Ashtanga

As fall comes in to full bloom I've been digging into my practice more deeply. After seeing Mark Robberds last month I just spent the weekend with Kino MacGregor in Indianapolis, and I must say it was the best weekend I've spent with her. It made me want to be with her and her husband in India for their two week retreat in January, so I'm looking into that...

A few of my students went as well and we had a great time, or rather I can only speak for myself, I had a good time. Kino was more clear and happy and inspiring that ever before and the group who went were full of great conversations and laughter, so it was a much needed weekend full of hard work (especially shoulders) and fun.

I just felt more connected to her this time and that we're building a bond as teacher and student, it feels good to have someone that knows so much and feels the practice in a very similar way to the way that I do, but then I've had that with a lot teachers this year.

This year has been the year of study for me, starting with the Ashtanga Confluence back in February with my first teacher Nancy Gilgoff, whom it was great to see. Of course there were other teachers there as well, but it was so good to bond with her again. Then Eddie Stern at the same event, who helped me with Marichasana D and the beginning of the healing of my sacrum which was out so intensely then. Then Kino in June in Chicago, which was great because I'd been to Moksha before and was getting to know the people there. Then back to Chicago in September for 10 days to see Abraham and spend 6 days practicing with Mark, which was just awesome, only to see Kino again this past weekend with her best message ever. I may even go to Springfield, IL in November to see Jodi Blumstein for an Ashtanga weekend. Great year for being a student!

This practice is hitting so many of my students so strongly right now, and shifting me yet again, that I just get more and more excited to do it, and to dig into some more of the pranayama as well. I got David Garrigues dvd and book about the Ashtanga pranayama practice, which I've been doing since I learned third series back in 200 or 4, maybe 5? But its broken down with exercises to feel the apana and prana vayus and talks, love it, so as it gets colder I'll be inside digging into this more deeply this winter as I prepare to go to India and if India doesn't happen until next fall, then I'll be digging into some more and more workshops, they are awesome lately!

So if you're reading this, come to my Ashtanga class or something soon, while the inspiration lasts!

Hello, I'm introspective, how are you?

Not sure why I haven't written in a while, it's been a busy time so maybe that's it. I just haven't had the space to become more introspective and allow the integration of the work I've been doing on myself.

Well, not so this day. I've had almost the whole day to myself and it's getting colder finally and the leaves are starting to fall, so let the introspection begin! lol

I've been noticing this week that I've gotten more detail oriented in my classes, not so much as far as alignment goes but as far as the breath and the movements and how they coincide have been going, and working more individually with each person even though we've been in a room full of people.

I'm having deeper experiences and am wanting others to have them too, not just to feel bad when all the emotions come up or to get more sore, but to dig in and get to know themselves better. Really do the work. I've gotten some the best compliments of my teaching this week from some sources I wasn't expecting them from too, one of them even mentioning I'm the only teacher he's ever gone to who tells you to breath into your back while you slide your pubic bone back between your inner spiraled thighs and root down both sit bones at the same time and that detail is what he loves about my classes.

I love that, because I really am just trying to put into words the feelings and deepest expressions of the practice that I have come up for me, and that's just on the physical level, not the emotional or psychic level, but I do sometimes cue those things as well! lol

It's a time of year that all of us seem to be padding our caves and starting to settle in a bit more and prepare for a long winters nap, although we don't technically do that. But the energy of that happens anyway. We start to express ourselves differently, we start to feel everything deeper, become more touchy and almost less expressive because we're so tucked into ourselves.

It's a time for me that I feel I can almost touch my inner being, not just get clues here and there of how to run my day or which turn to take, but with each emotion that comes up we have a chance to notice what we're thinking as it arises and notice what direction we should take our thoughts in order to get back in alignment with our inner being or not. Sometimes we just like to wallow in our icky feelings and hey, that's just part of being human, but these days I try to catch that and turn a corner before manifestations start happening! If we wait until they actually happen they are a lot harder to deal with than if we catch them at the emotional level.

So my work this fall and winter is to keep on my toes in observing my emotions so that I can tell if I'm heading in the right direction in life or if I'm about to trip myself up bigtime. My yoga practice has been strong lately and in the sensitivity that I create within myself from my practice I should be able to maintain.

So maybe I'm about to start cuing in my classes to notice how you feel while you're doing a certain move, or a certain breath? Sound good? Then you can start to gain that level of sensitivity and use it for you growth and expansion too!

All of this depth in my practice started after that week studying Ashtanga with Mark in Chicago and in just over a week I'll be seeing Kino again in Indianapolis, so we'll see how I'm affected by her teachings that weekend. Each time I've gone to study this year, which has been a lot for me I've gotten deeper and deeper and deeper into the knowing that this practice is for me, for the entirety of my life and the way it's affected my teaching has gotten my students deeper and deeper as well, so they tell me, and that's another reason this is for me. To help me expand and grow and the same for them.

Full moon this Friday AND a lunar eclipse this Friday, both adding to all this process of going in I've been writing about, come see me, we'll help each other stay on top of things, not get squashed under them!