More to Come

So I have jumped back into my own practice after a little break and it has really been fantastic so far. I feel some momentum building, and that coupled with the sweet familiarity of breath and prayer through movement is just really beyond description. It is funny because when I try to describe it to Chris, who is in the fitness industry and is a very powerful athlete, he immediately goes into the whole you need to rest and rebuild concept that applies to sports and and exercise. And that makes sense, really it does, but to me yoga has always just seemed very different from all of those other pursuits and so the same principles do not seem to apply. But maybe they do. It is interesting because I can feel both stronger from the rest and yet really unable to touch certain postures or even actions that were flowing for me before I took the rest.

This is really just a tangent.

Saturday morning, Kae and I did a repeat performance of what Kristina and I worked on Wednesday, and that was fun. That sequence is so great (Desiree’s article from the most recent Yoga Journal- Noah is her model) and so effective and I was really happy to have such a solid warm up for some deep backbends. Not to mention some more practice on V. C.

This morning Kristina and Kathy joined me for a little while for a much more mellow time. Lots of hips, twists and inversions. Not so glamorous but very juicy and I hit up against some internal obstacles which I have to say I may love just as much as the breakthrough, mind blowing experiences because the obstacles always seem to point the way for me head. And generally speaking that way is always inside. The obstacle (I am really resisting using the word wall instead because, lets face it, it is just not that permanent) is generally sprung from some internal dialogue of lack or ineptitude. And the remedy, 9 times out of 10, is for a softer approach. One with more love, more compassion, and more breath. Prayer and meditation. So I love it, because for me it is yet another invitation to remember God, and Chit Ananda.

Classes begin on Tuesday. I look forward to seeing everyone soon.

Getting Back

It has been great to have a break and now I am really getting ready for classes to start up again. I have been spending my time getting organized and planning the larger intention for each of the classes. We are going to start by just introducing (for some) and reviewing (for others) the Principles and also learning the yamas and the niyamas. Should be great fun for everyone. I am really thinking that this more organized approach is going to serve everyone quite nicely and bring us up to the next level. Pretty thrilling!

While I was in Milwaukee last weekend I was able to practice with my friend Tracy. We have not practiced together since long before she had her little baby girl Ava in January, so that was quite nice. It is always fun to practice with friends because it is really an opportunity to have the mirror held up for you. Sometimes you do not realize how much something has shifted until you are witnessed by someone else. I made it into the studio for a few hours yesterday afternoon and really had a nice practice. Had a bit of a breakthrough actually. I successfully did viparita chakrasana by myself, which is pretty outstanding considering that I wrote it off many years ago as something that I would never do. I had a little glimmer of the possibility of it at the Advanced Intensive in Tucson, and was finally deep enough in my practice yesterday to revisit that aha. Very cool. Viparita Chakrasana is when after having dropped from Sirsasana 1 to Viparita Dandasana, you spring back up to Headstand. Wow! Needless to say I am a little sore today.

I am not thinking that a community practice is in the stars for this week or weekend as Chris is now convalescing a bit after having his wisdom teeth pulled. But hopefully when we are all back in the swing next week, we will be able to schedule something for the following weekend.

I can’t wait to see everyone!

Not Much

Time to wipe the dust off of the ol’ blog and get to it. However, this is a yoga blog and seeing as I have been on the beach with my family for the past 10 days, there is not much to write. We have been having a swell time. It has been so good to just be outside for the entire day, biking, looking for sea shells, splashing in the waves and playing in the sand. It feels really good. So good in fact that sometimes I feel the urge to seek shade indoors and I have to remind myself that it is still a very indoor time of year at home and that I had really better soak it up. It has been lovely to spend time with my mom and my sister. Chris was here for the weekend and that was really fun. We even went on a date. Whoa…. Maple is an absolute delight down here. Non- stop energy and play. And she is pretty much fearless around the ocean, which is both thrilling and unnerving for her mama. So that is the general update. Not much. There are however a few yoga happenings to stat looking forward to when I get back. There will be one more week of no classes before the spring sessions start up, which I am really excited about. I will be scheduling a few group practices during that week and hopefully over the weekend. (Chris is having his wisdom teeth pulled on Thursday of next week, so depending on how he is feeling there may or may not be a community practice over the weekend- or if anyone wants to offer some child care option for Maple we can go ahead and schedule a time now!) So do stay tuned as I will post dates and times asap. Also, at the end of April, Amy Ippoliti is in Minneapolis for a weekend workshop. This is highly recommended for everyone . It will be a good prep for the weekend with Christina that we are hosting in June. I will be heading up for at least the Friday sessions, and may be even coming back that night, if anyone is interested in tagging along with me. I cannot stay for the entire weekend as I head to Denver a week later to see John Friend. Speaking of Christina, do check out her blog right now as she is n Costa Rica with John at Pura Vida. Doing some very fun yoga and also participating in what sounds like very thrilling and expansive conversation. Everything from expanding the range of the spirals to Kundalini iconography. Yep, pretty cool. That is all for now folks. Love ya.

