No Class Wednesday....

I am really sorry gang, but I am fighting off a sinus infection and it is really taking all I got. I am bummed to miss class tomorrow as it is our last scheduled class for quite some time. I hope to be in to practice on Thursday and Sunday mornings, but these will not be led practices as I can no longer subject everyone to my funny variation of yoga. (Thank you Hallie for doing the pre-natal yoga sequence with me again!)

Please do check back in here often as I will have all different sorts of news to report on. Such as, the arrival of the newest Newlin! And also when Sunday practices will start back up again (sometime in March?), and when the Friday morning class will begin (beginning of April?). On that note, it is looking like the later time meets people's fancy a bit more. That would be 9:30-11:15am.

I am also working out the details to the workshop that we are hosting with Christina Sell this summer. I will put that information up as I have it.

Anyhow, thanks everyone for being great and for being so patient with a near delirious pregnant yogi.

Sunday

It was just Kristina and I at practice this morning, so I decided to do Geeta Iyengar's pre-natal sequence from her book "Yoga: a Gem for Women". This is all that I really did for my entire 3rd trimester with Maple, but I had only done it once this pregnancy. It was great. Utterly perfect. We omitted the inversions as those are just out for me at this point (except for pinca mayurasana which still feels so good to my upper back). It was the first time in about a month that practicing felt really perfect. The Iyengars are such masters at sequencing, you can really feel alchemy happening as the practice unfolds.

This is what we did. I may be forgetting something because I do not have it in front of me...

AMV
AMS x3
Uttanasana x3
Trikonasana x2
Parsvakonasna x2
Virabadrasana 1
Vira 2
Parsvattonasana
Ardha Chandrasana
Parsvattonasana
Ardha Chandrasana
Prasaritta Padotanasana x2
AMS
Setu Bandha
Eka Pada Setu Bandha (back and forth- felt great on my sacrum!)
Janu Sirsasana x3
Baddha Konasana x2
Supta Baddha Konasana
Uppavista Konasana x2
Bhardvajasana x3
Virasana cycle
Supta Virasana
Padmasana
Savasana

at this point I was really ready for some pranayama but my nose is still unbelievably stuffed from my cold. But I am thinking that I will be focusing much more on pranayama and meditation now. At any rate, it was great. I remembered why I loved that sequence so much. (note: the repetitions are mine and are note stated in the book. We also added Setu bandha).

I have decided that this is going to officially be the last week of classes. They are just taking it out of me. I may start using the time a bit more for my own practice, or I may just stay home and knit or sleep. If you are interested in coming in to do your own practice when I am in the studio, that is great. I will ask for a small donation for the use of the space. I have plenty of sequences available, and also folks might be interested in doing some of the therapy sequences. (Jessica has found a new appreciation for L-pose.)

I will keep updating this, so check back often.

addendum

I would love if anyone who is planning on coming to practice tomorrow could come with at least 2 and as many as 5 poses that they would like to do. This not only would be fun, but would be a great big help to me as well. Then you do not all have to being pre-natal yoga for the duration. Hope to see you then.

on and on...

I am slowly slipping off of the planet. Think: lots of knitting, lots of reading. Its pretty nice. I do not have much of a drive to leave my house. (However, all of my compulsive scheming goes on and on.) I am laying low. 36 weeks. And they say no 2 pregnancies are the same. This is a case in point. I was so much more active with Maple at this point. I was practicing still daily, walking and swimming several times a week. Now.... nothing. Minimal yoga and that is really it. And when I say minimal, I mean minimal. I did get the cold that Maple had, but really that just gave me an excuse. Alas.

So teaching is really wearing me out, and I keep saying that I will teach just one more week of class, but then I think about just sitting around and waiting for a baby and that doesn't sound very good at all. So as of right now, I really do not know. We will have class this next week. And then I will probably just decide what to do from there.

I am going to be at the studio tomorrow from 9-11. I am not sure what this will mean. My intention is to do some asana, but it may be utterly basic so I am not ruling out talking anyone who shows up through a sequence. We shall see.

Lots of love. The outlook for next week is up on the right.

yes! class!

