So last week was my first week of teaching Mysore style Ashtanga in the early morning and getting up very, very early to practice before teaching. It went pretty well. I love my core group of students and most of them came daily, some it was there first time working with a teacher daily (most of them have strong home practices) and it's proving to be transformational for all of us. Myself included, as I figured getting up so very early would.
There have also been two days this week and it's still going strong, but not only that, I started a 5 week Intro to Ashanga series on Wednesday evenings that has 13 folks in it, which is also pretty good. They are strong and seem to be into it to, which is all I can hope for. So great teaching people who are interested in what you're sharing. Then I also began a chanting class on Sunday afternoons, which I love. There were only a couple attendees but we went or it and it was great.
I finally feel like I did back when I was just in the first few years of my practice and had started teaching a couple people in Collinsville at my friends dance supply store, and then that grew, and we were inadvertently practicing Mysore style because as a new person would come in I would work with them and let the others practice what I'd already taught them and then help them when they needed it. Then I go to Maui to study with Guruji and Nancy Gilgoff and discover that this is the way this system is actually taught traditionally, hilarious to me to know I was so in tune with this stuff without even knowing it!
On a slightly sad note, but all things move and shift, my friend just closed that store this weekend. I went and had lunch with her one more time over there. She's 69 and is still practicing daily and is ready to retire finally, so an end of an era. I taught there from 2001 through early 2008.
Back then everything felt fresh and new, Guruji had told me to practice in the early morning and everything would change in my life and it had, I was teaching 3-4 nights a week to a good group who were hungry for what I had to share and I was getting other teaching gigs in St. Louis. Everything felt possible and like I was on the right path, well, I'm there again. I was so hugnry for everything that I would get online and look up Ashtanga stuff all day and order books about it by diferent people and just look at peoples websites all the time. Well, I'm studying and digging in deep again, this time a little differently, reading, studying some aspects of Hinduism, rekindling my knowledge of Sanskrit and stuff like that.
So to come back around to a place I've already been is interesting, but this time it feels so different, even though it's kind of the same. It feels good to feel good and to feel like you're doing what you are lined up to do. Is that what they call dharma? Maybe so, maybe I knew what my dharma was all along and just didn't know it. I knew it was to teach and as I teach I've always felt good, but teaching this system back in the early 2000's through 2007 was my happiest time and now that I'm back to it, it feels like it's leading into another happy time, which is just fine with me. Sometimes we need to take a detour away from that to figure out what we already knew and with fresh eyes see that we knew all along where we belonged.
It feels good to be back and the Tower Grove Park class also is starting on April 11th this year so that will be back too, all good things are coming my way. Wait a minute, they are here!
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