Thursday Night

Wow- fun times last night. I continued work on the Shiva Shakti theme- in many ways highlighting the Shakti aspect of things. One of the teachings that John gives us in Anusara Yoga regarding Shakti is that if you want to increase or magnify Shakti and your relationship to it, one of the things you can do is to praise Her. By talking about it, by praising it, the Shakti expands.



(This, as a side note, is one of the reasons why we are asked as Anusara Yoga teachers to speak directly about Grace. John teaches us that The Secret, The Source of Anusara's success (and therefore ours as Anusara teachers) is the Shakti and so we must not forget to praise it directly. Like any woman, She responds favorably to praise and adoration. So if you ever want to piss John Friend off in a Teacher Training, ask a question that goes like this: "John, it seems to me that yoga poses are so powerful by themselves that they can transmit the power of Grace and so isn't it really unnecessary to use a heart theme or to speak about Grace directly?" Then watch his face grow red, his eyes bulge and his words come stammering out about why you must use a heart theme if it is to be called Anusara Yoga. But I digress.)



Now here is the cool thing. We, each one of us, is a form that the Shakti has taken and so if we praise ourselves, and praise one another then we are actually praising the Divine, magnifying Her and growing Her through these acts of self-honor and self-acknowledgement. Like Douglas Brooks is so fond of saying, "You are the point the Universe is trying to make."



Extrapolate this a bit further and you can make the point that by making small changes to refine our asana-so that our energy become clearer in its expression and the lines of the poses become more beautiful- is an act of praise. Refining asana is saying, this pose, this effort, this moment matters to me so fully that I am going to make it as beautiful as possible, as Shri as possible. I want my pose to be the highest expression of Shakti that it can be so I am going to straighten my leg, stretch through my finger nails and attend to every detail that I can because I AM the Shakti that has taken this form right here and right now.



So like that. And to that end we worked on back bends at 4:30 with an emphasis on keeping the legs really active and worked with twists at 6:00. Both classes were nice and full of fantastic students My little rant last week about not necessarily wanting the biggest classes but wanting the best students seem to call to me two classes this week of some of the hardest working, most attentive and open students yet! I was so impressed by the quality of studentship in both classes.



Anne, Kelly, Mike, Susan, Jesse, Meg, Susan, Pammy, Terry, Kim S. and Brigitte all double dipped.

Off to the vet for Spirit's x-ray. I hope it is only a broken foot.