Tuesday Morning

All right- Tuesday Morning.

I spent most of the day working at my computer and catching up on correspondences and organizing some future plans. My friend Karen and I once discussed the enormous administrative work of being a yoga teacher. It still shocks me how much time is required at a computer to teach yoga!

I did manage to get a very important file downloaded and successfully opened on my mac and so that was a big victory. I have a final round of edits to do on my book and so that is a top agenda item for today.

I met Anne at 3:45 yesterday for a visit to Peggy Kelly's Iyengar Yoga class. That was fun. Crazy sequence. Not crazy in the sense that it was bizarre or anything but I would have to title that class as "The Shortest Distance to Scorpion Pose" so it was crazy in that I was quite well prepared for some deep poses but not in the conventional way I prepare.

Sun Salutations- 10 minutes or so

headstand work with blocks

jathara parivarttonasana

Twisting prep on floor

sirsasana with twisting variations

vira One work at the wall- focusing mostly on getting the soleus to release

Down Dog with feet in baseboards to root heels

ustrasana- 2X

scorpion with chair

scorpion

urdhva danurasana 3X

bharadvajasana in chair

maricyasana variation in chair

headstand dropover-3X

handstand dropover- 3X

ardha halasana

savasana

I am definitely used to doing more to prep for those poses but oddly, that sequence worked perfectly. Long holds, the twisting was useful and my back bends felt great. Go figure.

It is always fun to get to familiar poses in new ways. I enjoy watching my mind have its commentary about how its all going to go. Like yesterday I was heading into the ustrasanas thinking, "no way" and lo and behold easy-peasy. Same thing as we headed into the scoprion chair work I was like, "I am not ready for this, we didn't even stretch our quads, etc." and then, there I was, no problem. So fun to see how much of whether or not I am ready for something may simply exist in my mind and not in my body. Manouso used to always say, "this is an exercise in consciousness" so I guess that its largely in the mind is precisely the point!

I see that in my students a lot. It can really throw people for a loop to approach something in a new way. Of course,t here are plenty of students who hate to approach things the same way all the time also. But in general, I actually find that once students have a certain mastery with a pose approaching it from one angle, they are hard pressed to give it up and explore other options. Something about giving up familiar certainty and success for a temporary phase of unfamiliarity and flailing can be pretty confrontational to the mind.

The dynamic also comes up a lot in people's discussions about what they like/want in a yoga class. So often I hear people describe class as though it is a made-to-order sandwich as opposed to an classroom or dynamic laboratory. So often a "good class" is seen as one that met their expectations in terms of what is familiar and what immediately accomplishable as opposed to a "good class" being that class that challenged, opened the box, took a different route and provided food for thought and fuel for practice.

I get it. I really do. We have just so much time and energy in a day and after a long day of work I completely understand that people want something they can count on in a predictable way. No problem there. No big shock that formualic sequenced classes are popular. I am not saying there is a thing wrong with that. I see tremendous benefit in that approach. I am just saying it's a good thing to be conscious within ourselves about what is really driving our preferences and choices and to understand what we really mean when we say a class is good or not.

And I must also say that I am finding my classes full these days of brave explorers and curious seekers and people willing to abandon the way they always do something to increase their understanding, proficiency and expertise. I think that is also a cool thing about teaching yoga. If we keep teaching how we think yoga should be taught then the people who want what we are doing will find us and have a place that fits for them. If we keep trying to make our class a "good class" based on other people's definitions without examining what our own criteria is and what we are hoping to accomplish as teachers, then not only will be chasing around something pretty impossible, we will fail to provide the students who want and need what we have with a place to find it.

So like I said, I have now been doing what I do here long enough that there are some pretty awesome folks who are supporting my classes and coming for what I do and I have less and less of those conversations that run like, "but I wish you played music" or "but why don't you flow more" or "I wish it wasn't so hard" and so on. It's good company for sure.

more tomorrow.

Monday Morning

Good morning!

I had a great night sleep last night and I think the acupuncture I got from Kelly and the herbs he gave me a d a mellow weekend of rest seems to have helped me move through whatever cold I was fighting upon my return. I feel much more like myself today.