Winter Wins

We are still in Wisconsin after leaving for the airport at 5am this morning. There was an isolated snow storm right over general mitchel, literally no where else. Literally. A plane actually slipped off the runway. After some initial resistance, we finally headed back to my moms where we are now hunkered down in preparation to do it all over again tomorrow. However, tomorrows flight is direct and we should be at the beach by 1pm. Hooray! Maple is somewhat sceptical about the whole thing. We have been pumping Flordia and the beach for so long, and seeing as we were actually on a plane for over an hour, she is pretty much convinced that gramma and mom have a screw loose and we are not going anywhere. Hopefully she is wrong…

I am very excited to do some fun bike riding and beach walking. After this long indoor season it seems an almost impossible option. Don’t get me wrong, I really do love winter activities, but it reaches the point for me where they have lost there luster and the confined inddor air has done a real number on my immune system. So I really cannot wait to get outside with my girl. Also this year I am much more equipped to practice than usual. Generally, I get into the humidity and am initially debiliated by the transition. All I want to do is long inversions and hip openers. So this year I am coming equipped with blankets and timer. Should be good. It is so nice when the sun is shining brightly to spend some nice deep time within.

Next time I write, we will be at the beach. For real!

Sunday

We had a community practice this morning for the first time in over a month. Jessica and Kathy and myself were the only ones there, but we had a very lovely practice. I think that folks have been a little bit put off since I upped the time from 2 hours to 3 hours. I recognize that this is a long time to do asana for, and that it can be very challenging especially on a weekend to spend that large of a chunk away from our families. So here is my philosophy on why 3 hours trumps 2:

First of all, it often takes me a full hour to even get into the flow of my practice. My body is still getting warm and my heart and mind are still getting into it. By 2 hours I am usually really in the flow and to stop there I miss out on all of the really deep work of hour 3.

Secondly, when I can get in 1 practice of that duration during the week I am inevitably able to go deeper sooner on my other shorter practice days. Because it is hard to get away for a big chunk of time, really the rest of the week I am only practicing for one and a quarter to one and a half hours. I am very fortunate to have a spouse that really supports me in getting away for this larger amount of time on the weekend. But honestly, Chris knows that this means that it is much more fun to be around me the rest of the week and that I will not be practicing for such long stretches during the work week. (And he can leverage that into taking longer bike rides).

All that said, today my body actually had a much different plan than my head, which is always kind of interesting. You always have to honor the energy. Tammy worked on me yesterday before she left and then Jess and I did some very deep groin work. (I know, sounds very fun!). So the work that Tammy did has certainly been actively working in me since then, to really great effect. I just love the depth of opening that structural integration cultivates for me. It seems that everyone that I have spoken with also had a very deep experience with the work. So much so, that we are looking at the calendar to see when we can have her come up again. We will not have quite so many spaces available next time so that her and I can actually get in some more asana with one another, so if you are interested lets get your name on a list soon.

Speaking of names on a list, registration officially begins tomorrow so sign up for your classes. Remember, we need 10 folks for each class to run, so grab a friend and sign up! The schedule will be up on the board on Tuesday. I also have some beautiful new cards arriving this week from my very talented friend Becka Rhodee (She also put together a new ad for the Kickapoo Free Press which really looks awesome).

That is it for now. Maple and Chris and I are off to go watch Giddeon’s last hockey game of the season. And then it is grocery shopping and then tonight I have to do our taxes…. eeeek!

Tranistion Time

Somehow the week passed me by and here we are at Thursday night and this is the first time that I have visited the blog. Hmmmhhh..

It has been a full week. We had our last classes in the old format, so we are now officially on sessions. April 1st, here we come! For those of you who have some more classes that you have paid for, we will adjust your registration payment accordingly. No problem. Some folks have expressed some distress at the slight shifts in time that appear on the new schedule. I really try to accommodate people’s needs, but sometimes they are very conflicting. I am hoping that after some initial adjustment everything will be fine, and even attract some more students. That would be lovely. And if the schedule really doesn’t work, then we will shift it for the next session. No big deal. Life is change and life is expansion and we really cannot help but do both. Yippie!

So Maple and I are off to the beach for 2 weeks. Do not hate me. But with a winter like we have had, it does not seem unreasonable to me that every Wisconsinite should get a free pass to some warm locale for at least a week. Soak up some sun and some much needed vitamin D. I heard a program on NPR the other day that said that those of us living in these northern latitudes are so vitamin D deficient that even after spending a summer outside in the sunshine, our levels are still deficient. Explains a lot really. So I am going to the beach. Don’t hate me. Oh, and if anyone has any great pictures of the tremendous snow that we have had, i would love to see them!

I arrive back on the 23rd and classes do not start up for another week. I will most likely schedule some group practices during that week. I will keep you posted. There is still great yoga to be had in the region though. Jamie Turner Allison is teaching in Madison this weekend at main street yoga. And looking ahead to the end of april, Amy Ipolliti will be hosted by Ali Certain in Minneapolis. We really are quite lucky when it comes down to it. We get to live in this tiny little corner of the world and still have access to some fantastic teachers.

If I get any cute shots of maple in the surf, I may have to post them. Stay tuned.

Lots of Love.