Purna, Fullness

In Monday's classes at San Marcos School of Yoga, we talked about aparigraha, the fifth yama. Aparigraha means "non-hoarding". Apraigraha suggests that we refrain from grasping. Grasping could apply to all kinds of things. We might grasp after experience, after material objects, and even after poses we cannot do, for instance. The idea of practicing aparigraha isn't so much that we impose it on ourselves as some forceful act of will, as much as we recognize the fullness of our true self and from that recognition, the need to grasp is subsumed. The 5:30 class worked on hip openers ad the 7:00 class worked on the introductory back bends.

I continued with the theme of purna in Tuesday classes. The flow class was a surprisingly strong group of awesome practitioners and we went for it with a back bending flow series with lots of twist and tuns. Very fun. At 6:00 the advanced class worked on some hip openers, press handstand and deep forward bends like clasped uttanasana and kurmasana. Such great practitioners and regular students were in class it was so inspiring. Almost everyone was so in sync with me and so god at following instructions it was just the funnest! And Susan, Mike, Sveta, Cooper, Susan, Mungu, Swamiji and Pamela all double-dipped. (Way to go, guys!) And a special kudos to Pamela for double dipping after a 4-mile run and a special good-bye to Cooper who heads off to Vermont and then India for a while.

And a friendly reminder about our group practice this weekend. 11-2 in San Marcos with a potluck afterwards for all those interested. Bring some real food this time- last time we had mostly cookies. Details are on my website www.sanmarcosschoolofyoga.com under events. Hope to see you there.