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.