Wednesday Morning

I woke up nice and early this morning, did my morning practices and I am now enjoying a latte and catching up on my blog. I really enjoyed teaching last night. At 4:30 I worked with the theme of weaving a tapestry of breath, body, mind and heart through each pose and how this process is really the invitation of Anusara Yoga. In this yoga we do not try so much to stop the thoughts, to change how we are feeling and so forth. We are actually more interested in weaving a tapestry out of our humanity- one that is varied in color, rich in texture and complex in its design. Out yoga embraces what I called "the agonies, the ecstasies,the tragedies and the celebrations." We worked with a variety of poses all preparing us for saravangasana, eka pada sarvangasana and parsvaikapada sarvangasana.

At 6:00 we celebrated Jeremiah's 25th birthday. As I reflected on Jeremiah and his practice over the years I really saw how dedicated he has been and also, I realized one of my favorite things about him- besides the fact that he is super fun, smart and hilarious- and that is that he is able to see and articulate distinctions and nuances in the application of the method. He really has a lot of clarity. So I used dedication and clarity as my theme and we worked in 25 sun salutations in a standing pose, hip opening, arm balancing flow. WOW.

I subbed for Sandi at 7:30 and we did a strong flow practice. When I introduced myself to her class I said, "Sandi told me you guys really like a challenge" and they all laughed saying, 'really, Christina, don't worry about that...your classes are always hard enough!" We laughed. They were good sports and worked very hard and laughed with me about my unrelenting pursuit of straight arms in every pose where the arms were overhead. And my playlist worked well, which was fun.

No I do not think flow has to have music. Not at all. And when I do play music I do not ask as much out of the students relative to alignment. But music can be nice and can evoke a mood and can lend some energy to a flow class so I do like to use it and I do like to practice with it. Really, that's the thing with Anusara Yoga- so many things can work so long as you know what, why, and how to determine whether or not what you are doing is indeed "working." But I digress.

Today I have an acupuncture appoint, a date to ride bikes with Kelly and a practice scheduled. I am teaching at Breath and Body this afternoon at 4:30 so please join me there.Last week we worked on backbends so we will focus on something in a different direction tonight.

Spirit did indeed eat yesterday and she is no worse so Dr. Jeff is still recommending that we wait before making decision about whether or not to put her down. The house is certainly a lot calmer without her around- we call her "The Queen." Thanks everyone for your caring thought and prayers for her and for us. Its been a definite silver lining in all of this- to feel the support and love of my extended community.