost imperceptible and yet, I do notice and miss people when they are not in class and I am always totally thrilled when someone who had been absent for various reasons comes back.

I stayed to take Gioconda's class at 6 which was lovely. She, too, was talking about resolutions, as I imagine many yoga teachers everywhere are. We did some lovely standing poses, arm balances and belly down back bends. After her class she and I went to the Castle Hill cafe for a bowl of soup and some girl time. Always fun.

I am thinking a lot these days about what to do with my schedule and whether it is in my and my classes best interests to keep teaching my public classes. I am gone so much and I wonder if that absence makes for a situation where the class doesn't grow as much and or become as vital as it would be with a regular teacher in place. For instance, I am only in town for one Thursday 4:30 class all month this month. So the thing is that I totally enjoy teaching my public classes and so I am reluctant to let them go and yet, when I hear people lament that "I am never here" and so on, I wonder if it would be better to shift my schedule because perhaps my absence is painting the wrong picture about my intentions and commitment and making it seem less than it is. When I am here, I am really here and I am committed to teaching class. And really, the time I am here is a "weekend" for me and my only "free time."

Although this free time business is something I am considering a lot as well. When I was in South Carolina, Stacy told me she asked John Friend if he ever got time off and he replied, "Stacy, there is no such thing as time off- only time." So it is in many ways with me. I make a living doing the thing I love more than anything else and so that shifts my outlook in life as to what is enjoyable quite considerably. Okay, more than teaching yoga, I like to practice yoga. More than teaching a good yoga workshop or class, I like to go to a good yoga workshop or class, but its not like I do yoga 5 days a week to finance my hang gliding habit. I don't make a living at yoga but have a passion for bicycling, for instance. Seriously, I do not have a hobby that I like more than yoga that I work all weekend to be able to do.

So, this teaching when I am home is something I think about a lot. If there is no "time off" there is only time, one must ask oneself about how best to use their time and how best to spend their energy. And the need to rest is not nothing. Like I said a few posts back, I do not subscribe to the new age notion that if you love what you do you would never get tired from it. Anyway, as it stands now, I am not changing it. I figure the answers will all be clear in time. That is usually how it works.

All right, onward with the day.

Tuesday Morning

I had a great day yesterday and even manged to relax a bit. (Well, relax for me, that is!)

I got to spend some time on the phone in the morning with an Anusara Yoga certification candidate from Montreal reviewing her video and that was really pretty amazing. I was able to help her with some detailed information about the "how-to's" of setting a theme and carrying it through the class and some tips of observation and adjustments. She was so open and so humble and so inspiring to work with. There was not one trace of defensiveness or resistance in her response to me. She was just open like the sky in terms of "how can I get better?" that I was really elated by the end of the conversation. I think we both were. Times like those are when work is really like play and when I really feel so grateful for the extended family of Anusara Yoga. We are pretty lucky to be connected with such amazing people all over the world. It is just so great.

(And just so we are clear, and just in case anyone is feeling defensive or tends to feel defensive, I do not think that being defensive is not like some tragic flaw or the worst thing in the world nor does it make us bad people if we are not "open like the sky" in every moment. Lord knows, defensiveness can arise in all of us even when we wish it would stay dormant. I am just saying that when we can work with each other without it- like when the heavens part and things line up and there is a clear channel for a transfer of help-it really is a kind of ecstasy.)

Hmm... yesterday, Kelly and I went for a long, humid walk in the morning which I love to do after a weekend of teaching inside. I caught up on a fair amount of business things and future planning and we had a lovely dinner together last night.

So- a few moments for shameless promotions. I have two retreats planned for 2010 that I want to mention. They are both tropical and they are a bit different.

The first is in Mexico in February. This retreat is limited to about 20 people and will be intimate and a great chance for rejuvenation and relaxation. The location is amazing, the food will be stellar and again, 20 people is a lovely way to connect to yourself, others and to your practice. February 13-20, 2010. Contact the folks at Milagro to sign up.

The second retreat is a bit different. It is in Costa Rica in March. Martin Kirk, the Anatomy Guru of Anusara Yoga will be presenting Anatomy through the lens of Anusara Yoga and the UPA's every afternoon and I will be teaching asana every morning. Other teachers will be there teaching that week also and while you sign up for one of us as your primary teacher for the week, you will have the opportunity to take classes from the other teachers as well. This retreat will be bigger, will have Benjy and Heather playing kirtan every night and will give you a chance to connect to the larger Anusara Yoga family and to learn some of the science behind the method. Contact the folks at Inner Harmony to sign up.

I do hope some of you out there might be able to join me during those weeks. Learning Anusara Yoga on retreat is such an amazing way to immerse yourself in the method, the lifestyle and the teachings of Anusara Yoga. So good. So deep. So fun.

