Friday Morning

Well, here it is Friday morning. I am up early to get a few things done and still have time for a practice before I head out to Corpus Christi for the weekend. It is the last weekend of our year-long program which is pretty darn exciting. It is kind of a time for looking back and also, as the year ends, for looking ahead to what is on the horizon. Manorama actually said that in her training with us. She told us that "in the beginning of things we are always looking ahead but at the end we are looking back." I think she had a point. Something like, that is the nature of the mind but the yogi endeavors to be in the moment... But anyway, I think she is right.

I remember when we started the program, we started with goals and objectives and intentions. We were looking ahead. And certainly I know this weekend will be spent in a fair amount of reflection on where we have been together. I know I am already reflecting a bit on where we were as a group in January when we all started this program and where we are now.

It is a pretty amazing thing to participate in a year-long training program. You bear a certain kind of witness to one another when you commit to something that happens once a month for the course of a year. One thing I like about teaching longer programs is that they have the intensity of a weekend workshop but they have the ongoing relationship of classes where you get to build something together. It is a very cool thing to be part of.

When this weekend is done I fly out to Arizona for a short overnight in Prescott and then to Tucson for the 3rd and final phase of the Immersion there that we started in August. So it is a back to back experience of bring things to conclusion. I come home from that and head over to The Woodlands for a 3-day meeting at The Anusara Yoga headquarters with the Curriculum Development Committee and then back home for the 3rd weekend of Part 2 Immersion here at Breath and Body. Then a few days of "Back to Business" before heading out to Georgia and South Carolina, where I will be with the lovely folks of City Yoga over New Year's Eve.

I had a nice time teaching yesterday. As a standing pose week, we worked on a very straight forward, no frills sequence with sun salutations, paryankasana, headstand, shoulder openers, urdhva prasarita eka padsana, virabhadrasana 1, classic parsvottanasana, and shoulderstand. It was smaller group than usual and so we spent a lot of time at the wall and I got to "pick on" people's poses a bit! (remember, offering picky details of alignment and refinements is how I show my love!)

Oh, and since someone mentioned this to me yesterday- I want to be clear about the rant I did about my signature! That only applies to signatures on the forms for Inspired-status and for Anusara Yoga Certification. Obviously, if you come to my classes and are logging your hours for certification, then I will just give you a signature with no further ado! I only mean to say that when you are actually getting an application form signed to apply for inspired or certified status, my actual signature is the least of what you need from me. What my attending your class is about is giving you feedback to help you grow, NOT for me to "sign off" on a form. (There has been some confusion about this over the years, so I am just being clear!) Probably sounds harsh, but it is not how I mean it.

So, I have some work to do this morning before I fritter the morning away on my blog, Facebook and other fun distractions! Also, we need to leave a fair amount of time to get to the coast since the weather report is iffy. Snow in Texas? Could it be? Good thing I bought my new hat!