I love epic yoga days! I started today on the right foot by practicing Ashtanga yoga at 6:30am. Since I started teaching yoga last year I have been trying to find a balance between teaching and keeping up with my own personal practice. Of course I jumped right in over my head almost immediately after teaching my first classes. By year end I was teaching 5 days a week, working full time, and had totally exhausted myself. I felt like my classes were stagnant and really, how could I give to my students what I couldn’t give to myself? (I think mothers or parents everywhere can relate to that setiment.) So this year I cut my teaching schedule back a bit and have been trying to practice at least 1 day a week with one of the amazing teachers I am blessed to have in my community on top of any other teaching or practicing at home. Always searching for the ever elusive balance. Be it between teaching and practicing yoga, being social or spending time alone, giving and receiving love, working hard or playing harder.
I am currently participating in a beginning Ashtanga yoga workshop at Yoga Centre here in San Luis Obispo, CA. Ashtanga yoga is a system of yoga transmitted to the modern world by Sri K. Pattabhi Jois who only recently passed away. This method of yoga is what Vinyasa yoga originated from and involves synchronizing the breath with a progressive series of yoga postures—a process producing intense internal heat and a profuse, purifying sweat that detoxifies muscles and organs. The result is improved circulation, a light and strong body, and a calm mind. It is a set sequence of postures and while practicing you focus on your breath and also focus your vision on a fixed point in each pose. It is a great sequence to practice and I am thoroughly enjoying the class. Although I do meditate every morning, I have never been able to wake up super early to get my asana practice in. I really enjoyed it today though and maybe this class will convince me to get out of my cozy bed earlier. I mean really, what would be so bad about it? So I wake up earlier, which would make me sleepy earlier… What difference does it make in my evenings? Not much. The last few hours of my day are pretty relaxed anyway. Here’s to hoping.
It felt amazing to get the stiffness of sleep out with my dependable lover and friend, my yoga mat. I found my mind was clearer and the class I taught today was better for it. A lot of people chatted with me after class today telling me how much they loved the class, the timing of it, and the postures I chose to do. I felt so warmed up that my demonstration of the poses was better and I felt like I could walk around more and pay more attention to the students. And more importantly, just be my own goofy self while talking a bunch of people through some yoga poses.
I taught a pretty full class today with a wide range of yogis with different levels of experience, from young to old, beginners to experienced practitioners. It’s pretty awesome when someone comes to try yoga for the first time. It was nice to see some yogis take less advanced versions of the poses I was teaching. It is funny how we all do the most advanced version we can get ourselves into, even if our form flies out the door and we start breathing like we’re running from monsters. Even if this is the first time we’ve set foot in a yoga class. The beginner’s I get to teach are truly amazing though. I remember how odd it is to move your body into these funny shapes known as yoga poses if you’ve never done it before. The first time you get into warrior your legs are like…”um no, we don’t do that. wtf”. I am totally inspired by every beginner I get to teach. It is so brave and challenging and just showing up and trying for the entire class is such an accomplishment. I am going to try to make a point to compliment and congratulate the beginner’s in my classes more often. But I also want to remind myself and beginners everywhere that we have to remember to not listen to the negative nancy in our heads and stop the madness of comparing ourselves to other people in yoga class or elsewhere in life where it’s irrelevant. We will probably never know the history of our neighbor and how they got where they are. We have to be patient with our own paths and journeys. If you can just show up every day and meet the challenges head first, today on the yoga mat, tomorrow at work, this weekend at home…well that makes us all roxtar’s in our own regard. It’s all about keeping ourselves open to what is being offered to us in each present moment and truly embracing it, be it a yoga pose, a correction or adjustment in class, painful advice, challenges, opportunities for change, growth, renewal. Just because someone next to you has a stronger practice, doesn’t mean you didn’t “do well” in class. Hey. Guess what? There will always be someone stronger, smarter, whatever. Did you enjoy it? Do you feel like you challenged yourself in a healthy way? I think that’s all that really matters.
