Thursday Morning

Well, after some lovely classes yesterday and doing my best to get a lot of my ducks in a row, I am about to sign off until February. I will be in California until the 31st of January with no computer, no cell phone and no contact with the outside world. So, when I am back home, I will be back online and back in classes teaching.

And speaking of lovely classes, both of my classes really were delightful yesterday. In the morning we worked a lot with twisting actions- parivritta balasana, parivritta parsvakonasana, maricyasana 3, pasasana We worked with lots of refinements in each pose and focused on how to twist from the back body and also how to initiatie the twist from the base of the spine. All in all it went quite well. I really enjoy the Focus on Form Class where we take poses apart a little more and work on refining them several times. Understanding as well as expression really comes along with that approach.

At 6:00 we worked with a lot hip opening and arm balancing which was fun also. Still with the emphasis of moving into the back body- eka pada koundinyasana, bakasana, eka pada galavasana, tittibasana with lots of preparation and exploration leading up to and in between the arm balances. Also, I gave people time to try some of them from sirsasana 2 which went well for a lot of people. Level 2-4 is a tricky level to teach because it spans a pretty broad range of ability many times. Although this Wednesday night class is definitely less on the 2 side and more on the 4 side and I try to give lots of stops a long the way as the sequence progresses and deepens. From what I could tell, everyone had a good attitude and watching almost 19 people all off the ground in eka pada koundinyasana is pretty sweet.

Also very awesome this week was seeing some of the old gang back in classes like Lauran and Pammy and also some new folks finding their way to The Castle like Tierson, Kathy, Ocean and Miranda. And, of course, those of you who are regular attendees in class, the class wouldn't be there without you so I thank you as well for your ongoing support and enthusiasm for the work we are all doing together.

All right then, like I mentioned earlier, I am signing off for a while. I got most of the things handled that I wanted to get handled and I am sure that anything else I left undone can wait. Have a great 10 days. See you in February.