Christina Sell

Good Morning!

I was pretty tired yesterday on my first day back from my trip but all in all I had a great time. It was fun to see so many people in classes and also we had our instructor's practice with Juan teaching us Ashtanga yesterday which was great. He is such a knowledgeable instructor and his love for the method he teaches is inspiring.

I started the day off with Focus on Form and we worked with the theme of faith and the steadiness it creates. While I emphasized a fair amount of muscle energy we also worked with shoulder principles and creating concavity before convexity in forward bends like uttanasana, parsvottanasana, supta padangusthasana, navasana and ardha navasana, abhaya padangusthasana, urdhva mukha pascimottanasana 1&2. We also walked down the chataranga dandasana road for a while.

I had a quick lunch at home and then went back to The Castle for the Ashtanga Vinyasa practice with Juan and then Gioconda and I had some girl time before we each went our separate ways to teach our evening classes. I returned to The Castle for the 6pm class which is listed as a 2/3 but is a pretty darn strong class. We worked with muscle energy and shoulder actions to go towards back bends and into drop backs which was a lot of fun. If this same group keeps coming we are going to have to change it to a Level 3/4 class on the next schedule. Really the caliber of studentship has been quite high.

Then the mentoring group stayed after and we got to work on examining the assessment criteria for a certification video. We focused mostly on developing and presenting the heart-based theme. I had hoped to show the video of my class but we had technical problems and so we only got the audio of the opening portion of class. Still, I think it was useful and really, a mentoring group has as much to do with what students do outside of class than it does with what I provide inside class because it is more about honing the information people already have than it is about presenting anything radically new. A huge part of my agenda in this group is to help people become their own best assessor- to see their teaching through loving and discerning eyes relative to "effective teaching" and relative to the "assessment standard."

Speaking of the mentoring group, I do have some spots still available in the online group that is forming. Talk about an all-star cast- we have people from all over the country and into Canada all of who are super dedicated and already I can tell it is going to be an amazing opportunity for growth and community.

Speaking of growth and community, Desiree Rumbaugh is here this weekend and there is still space to join us. If you have never studied with her, don't miss it. It is inspiration on so many levels to work with her and really, it is a great chance for us to all come together as an Anusara Yoga community. And she is not goignt o come back in 2010 so if you can make it this year, please do!

Okay then, on with the day