Like I said it was a mellow weekend for me. I had my photo shoot for Lululemon on Friday afternoon. Kelly captured some fun footage from it. Click here to watch.

Saturday I was feeling pretty lousy but I did spend some time at the Apple Store getting myself switched over to Apple from PC. So that was a big thing over the weekend. I am hopeful that my technology tools will be a little more integrated and easier to use- once I learn to use them, that is.

Yesterday I felt well enough for a walk on the greenbelt and to reorganize my office- since I was getting a new computer and everything- (and yes, I did my closets this weekend also!) Since I am no on a mac I could finally download Darren's iphone app Yoga Hour and I practiced with it. I really liked it. It has good solid instructions, everything you need for a nice home practice, nothing you don't. Good times.

Here are a few scenes-- Kelly was playing with his new iphone camera and all its fancy processing options for artistic effect.

Anyway- here it is Monday- I have a bunch of work to keep doing to get all my ducks in a row for my next sojourn in November. I will be gone for almost 6 weeks with lots of stops along the way and so there is always lots to get organized before that sort of trip.

more tomorrow.

We had a great day today here in Estes Park, Colorado. The day started with meditation with John Friend followed by breakfast and then his 3-hour Master Class.

After class we had lunch and then I taught an hour-long class on Sequencing Strategies which was sort of hilarious. We had 150-something people show up for the lecture which was a thrill and it was a quick foray through the ideas behind great sequencing. I used the 3 A's of Ansuara Yoga to organize my thoughts on what makes a good sequence.

Attitude- A good sequence is a structure through which the Shakti can manifest and move. A sequence can enliven the spirit and invite us to express our hearts in a seamless tapestry through the asana.

So in teaching our sequence ideally delivers us to the heart quality or attitude of the class and should line up in a very direct way to what we are hoping to accomplish attitudinally. We ahve to educate ourselves in the effects of the poses on our heart and mind and the effects of various sequences and on our hearts and minds.

Alignment- A good sequence teaches us the how-to of the poses, and the exquisite order of the method.

In order to convey this as teachers we have to have knowledge of the syllabus, the component parts of the asanas, the common misalignments in any asana, and most importantly we need to be aware of what I call the lineage of the asanas. For instance- where does the pose urdhva danurasana begin? It starts all the way in urdhva hasta tadasana and it is related to every pose on the syllabus where your arms are over your head. So another key to good sequencing is knowledge of the poses in a very fundamental way and also to know the UPA's inside out and how they apply to the various postures.

Action- a good sequence prepares the body for optimal action required to achieve the postures, dynamic expression and for the balanced action that is at the heart of good alignment. A sequence will teach the students how to shore up places of instability and open places that are tight and will assist students in managing their energy throughout the scope of the practice.

As teachers we need to take into account the skill and ability of our group, the environment in which we are teaching, the level class it is, the motivation of the students, our own temperament as teachers and so on. Tall order.

So speaking of tall order, we breezed through some practical examples. All in all I think the talk was informative, inspiring and entertaining so I was pretty pleased with it. Here are a few pics.

After class I took some time to hang out with my friend and fellow certified teacher, Kelly Haas. She and I had a chance to talk and practice which was super awesome. She is a fun, smart, sincere and dedicated person and I have always loved spending time with her. She is John's tour manager and so it is so rare that she has any spare time at all at these events so when we realized that neither of us was scheduled between 4 and 5:30, we made a date. Having heart-to-heart talks with people of such high caliber and personal integrity is one of my favorite things about what I do. It just doesn't get much better than that.

After we wrapped up our back bends I visited my friend and Fellow Certified teacher Chad Satlow in his booth for Third Eye Threads. Kelly captured it on film and made a short clip. Chad makes great eco-friendly, vintage-inspired active wear and he is a great guy with a ton of enthusiasm and passion. Check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNamOtpMmzs.

Then we had dinner and then there was a scholar's panel for the philosophy download. Pretty radical stuff indeed. Here are some scenes from the day: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oT62hwLFDlc.

All right- more to come tomorrow.

