Heart Full

There’s almost nothing I look forward to more, than planning a vacation. I consider it another kind of yoga. Seriously, at its best it’s an extended svasana (corpse pose), my personal mini daily vacation.

That this experience was shared amongst 4 of my closest friends made this experience that much more memorable. We couldn’t have predicted how well the vacation went. I had been to Miami before, and as a self proclaimed beach snob, I forewarned my friends (also beach snobs) that south beach was “nothing to write home about”, but the atmosphere was party-ish and fun. Besides, as long as it was sunny, it would be fine.

As it turns out, I was wrong in the best way possible. The beach is jaw dropping. More so believe it or not than the many beautiful bikini-clad girls. We had to walk at least a few hundred yards of clear blue water, and soft sand to get to water deep enough to wade in, it was exhilarating.
(more…)

Once the word gets out that you practice yoga, and that you practice regularly, people approach you with a myriad of reactions and questions. I tell people that I practice yoga, but I try to build a balanced practice, and make a concerted effort to not just practice asanas.  To my surprise, I’ve found that most people react negatively to that. One of my closest friends Deb who I’ve been going to some yoga classes recently, remarked she didn’t  want to do any meditation, instead she emphasized, “I like this kind of yoga” — referring to the class we had just done at Laughing Lotus, a class marked by it’s refreshing sequencing, and creativity, but also by it’s vigorous Vinayas Flow (level 2/3). And I wondered how many other yogis felt the same way as my friend, not really interested in exploring the subtle practices, more into the workout.

Interestingly enough, I ran into several others later that week. People who believed that yoga was pretty much only asanas, or a kind of aerobics. Some were yoga practitioners, many were people who just knew of yoga from a friend, or even a friend of a friend. It was an enlightening realization, though not entirely surprising. My vision of yoga until my first class was what I saw on Sesame Street, and the strange contortionists from India. I feel badly now, of my gross misconceptions, but I also feel like there should be a media of some kind that shows yoga’s wide spectrum of practices. After all, isn’t it more important to practice yoga off-the-mat? Frankly, not too many people care about how I do my downdog, they do notice how I treat them, and they’ll notice even more if suddenly take my broomstick out of its’ semi-retirement, and it is itching to get back to work.
(more…)

After talking about it for some time, I’ve decided to begin teaching again. Start off slowly with privates, and see where things go. While I put together the essentials of the flyer, Josh polished it off. He had experience as a private chess tutor for many years, and he vouches that the flyer thing works. It was nice to have his expertise and support. Not too many flyers out today, but hopefully a few more of these tomorrow.

I’m excited, looking forward to connecting with other yogis, and making the special teacher-student connection.

I was ecstatic that the sun came out today, and that I was able to take my sun salutations where it belonged, outside. I did an extra sun salutation just to express my gratitude.  Practicing in the Park, is something  I’ve added to my repertoire this summer. As the economy slackened, and my husband went back to school,  we found our that discretionary budget drastically diminished. Suddenly, I was back to making “cheap” lists, looking at coupons and sales. At first, I didn’t really change my habits — I just changed where I did it. So for example, I would still get facials, but maybe the spas weren’t anything to write home about. I still shopped, but only during sales. I still went out with friends, but made better use of happy hour.

But this wasn’t enough. We had to take a long hard look at our balance sheet, and actively remove the “nice to haves”. Then after we removed those, we had to reduce or stop other habits that had alternatives. One of things that I finally gave up, was going to a yoga studio 3 – 4 times a week. It was hard, because I felt that my practice and it’s development hinged on my ability to get to a studio.  I also felt that regular practice would help me integrate into another community, something I missed since leaving, New York Yoga. But the numbers were against me. My yoga practice was costing us more than we could afford between my going to studios 3-4x a week, while continuing to pay my neglected Equinox membership, an arrangement I had rushed into and now can’tt get out of until August.
(more…)