-Ness

We are, all of us, works in progress, and sometimes the lessons we learn can feel so urgent that we can't wait to get back out into the world to implement them, and in some cases, even feel compelled to apologize for what we have been before the lesson came to us. I'm going to fight that temptation in this case, but I'll explain to you what I mean.

Being a basically shy girl, and having been groomed to teach in dance studios and yoga schools with very structured classes, I realize I have done a bit of hiding behind the yoga: teaching yoga as a flowing series that keeps me busy on my mat, and keeps me from engaging very deeply at all with the experiences, physical and otherwise, of the people who have gathered for my classes. It was a partial recognition of this fact about myself that inspired this blog in the first place! Writing is a way I can share the philosophy I so love without having to get so emotionally bare in front of a class of people I've only just met. My motivation has always been physically, anatomically sound, but it has cheated the classes I have taught of the thing I love most about yoga in my own practice, and that is just a shame!

In my own practice, and in the classes I take that I most love, there is time to linger, to sit long enough with an asana that it becomes a room to move around in, and lets us be unbothered by what's coming next long enough that the stillness of our bodies can reveal the motion of our minds. There is so much chemistry, and so many subtle shifts of energy going on in a practice... so many nuances of alignment and breath, that talking to students about what all of that is, and how to access those shifts strategically outside of class ought to be my whole purpose for being present in the role of teacher. It's the most precious of the fruit my own study and practice has borne in me, and should be the thing I'm most eager to share with anyone who's gone to the trouble of coming to my class!

Have you ever seen the movie "You, Me and Dupree"? When Owen Wilson's character has his breakthrough moment, it is calling out Matt Dillon's him-ness (his Carl-ness) that turns the story around, the idea being that every person's most powerful asset, and most valuable contribution, is their own passionate expression of who they are, and what they love. It's so YOGIC! Our own expression of the divine in us... the wisdom we glean from our completely unique perspective and study of the world... is really the only thing we have to offer. Everything else is impersonation, or something to hide our most essential selves behind.

Well, no more for this little yogi! I'm too happy to be so wide awake to keep it to myself any longer, even if I have to overcome some residual childhood shyness to share it. So, while I grow into the space this new understanding has opened up around me, I want to thank you all for the love you have shown as students to this point, and to offer myself as a humbled, but wide-open and overflowing guide into the juiciest parts of yoga, both on and off the mat. See you soon!