So, the online mentoring group begins on Thursday and so I have some lesson preparations to make for that today, a practice to do and classes to teach. Onward!

Tuesday Morning

I set the intention yesterday to really take care of myself and I did just that. Had some tea instead of coffee in the morning (For the record I am NOT anti-coffee in general. However, the more tired and cranky I become the more I drink it and the worse it is for me- I get angry, impatient and less able to sleep well and so it feeds a downward cycle rather than an uplifting one.) I made a great Ayurvedic lunch and dinner, got a chiropractic adjustment (3 ribs out and a few vertebrae out f whack as well!), went to Peggy's class, walked my dogs, made an accupuncture appointment for today and got some work done closing out the weekend and getting ready for the week, the training in Corpus and the online mentoring group. A good day, all in all. I even bought myself a new T-shirt at Costco.

Peggy's class was really fun. She taught a backbending sequence working up to dwi pada viparita dandasana with the head down and the legs together and straight. It was most excellent. She also introduced a discussion of the kleshas and how yoga helps us cope, manage, lessen them. It was a good time. The sequence was simple, straight forward and very effective. I left feeling open and also quite calm. I think that is what I love most about Iyengar Yoga- the post- practice sattvic state. (Even after deep back bends.) I think it has to do with the inversions, the lack of vinyasa and the longer holds with empty space between poses. (Don't get me wrong here, I like vinyasa, moving a lot, etc. also... I am just saying what I like about Iyengar Yoga specifically. I could write another entry about what I like about vinyasa because that list is long also!)

Let's see- accupuncture, practice and teaching is on the agenda today. Mom and Dad arrive sometime tomorrow and so I am not going to be teaching on Thursday so I can spend some time with them while they are here. Hannah will sub for me at Castle Hill and probably Erika or Omar will sub for me at Breath and Body. However, next week I will be teaching vinyasa for Gioconda at 9:30 on Tuesday and Thursday at Castle Hill while she is gone, so that is fun.

That is about it for now. Onward.

Friday Morning

Well, let's see...

Yesterday was fun. I was a little worried about the 4-class day but it was just fine. Maybe because the classes were so different- flow at 9:30, Iyengar at 12, Anusara at 4:30 and group practice at 6:30. All in all, a fun day and the classes were all well- attended which makes teaching so much easier, generally speaking.

The group practice was really fun for me. We have been doing longer holds and more start and stop in there and last night we flowed a lot more than we have been. It felt good to me at the end of the day to move and not be so technical and still we got into some fun backbends. However, after a long flow with lots of vinyasa it can be hard to have the energy for lots of pushing up to urdhva danurasana and so forth. So really, I didn't really push the group last night at that point.

It is an interesting thing to consider though- how you prepare your body and at what cost to your strength, stamina and energy. So while flow can get a nice overall warmness and opening happening for people and the movement is fun and creative and enjoyable, it can also take most of their strength and stamina to just get through the sequences which can leave little left to apply to the more advanced poses. Neither is right or wrong, it is just a consideration of what approach yields what outcome. In general for me, its not a big problem since I am pretty strong and have good stamina. But usually I can get my open at deeper levels not in flow but with more a focused intense approach aimed directly where I need it for the peak pose I have in mind. But last night I did a few fun scorpion poses after all that flow- both in handstand and in pinca so that was great pose. That pose was a "pose-lust" pose for me for so long that I still just love to practice it and visit it. I am really going to miss that group practice in the fall.

I am finally going to unpack from last weekends trip this morning and put my laundry away and organize my desk. Things have been piling up all week as I have been pretty on-the-go.

It is an Immersion weekend this weekend which is really great. Weekend #2 of the new cycle and I am looking forward to really diving into things a bit deeper this weekend. We have a lot of people out of town from the group and a few people joining us so that will be a certain kind of twist to consider.

All right, onward.

Good Morning Friday

So- yesterday was productive and enjoyable. I spent the morning catching up on all kinds of things in my office. I had the joy of telling a certification candidate that their second video passed (always fun), I did some work on the edits for my book, I transferred my calendar from Outlook to Google which helped me catch a huge scheduling conflict I had missed, I schemed with Milagro Retreats about a February 2010 trip to Mexico (anybody game?) and peeked ahead to the fall with my public class teaching schedule in mind. I made lunch for me and Kelly and did some chores and so on.

I went to Castle Hill to give a private yoga lesson and then taught my class there at 4:30 and then went up to Breath and Body for the 6:30 practice. We worked with a variation of the back bend sequence I have been teaching all week. I really had a nice practice and from what I could tell other folks did too. (We got to witness Dale standing up from urdhva danurasana for the first time by himself!) The sequence thoroughly prepared me for the back bends with no fanfare just good intelligent work. Many people remarked they felt really good (and even Casey admitted to the back bends feeling "less bad" than usual!)and interestingly enough while we were all prepared for deep work there were no big puddles of sweat. hmmmmm.... very interesting.....