Well, I had an excellent weekend in Friendswood, Texas. Valerie assembled a lovely group of sincere and dedicated yogis of all ages and abilities for a weekend of yoga I called "Exploring The Artistic Science of Anusara Yoga." We did a flow class on Friday night, a standing pose and arm balance class on Saturday morning, a forward bend/hip opening class Saturday afternoon and a back bending group practice on Sunday morning. This was my 4th visit to Sundance Yoga and each time is better it seems. Valerie, the owner and director of the studio has been a student of John Friend since the early days of Anusara Yoga and she is quite an expert in the therapeutic applications of the principles of Anusara Yoga. She also incorporates partner yoga and intuitive healing and many other influences in her teaching work at Sundance. The result? A heartfelt, soulful sanctuary that nurtures everyone who walks in the door.

I had a great time being with the new and returning students there and getting a chance to meet the folks who came from surrounding areas. Kelly came with me and took some awesome pictures and compiled a slideshow that is up on YouTube. Click here to watch the video.

Kelly and I got home and went over to Anne and Jeff's house to meet with Mom and Dad for dinner and to begin the week of wedding preparations and celebrations. Also- head's up to everyone here in Austin and anyone from nearby who can make it- We are having an open group practice on Saturday from 12:00-2:30 at The Castle Hill Annex to celebrate the happy wedding couple that loves to do yoga together. I am leading the practice, Castle Hill has donated the use of their facility and any donations attendees make will go straight to Anne and Jeff. Please come and enjoy the practice, the good company of our awesome community and remind yourself about about the power of love!

I am home for a few weeks and I have stack of things to do including some nesting things like cleaning out some closets, cabinets and so on. I am having a very strong urge to nest. I suppose this is not a surprising urge to have considering that I have been living in other people's homes for almost three weeks straight. So anyway- onward through the day.

more tomorrow.

Day Five

So here is exciting news...
The workshop that Noah Maze and I taught back in July at Yogaglo is now for sale: http://www.yogaglo.com/blog/2010/08/noah-maze-christina-sell-in-your-living-room/

You can visit the site and check out the class descriptions and then buy individual classes or the whole shebang. It was a great weekend and I am so excited to be able to share it with everyone.

Teacher Training continues to go well. Today we worked on Sequencing towards a peak pose and spent a lot of time with Q&A and then we talked about ethics, adjustments and observation. The group continues to inspire me with their dedication and their skill and their sincere desire to represent the method with integrity.

One thing that I am really thinking about this week as I am looking at this group of students who are coming up as a the next generation of Anusara Yoga teachers is how important my friends and colleagues in Anusara Yoga are to me. I keep reflecting on the early days of my involvement in the method and how, at the time, I was having a good time and learning the yoga and so on but there was no thought in my mind that many of those people I was with at the time would come to be my best friends and my biggest cheerleaders and truest sources of support.

So I keep thinking about how perhaps, some of the people in this room are, even as we speak, forging friendships today that might be there for them ten years from now. I find that an inspiring thought. There is, it seems to me, several levels of "what's going on" in these trainings. There is the surface level of learning sequencing, articulation skills and hands- on adjustments and so forth. There is also the level of personal inquiry and soul searching that each person goes through in a week like this. And there are the friendships. And so on like that. Each level has its own texture and its own demands and its own unique beauty.

More tomorrow.

Saturday Night

We had another great day in Teacher Training today. We worked with the overarching theme of dedication and commitment and with the UPA of Muscular Energy. It was a very full day of exploring themes, working on sequencing strategies, practice teaching and lots of Q&A. Teacher Training is always such a rich experience in terms of the conversations that come out of simple exercises and teaching drills.

One recurring theme from this Teacher Training and the Teacher Training I have been teaching in Austin is really about guiding paradigms in different yoga systems and yoga studios. I am not talking here about the larger philosophical guiding paradigms as much as I am about the paradigm of "what is supposed to happen in a yoga class" kind of paradigm. For instance, I got started in yoga in Iyengar Yoga and the guiding paradigm of that system was come to class to learn, practice at home to practice. And in the early days of my Anusara experience, I learned Ansuara Yoga much in that way. I definitely always went home sore but the atmosphere of class was definitely, "come to class to learn how to practice."