Yes we will be having class tomorrow! Hoorah! Gramma is going to stick around long enough for class if I can promise to end on time and get home asap. Hard contract but I am going for it! We really have to have class after such a world changing day today anyhow. I don't know about you but I am pretty filled up with love.

Whoops!

I may have actually taught one of the worst classes of my life last night. Here's a tip: at 8 months pregnant, showing up for a 6pm class without having eaten is very ill advised. At any rate, class happened, and I hope that those of you that were there benefited in some way. I promise to be better fed from now on. By the end of class, I was so blown out that I really was functioning at a very low level. Fortunately, Hallie completely saved my life and invited me to swing by her house on my way home so that she could run out a give me several slices of pizza that her hubby had made. Yummy! And really probably saved me from a much larger break down. The fact that I never cried at any point in time is really quite impressive.

So that is my shameful confession. I had a great sequence planned but I got so wrapped up in the moment and we spent an inordinate amount of time practicing bunny hopping forward from down dog to uttanasana. It was really great fun and it generates such a sense of playfulness and childlike abandon. I had fun at any rate and was really living vicariously through everyone.

I am also very grateful for everyone's adaptability with the uncertainty of the schedule. It is my preference to be much more planned out and organized when it comes to the projected schedule, so it is nice to see everybody being so open to the unknown with me. In fact, it may happen that we do not have class tomorrow morning as Maple is quite ill and might not be going to the kinderhaus in the morning. If this is the case, I need to be with her and do some good mothering. I will most likely not decide until late tonight, early tomorrow. I apologize in advance for any confusion or inconvenience in advance. It is my intention to be there, but I shall have to see.

That is all for now. Carry on.

Sunday Practice

We had a very nice practice today. A great sequence, I thought, with a lot of standing poses and working toward lotus with great success. I appear to have left the sequence at the studio so if you are interested in it, let me know and I will make a point to post it this week. I felt very good, which is probably why practice went on for over 3 hours. It was good and I really feel like these days that I need to take what I can get. I do not have much more in me I think.

One thing that we do need to dress is the increased tardiness that we are experiencing. I am equally to blame as I am often arriving just a moment before the class start time. But also we are really pushing the boundary on how late is too late to show up for class. In the past I have been very allowing as I really want everyone to be able to come to class. I have really taken into consideration everyone's personal circumstance and been OK with just about whatever. However, I think that now it is appropriate to tighten things back up a bit and now if you are going to be more than 15 minutes late, you have missed class. I have a plan for the time that we have together and I want to make the most of it. I promise from now on to begin by 5 after at the latest. I know that it can be hard to get everything together to make it on time, but the extra effort is important and we all benefit from it.

There was some discussion about when class will come back after our baby arrives. Because we are hosting Christina Sell in June, I really feel that it is important to start class up again by the beginning of April. Of course, everything is pretty unknown right now as I really have no clue what our new little person will be like. Sunday Practice will come back first, sometime in March I would guess. And then Friday morning is going to be the best day for us to have a class. I mentioned this last week in class, but we are looking at either early 6:30-8:00 or 8:15am or 9:30-11:15am. On either side of morning assembly for those of you who have children at Pleasant Ridge. Let me know your preference. The folks this morning were feeling the later time slot.

Here are some great pictures from the morning. Jessica, Kristina, Kae and Kerri. Good fun. See you tomorrow at 6pm.

The new update

Alright, so this was in many ways a very weird week. Beside the fact that it has been in the negative digits all week (we are talking highs in the negative digits), I have not practiced at all or done much of anything else for that matter. Despite feeling relatively rested and renewed after my week in the sun and 3 weeks with my little family, I pretty much got home and got the wind totally knocked out of me. I was doing OK until about Wednesday morning(and by OK I mean not doing anything other than showing up to teach 2 classes and then proceeding to put my legs up immediately following), and then I just went down. My back began to really ache and I started to have pretty regular contractions, not the major ones but definitely ones that commanded my attention. So Wednesday and Thursday were pretty much a wash in trying to get that under control, which thank to my amazing husband, midwife, and a whole arsenal of incredible herbs, I have. I am feeling very well today, like going for a walk (treadmill, I'm afraid...) and doing a light practice (think dog, uttanasana, supta virasana, and baddha konasana) might be on the radar.