Here is the sequence if you want to try at home:

• Surya Namaskar A
• Surya Namaskar B 5 x
• Supta Virasana 5 minutes
• Headstand- 5 minutes
• Vira One, Parsvottanasana, parivritta trikonasana- 1 minute each, same side with back heel at wall
• Handstand- 5 minutes
• Parsvakonasana (clasped),anjaneyasana, parivritta parsvakonasana (clasped)- 1 minute each, same side back foot at wall
• pinca mayurasana- different variations but back bended pushing feet into the wall.
• quad stretches with back knee/shin/foot on wall and torso up against wall, ekapada rajakapotasana with back leg at wall and forward bended to stretch spine
• paryankasana with knees at wall and block in upper back
• urdhva danurasana keeping knees at wall and walking hands in - stay in legs- 5 X
• urdhva danurasana- ustrasana to urdhva danurasana- stay in legs
• drop backs- stay in legs
• AMS
• uttanasana
• parsvottanasana, back foot turned in
• urdva prasarita eka padasana at wall 2 x
• uttanasana
• sarvangasana
• savasana

Another thing that was cool about the practice was that Krisha was there who I have not seen in like year since she had a baby, Ari was there who has been MIA ( not a criticism, just saying...), Mark and Hannah have been coming more often, as has Ed. And so I say this- not because I wasn't happy to see all the regular attendees who have been there since the beginning, but because I had recently been looking through my photos and saw pics from old group practices and I kept thinking- now where is that person? and where is that person? and so forth.

Teaching is interesting because groups seem to stay constant but really they change quite a bit- but in many cases its changing just one person a time. The time of a class changes, people's schedules changes, what any given student wants and needs changes, what a teacher is providing changes and these different changes mean that one by one, someone is no longer coming to class and another person finds their way and in a few years you realize it has become a different group. I had just been contemplating that phenomena this week when lo and behold several people who I hadn't seen in a long time were there again. (Of course Ari told me it was summer and to draw no conclusions about attendance until the fall. Ah, Ari.... always the voice of reason...)

Today I am going on a yoga field trip with Gioconda. We are going to Scott's class at Yoga Vida and Sanieh's class at Dharma with perhaps a shopping trip or coffee break in between. I am really looking forward to it. First it's a great girl date and second I love seeing what other teachers are up to.

Okay tea, finsished, green drink ingested, and now... onward...

Sunday Morning

Wow- so I went to Omar's flow class before the Immersion at Breath and Body Yoga yesterday and that was really fun. He has a great teaching presence, he really conveys the poses from his own experience and dedication and he manages a lovely balance of asking his class to work hard while being nurturing and encouraging. It was a great class.

I started the Immersion with a pop quiz that covered some of the material we addressed on Friday night. I wanted to get a sense of how much information people gleaned from the introductory class. Here is an interesting thing about taking an Immersion. As a student you have to have your ears peeled the whole time because so much information is coming your way. Not only are you doing the asana, you are getting philosophy lessons directly and indirectly, you are getting anatomy lessons, you are processing your own experience, you are part of a group dynamic and you are also if you are a teacher, watching the teaching method at work in yourself and others. So many aspects of learning are going on. It is a tall order and there is a lot to digest.

After the quiz and review, I asked the group for questions and what came out was a list of poses in which people were in pain or major discomfort. We spent the rest of the afternoon trouble-shooting the asanas on the list. I have never began an Immersion like that but I found it an interesting way to download a lot of information about the poses and to set the stage for teaching the principles more directly. And in general, we found ways in the different poses to get more relief and to move toward greater physical freedom in the postures.

Today I plan to finish the list of "troublesome poses" but more in the scope of a long practice-based session. The thing is that it is not such a hard thing to provide a group with a yoga workout and to intersperse the teachings in the midst of the strong work. That is not hard at all. But an Immersion practice is a different thing- especially in the beginning. The Immersion practices are a time not just to practice strong asana, but to learn the system that informs the practice and to take the time to sort out that theory in our practice so that we gain clarity and insight.

onward.

Tuesday

Well, I made it home around 9:30 last night and unpacked, started some laundry and went to bed. I slept until I woke up this morning which felt totally indulgentsly wodnerful and then I did my morning practices.

Kelly is sick with a cold which is too bad. I am doing my best to think positive thoughts so as to stay healthy while he is sick.

As far as today goes, I have some work to do today on my computer- stuff for my book, a certification video to watch and then my homework for Carlos. Plus an asana practice and a visit to our farmer's market this afternoon.

Fun, fun. There are some things on my mind percolating aorund that I reflecting on but I am not so much in the mood to draw them out right now. I feel the day calling me onward.

More later.