It seems to me that as the culture of yoga has evolved and grown and expanded there is a very real paradigm for yoga classes to be practice-based environments and the time in the studio is not so much a class as it is a guided practice situation. So in a lot of methods and in a lot of studios, students come to class to practice for the most part.

One time I talked to John about how he saw us and he said, well, people should come to class to learn and definitely leave feeling as though they had a practice. And he said, he wanted people to leave in the hearts and bodies more than in their heads. So, once again, we see that in Ansuara Yoga we are a bit of both and we are never only one thing. And we see that teaching an Ansuara Yoga class is a tall order. Doing one or the other is pretty easy. Accomplishing both is a work of art!

Anyway- this is on my mind because as someone who is training teachers I am finding I have to be very aware when I am asked questions about "how to teach something in class" that I answer relative to a particular paradigm or my answer won't make sense. For instance- Am I being asked, "How would I teach that in a flow class?" or am I being asked, "How would I teach that in a class that was accustomed to demonstrations, refinements and alignment?"

See the things is it can be "Anusara Yoga" if it is a practice-based class one day and we clearly outline what we are doing, why and how we are going to approach that particular class. It can still be "Ansuara Yoga" if we start, stop, outline, explain and demo a lot so long as we set the context for that up appropriately. And I think this kind of freedom and flexibility is a really cool thing as a method. As a method, are not defined by flow or not-flow, by demo or not-demo and as teacher we are not indoctrinated into a long list of do's and don'ts, always and nevers. We are, instead, trained in principles of good teaching and principles of yoga and we are in the boundaries of the method if we are applying those principles consciously and to good effect. It is not so much the what of what we are doing that makes us Ansuara Yoga it is knowing why of why we are doing what we are doing that makes us us, in my opinion. Also, I think we have an obligation to teach our students the why of what we are doing also. And we need to educate our students in how to participate in the paradigm of class that we are offering.

So then, of course, all of this this begs the question of do we know the why, and do we know how to evaluate "good effect" in any given situation? And, do we have the clarity and courage to reflect on our efforts and offerings and the commitment and dedication necessary to refine them more and more so we become increasingly effective as teachers? I suppose that is another post but really this kind of conversation is why I find teacher training so interesting to teach. The process of learning to be a yoga teacher never ends and the need to reflect and refine is ongoing. Seriously, its never boring.

Anyway, we had a great day, the students are rocking and I must say that it is totally fun to be doing teacher training with a group of people who know each other so well after being in Immersions together. I think its much more like a bunch of good friends getting together again and a whole lot less neurotic nervousness than if everyone had met for Teacher Training for the first time.

more tomorrow.

Friday Night

We had a great day of teacher training today. It was so fun to come into the studio and see people after so many months and to listen to how people greeted each other so fondly and so enthusiastically. It was a real homecoming in so many ways.

We started the day with some journal writing about intention and with introductions and then launched right into Theme Building 101 and then an asana class. After lunch we met back for more work with Themes and then with some practice teaching, working mostly with refining instructions with the breath. We have a very high caliber group of folks and they are open, receptive and everyone is just really going for it. It's a lot of fun to teach a group of people who so whole-heartedly love the method and are ready to bring their teaching that much more into alignment with it.

I, of course, am enjoying teaching with Darren and the magic of our combined efforts that we have come to rely upon has definitely sparked. We have such unique and compatible ideas, viewpoints and experiences as teaching and I think the group really benefits from our combined offering.

After class I did my inversions and then Darren and I taught his 5:45 Expanding class which was a lot of fun also. We had over 50 people in class tonight and we taught sirsasana 2, bakasana, parsva bakasana and headstand drop over from sirsasana 2 with some great preparatory work. It was a lot of fun after analyzing yoga teaching all day to just teach a good solid class with my friend and to to enjoy the great students that make up the Yoga Oasis community.

All in all, a great day.

Scenes from the day:

Tuesday Morning

Click here to play the video that just went out in my newsletter

Yesterday I managed to sleep in really late and spend the morning catching up on work and then doing some asana before I headed out to Lululemon to plan the final details for Salutation Nation this Saturday. It is going to be a great event and I am really excited to be teaching this complimentary, outdoor class. The class will start promptly at 9:00 am at Festival Beach (on the East side of 35 and don't worry, there is LOTS of parking!) and after class we will have food, prizes and a chance to hang out and enjoy begin together.