So to anybody who showed up yesterday- even though I seriously doubt that anybody did with the temperature hitting a high of 10 below- I am very sorry that I was not able to make the space available yesterday for practice. I hope to have the practice this Sunday, and if things keep looking up the way that they are, we will.

Needless to say, we had a very small group on Wednesday morning but a really great class. We worked on taking the arm bones back evenly (inner deltoid, bottom tip of the shoulder blade, and outer elbow) and it went smashingly well. Everyone in class made some serious gains toward understanding the actions even more clearly and then really applying them consistently.

Because my practice is leaning very exclusively toward prenatal, I am brainstorming some ideas for folks who still want to be coming to the practice and need guidance in what to work on. One thought is that people could work off of some therapeutics sequences that I have that might be interesting to anyone working with a tweak. Just an idea. Let me know what you think. This Sunday will be led, however. Just very slowly. Think "Slow Yoga" much like "Slow Food"....

Desiree Rumbaugh is teaching this next weekend in Minneapolis which should be great fun. A whole big group from Viroqua rallied last January to make the trip up there for a great weekend of yoga. I am very sad to not go this year. I love Desiree and Ali Certain (Anusara Minneapolis) and would love to converge. Especially with a fantastic V-town showing. Oh well. I think that Des will be somewhere in the region later this spring and that might be a possibility. Anyhow, it is very cool to think that that was one year ago and to reflect on where everyone was in their practice then and where they are now. Much progress has been made.

That is all for now. The schedule for the next week is up. Time for a snack.

Going going going....

This is amazing news! The furnace is actually running all the time in the Landmark this winter. For real! So be ready for hot! Which to me is such a vast improvement over freezing that I really am quite thrilled. Here's to it.

I just read Christina Sell's post and it was really fabulous. Per usual. It was definitely geared toward teachers and teacher trainees but I think that in general it is great information for all. So zip on over and read it. Then tell me what you think. In the meantime, as I have been thinking about all of the poses that I want to work on in my own practice this year and also where I want to go with classes and working toward some more advanced poses publicly, here is the idea: '"What actions are necessary to achieve that pose?" What does a student need to be able to be proficient at so that when they are at their edge they can access something familiar that will make the pose move more into possibility?' (I am telling you, read the post)

This is a great question not only because of what it is asking but also because of all of the other questions that it is answering as well. Such as giving real meaning and clarity to what we are working on from the very first class and in every subsequent class. Everything exists in relationship to everything else, and this is no less true when it comes to asana. For example, to be aware of the possibility of where you are headed when you root your thigh back and then to practice that continuously in a variety of poses. Then grow with the action so much so that when you are asked to apply that and maintain it as you apply additional actions and move into something deeper. Something that is asking you a whole lot more not just physically but psychologically as well (think leg behind the head or lotus with you pelvis off the ground!). This is Yoga! Can you hold in the space of your awareness and your whole practice all of your knowledge and experience?

This becomes even more important to ask ourselves when we start to notice little glitches showing up. Such as a tweak or a pinch that we do not address and eventually becomes a full blown issue preventing us from not only working into the advanced postures but also in all of the "basic" poses that it wasn't really bugging us in before so much.

Hmmhhh. I often say that there is a lot a stake and it really is not just an idle threat. Not at all. I want students to really get the method because when you do truly a whole world has opened up for you. And inevitably, if you skip a step or a piece is missing, there is going to come a point where you have to get off the bus. (You must work your inner thighs enough to maintain deep groins and space across your sacrum before you scoop your tailbone or externally rotate your femur head!)

This is a little bit of a rant but I feel quite passionate about it. Read Christina's post.

OK. So class tomorrow. It is supposed to be quite cold tomorrow, but warm in the studio, Hooray! I am wanting to work specifically with moving the head of the armbones back in a variety of postures (big surprise) and move toward some backbends. Warm up our hearts so to speak. Because it is January 13th and there is a lot of winter ahead of us. And we love where we live and we live here for a reason (or many)!

Hope to see you tomorrow!

