Immersion weekend in Austin

So, we had an absolutely amazing group of yogis assembled in Austin for the first weekend of Immersion One this weekend. The room was packed to capacity with wonderful students ready to dive into the teachings. It was a great mix of students I have known for a while from classes and workshops here in town and a handful of new friends and folks from out of town.

It is a bit hard to recap the weekend all at once but I have to say that the group was very strong, receptive and open to learning. We worked very hard and also had a lot of fun and laughter to share throughut our time together. I have done a lot of work on the Immersion curriculum since I began teaching Immersions so many years ago. Certainly the work we did on the committee has streamlined the offering but also I have personally done a lot to create learning tools and aids that help keep the train on the tracks and help structure my presentation and from what I can tell, the work has really paid off. That is really one thing I love about my work- I am always a learning and refining and getting a chance to improve my craft as a teacher.

We followed a fairly tight time schedule and adhered pretty closely to the outline I made for each session with a few detours, tangents and responses to "teachable moments". It was so fun to watch people's bodies change and incorporate my instructions into their practices. I kept looking out and saying, "now the look like Anusara yoga backs!" if nothing else, I think we made major headway into "side body long, head of the arm bones back...melt!" I really do enjoy the basics.

Of course I enjoy the refinements also. It's all really great stuff, truth be told.

We did a lot of work on the Primary Flows of Energy and talked a fair amount about studentship and how it relates to the five elements and also how studentship relates to aim and personal intention. Once Again,the more I teach this stuff the more profoundly I see that yoga is not an outside-in imposition of right and wrong onto life, ourselves, our behavior or our bodies. It just isn't. Yoga is really a beautiful set of tools to help us meet our aim. And our studentship and the actions we take are going vary depending on what we want from the practice. And that is as it should be. It is such an empowering and liberating perspective.

I am now on my way to Los Angeles for a week of filming classes at Yogaglo, which is another super fun thing. I start tomorrow morning with a 10am class on twisting called "out with the old and in with the new" and then again at 6:00 for a "move more talk less class" called "Discipleship to the Flow". I am looking forward to seeing all the LA peeps and rockin' out a bit with them. I just really love getting to be a part of their yoga community. They are fun, open-hearted, hard-working and seasoned as practioners, all of which makes for very fun classes and workshops. AND I have a great place to stay right on the beach in Venice and so I hoping to have a little R&R for myself while I am there also. Also, I am gonna take some yoga classes while I am there.

On Friday i fly out to South Carolina to visit the good folks of City Yoga in Columbia, which is something I am really looking forward to also. I was there a year and a half ago and found that community of people so sincere and sweet and nurturing to be with. Kelly will meet up with me for that weekend, which is an added bonus.

And then I leave from there to go to Whistler, BC for the Lululemon Ambassador Summit. So that is a really cool thing- Lululemon is holding a Summit for a handful of us Ambassadors and is flying us out to Whistler, putting us up at The Four Seasons and giving us 3 days of seminars, trainings and personal growth opportunities (and even a brand new sticky mat-and we all know how much I love those, right? Seriously, get The Mat and say good-bye to slipping in your own sweat forever.)Anyway, what a fun thing to get to go do. I am really psyched to be invited and to have a chance to be part of it.

And the day after that ends, I head out to Arcata,California to see the awesome yogis there. I was in Arcata in the fall and Robyn invited me back I had one opening in April or one in late 2012 and so we booked the spring date. It's a rare treat to get to visit a studio for a weekend workshop twice in the same year and I know it's gonna be awesome.

All in all, it is a vital, fun few weeks for me coming up after an amazing month of March.

Wow, whoa and whoopppee!