I think that is the thing I am most excited about about the event. We are hoping to gather several hundred Austin yogi's of all ages and abilities together to enjoy an asana practice, to enjoy the great outdoors and to enjoy being together as a unified community. Equally cool is that almost every Lululemon store across the nation is organizing a group of people to practice together at 9am in their time zone for the same reason! So while we are here in Austin as a community, we will be joining together with a much larger community of people. I think that's a pretty exciting opportunity. I do hope you join the fun.

For more information on the event, Lululemon 6th and Lamar has a Facebook page which is a great resource for the event (as well as other fun things going on with them.) Obviously, we all like their clothes but these kinds of grassroots community events are, in my opinion, what make this company really great. (Okay, that and the universally flattering Groove Pant which makes everybody's butt look good. Seriously. But I digress...) Think back to Zoe and Matt's doing Yoga under the stars and Gioconda's great One Om Event? All made possible with Lululemon's help.

All right, after the planning and the shopping, Kelly and I spent some time together doing email, etc. and then went out to dinner. All in all a very lovely day. My cold is steadily improving and I feel fine however, now Kelly has a sore throat. Oh well.

Today I have a good mix planned of work and play- I have a lot of planning to do for the weekend, I have some bodywork scheduled and a date to go to the pool with Gia (of course, her right arm is in a cast so it will be me swimming and her dangling her feet in the water from the side) and I have a chunk of time set aside for asana which I am excited about.

Speaking of setting aside time for asana- This month Mandy Eubanks is teaching a Group Practice at the Amala Sanctuary on August 12th and 26th from 4:30-6:30. That will be a lot of fun so come if you can.

Also- please help me spread the word- Starting in September I am going to be teaching a 50-minute Anusara Yoga for Seniors class at Castle Hill Fitness Center on Wednesdays at 11:00. I will teach Focus on Form from 9:30-10:55 and then Seniors Yoga at 11:00. It is going to be a $7 community class and you do not need to be a member to come. Please spread the word to anyone you know who might enjoy a basic, gentle yoga class geared toward Seniors. We will work on strength building, balance, flexibility and relaxation. Certified Iyengar teacher (and my sis) Anne Bowery will teach on the weeks I am out of town.

More tomorrow.

Fourth of July

Well, it was a great Fourth of July day. Kelly and I woke up early and went down to San Marcos. We spent about an hour on the river boating which was super fun. I had some great spins in the wave and Kelly pulled off a few cartwheels and the rains never came which was great.

We came home, ate lunch and then I did a little follow work to the storefront for the Christina Sell Yoga Podcasts. The first one is up so you can go buy it. More to come. We will be refining them and working out some of the production kinks as we go along so keep tuning in. (Also, if you order one you will get two emails with the purchase. One will be a receipt and the second will have a download link.)

All right, then we made our way over to Clear Spring Studio and had our practice. I had a really good time. There are some pictures posted on Facebook if you want to see a few scenes. What was really great was that we had a fun mixture of people who practice primarily flow, a few great Iyengar folks, some Ashtanga Vinyasa practitioners as well as the Anusara Yogi's. I love it when diverse yoga communities come together and share what we all have in common- asana, laughter, love of the practice and a dedication to the the heart. To me, these things transcend labels, methods and conventions associated with each.

We did a sequence that didn't have a lot of flow in it at all but used some very deep and careful preparatory work to get to urdhva danurasana, dwi pada viparita dandasana, natrajasana and the eka pada rajakpotasana and other fun excursions like kapotasana, drop backs and so forth. I really did enjoy the time and my practice felt great. People seemed to do a good job of going for it and also resting when necessary.

All right, that's about it for now. more tomorrow.

Sunday Night

So, it was a great weekend all in all. We had a sweet potluck gathering at my house after the workshop last night and then this morning we met for the last session with Laurie. It was a wonderful walk through some pranayama preparations, some handstand and pinca mayurasana work, sarvangasana and variations and ended with some awesome revolved uppa vista konasana, revolved janu sirsasana and revolved pascimottanasana, a foray into akarna danuarasana and ekapad sirsasana. Fun stuff. Nothing easy, nothing casual, nothing haphazard. I really enjoy her teaching so much and I got so much help and insight for my practice. Great stuff.