Monday

It is snowing snowing snowing. Seems more toward the 4" end of the spectrum. Yes there will be class tonight and hopefully I too will make it in to practice beforehand. I think that I have been convalescing for long enough and I could probably do some asana.

I am feeling very happy and very sleepy and very pregnant. I know that Maple was a very active baby, but I think that this one is even more active. (What does this mean?!!) Rut ro.

I think that tonight we will work toward headstand and maybe some variations. I really want to focus on the feet and the continuity of Tadasana foot all the way up and into inversions. So we shall see. I am looking forward to seeing everyone again and to talking about and practicing yoga. Love it.

Sunny Florida

Not much to report on the yoga front. The beach, sun, and surf are great and unbelievably restorative. I have never been in warm weather this pregnant before and I have to say it is pretty great. (The flight here, not so great) It has been wonderful to be with my family, at the end of the week it will have been 3 straight weeks for Maple, Chris and I all together with no nights away. Chris is really helping work on some sleep issues with Maple which is really grand as my due date is less than 7 weeks away... I really felt like I went through a major threshold during the yoga spree as far as feeling hugely pregnant. I feel really pregnant now. Really pregnant. So, other than playing at the beach I have just been taking it slow and doing a ton of knitting. Love it!

The schedule is up for next week. No changes yet. My main focus when I get back will be to get promotional information going for Christina Sell's workshop in June. Other than that, I will be knitting and getting seeds together for the spring. (I am aiming for a whole new starts system which I am very excited about).

I have some great pictures which I will put up when I get home. I forgot my cord for my camera...

Maple turns 3 on Friday. My, my, my.

New Years Day, really.

I just have to say, this is a great community. We had a lovely practice today, mellow and sweet in the company of one another. Kristina, Anne, Hallie, Kae, and myself. I am not exactly sure what we did, but it was great! I am feeling very pregnant suddenly and quite a few poses are now throwing themselves into the asana heap, not to be touched again until I am post-partum. It is kind of awesome in a way. Just letting it go and surrendering to the temporal nature of everything.

Which is part of what the New Year is about in a way. Sure, there is the whole aspect of being resolute about your intentions, and I am all in favor of that for sure. But there is this whole other side of returning once again to the beginning of a cycle and acknowledging the ways in which you are at once back where you have been before and yet deeply transformed from how you were 5 years ago, or even last year for goodness sake! It is exhilarating to have an new opportunity for beginnings and there can be a ton of grief wrapped up in it as well.

I don't know. I have really been feeling the bitter sweet quality of the day all day today.

It was great to see folks today and share the love of yoga with them. I can't even begin to express how much that means to me. I also am forever indebted to how much life advice I always receive. For example: How was I to know until Kristina informed me that indeed a passport and birth certificate will not suffice for air travel. I must have a valid driver license. So it looks like I am swinging through the Richland Center DMV on our way to Milwaukee tomorrow. Because, yes its true, we are headed to the beach for a week. You may have noticed from the yoga spree photos that the folks here in Wisconsin are looking awfully pale. Matching the walls (light blue), and the snow (well, um, white). So we are out of here for a bit. And then when we return it will just be time to hunker down and get ready for baby. Which for us means a ton of home fix it projects and lots of knitting (I have realized that this is my version of nesting, its OK really). And Kinderhaus for Maple. Hopefully Chris and Maple will do lots of ice skating and skiing. While I knit. Or sleep. Or get Kae to make chocolate eclairs for me ("no, its not a long john"). Wow, I am really rambling now.

The big news is that it doesn't look like John Friend is making the swing through Chicago next summer. I was pretty sad about this until I realized that it totally opens us up to host Christina Sell again next June. She will come back for the same weekend that she was here last year. June 19-21. The summer solstice. It is going to be great! let me know soon if you are interested. We will have a minimum that we need this year to get the workshop to fly. I am really looking forward to it. Nothing better really. Summer. Farmers market. Swimming. World class yoga instruction that you can walk to in your tiny town (Or the amazing progressive rural community that you are visiting for a world class yoga weekend getaway!).

That's all for now. I will be posting on my trip, so if you need a little reminder that the sun is still shining somewhere.... come visit.
Love.