I came home at noon, at lunch and Kelly and I drove out to Barsana Dham. As I drove out I was aware that we weren't talking much and I realized I was really tired. Then I got to thinking about the folks at the Texas Yoga Retreat and how they had been there with round the clock classes since Friday and I thought, "Wow, I bet they are gonna be tired!"

I was the last class scheduled AND it was supposed to be a back bend class and I thought to myself, "This may not be a great idea..." (those of you who know me know that is rarely a restful event.) Anyway, I checked in with the group who confirmed my intuition (they were wiped out) and so I proposed a change of topic. We did restorative yoga and pranayama instead. It was lovely and just the right thing. What with the long weekend, the heat and the intensive study and immersion they had been doing, the last thing they needed to do were back bends. The class was great and by the end the folks had light in their eyes again and color in their faces and were relaxed and alert and better prepared, I think, to go home and take the yoga off the mat and into their lives. I even had Kelly take pictures because I thought some of you might enjoy photographic evidence of restorative yoga in a class with Christina Sell!

Also, I liked the peacocks there. Picture below in their glory.

Supta baddha konasana
twist over a bolster
Me, explaining pranayama. (Dana, you can't tell, but I have your lovely River Bend Yoga T-shirt on!)
After class we walked around on the grounds looking for some photo opps but nothing too great came along. I did like the Devis though. So this is Devi with the Devis.
Flirting.
Anyway- I had a great weekend. It really was. I feel like I had a chance to be part of the community here in a lovely way and I met so many new and interesting people throughout the weekend as well as connecting with some folks I have not seen in a while.

More tomorrow.

Friday

Hello!

It's been a busy few days for me. I taught my classes on Wednesday and Thursday morning Kelly and I spent the morning in San Marcos. We had to get some stuff for our dog from the vet and so we decided it would be a great time to kit the river for some kayaking. It was great- the water was awesome, the wave was perfect and we played for over an hour.

I did some work for a few hours, made it to the Castle to practice before my class and then taught a class at 4:30. It was super fun. We got into some pretty deep back bends which was really awesome. Then Kelly and I drove over to Mercury Hall for the One Om Event which was a lot of fun. Basically, the format was a centering followed by warm ups with Malia, Sun salutations with Chelsea, Standing Poses with Jenn Wooten, Hip openers and Arm balances with Jeremiah Wallace, back bends with me, dancing as a group, forward bends with Gioconda, chanting with Zoe and then savasana. It was a great time.

here are some shots from the evening that Kelly took:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nOrQSo_dNk

I have some more to say about the event but right now I have to clean my house and get ready for rest of the weekend. More tomorrow!

Friday in Wisconsin

Kelly and I met up in Chicago yesterday and hopped on a plane to Madison, Wisconsin and then drive a few hours to Viroqua. We sat up late talking to our friends, Meg and Chris and then got up this morning for fun and games. Chris and Kelly went on a bike ride and me and Meg had a chance to practice. We worked on a lovely sequence to Natrajasana which culminated in some pretty fine bends.

Here is the photographic evidence...

And here is a video clip of me and Meg working together to help her keep her heels down on the way don and up. Meg has been doing drop backs on her own for like a decade so that was not the thing she was working on. She was really working diligently on keeping her heels down. Fun times.

After practice, Kelly and I had lunch at the local coop and then I had a massage. After a shower and a snack I went to Tapestry Yoga to teach. We had a great turnout with a lovely group of hardworking, sincere students. We did a deep hip opening class which culminated with a foray into padmasana. Good times.

more tomorrow.

Good bye San Jose, Hello Tucson

ell, it’s an almost six hour plane ride to Phoenix from Costa Rica and so I thought it would be a good opportunity to write a blog entry. Unfortunately, they do not let passengers take any water on the plane from Costa Rica and so I am unbelievably thirsty right now. Yes, I know according to the Gita, “the wise yogi is not bothered by thirst” but well, this yogi sure is.

It was an early morning this morning. I woke up at 3:45 and the taxi came for me at 4:15. So far I feel okay but it those kind of mornings usually throw my system a little out of whack. All right- enough ramblings…

The last day of the immersion was lovely. We covered a brief histroy of yoga and made a foray into talking aout some distinctions between different philosophical darsanas, which is always an interesting discussion. One cool thing about this group is that most of them are teachers and most of them have completed teaching training at Yoga Lamat, where they received a very good education in yoga philosophy and so they were familiar with the Gita and familiar with Patanjali’s sutras and also Juanpa has been teaching them such good Anusara Yoga for so long that they had a very solid foundation upon which to have the discussion.

I always marvel about how we are supposed to cover the “basic overview of three philosophical schools of yoga” in under an hour. I mean you can do it in general way in that amount of time if the people you are teaching know something about yoga philosophy. But let’s say your students have never considered concepts of dualism and non duality, or what if they only know of the word tantra from an ad in the back of a magazine promising “tantra for better sex” and what if they have never heard of something called Vedanta or have no clue what Buddhism is actually about and what if they think Patanjlai’s sutras are the only sutras of yoga? Many people come to Immersions and this is precisely their situation.

I do not mean this as a criticism at all. It is more of an observation about how it is. One thing I have observed over the last few years is that part of what has happened in the modern proliferation of the asana practice as it has become accessible and available to the masses it that the “spiritual aspect” of the practice has been purposely left out of the presentation. I am not taking issue with that so much. I am simply saying that nowadays it is highly likely that someone has done yoga for many years, loves it, is dedicated to it, but has learned very little of its philosophical underpinnings. A colleague of mine once said, “Oh sure, for most people it’s more like a health-hobby these days.”

So- in those cases, these talks about “a Brief History of Yoga Philosophy” take a bit longer to lay out in a way that makes any sense. Think about how we say there are three main elements to Anusara Yoga: 1) Non dual tantric philosophy of intrinsic goodness, 2.) Universal Principles of Alignment and 3.) Practicing teachings in community. Well, just take a look at the first one and you see all kinds of words that need defining—non-dual, tantric, intrinsic goodness. Those concepts alone can make for a lengthy discussion.

Well, anyway- this group was well educated, well prepared and they were very good students. Louis, my host, told me that over 40 years ago, Costa Rica disbanded the army and invested instead in education. Amazing, huh? I think it shows in the studentship of the Costa Ricans. It was of a very high caliber.

Okay- so we did a strong practice working on the loops and going through lots of vinyasa, arm balances and then into drop backs. That was a lots of fun. (Costa Ricans are very passionate and expressive so there was a lot of moaning and groaning and expressing which became somewhat hysterical at a point!0 After lunch we covered some shoulder anatomy, took a test, did a review and then had our closing circle. As always, the depth of the process and how it affected people was very inspiring and moving. It is such a cool thing to facilitate and be a part of.

Afterwards, we all went out to dinner together which was great. Good tasty food with great company. And I got introduced to the “Costa Rican good-bye.” You have to hug and kiss at the table as you get up to leave. Then there is hugging and kissing at the door before you leave the restaurant. And then there is hugging and kissing at the sidewalk before you get into your car. And I am not just talking about you hug the person at the curb that you didn’t hug at the table. No, you hug EVERYBODY and kiss EVERYBODY at each of the three stations. I am smiling as I write this because this was a very funny scene and they laughed at me a lot as I was so ready to go and they were so into hugging and kissing me and each other. (White girl in a Latin scene… you can imagine.)

But it was an excellent memory to leave with- all that love. The people I met and worked with all week were some of the most open hearted, generous, accepting, loving and passionate people I have met. At so many points I could feel this great company healing me and again and again I was reminded of what great fortune it is to have this yoga, these opportunities to travel and teach and the blessing it is to share such high teachings with such wonderful people.

So- 2 hours left in the flight and then it is to my Tucson family and to meet and greets friends from there and who are coming from afar. We have a big group coming for Part 2, most of whom were with us for Part 1 but we have some people who will be joining the group. I think that is always fun- seeing how each group forms and becomes unique.

More tomorrow. Here are a few pictures from the week. The sizing is weird because I pulled them from Facebook.