tuesday

I feel so inspired, totally blissed out! I took what was probably the most beautiful class I've ever been a part of Sunday evening with Danielle Koppel. We chanted, we did some vinyasa and we did some juicy restorative poses as well. Danielle has a voice like an angel and she sang to us throughout the restorative part. As we chanted 'om namah shivaya' over and over at the beginning of class, I felt an overwhelming sense of peace and happiness. The kind of happiness and excitement that makes you want to scream, but the kind of peace that offsets the desire to scream. The walk home was cold and rainy, but I barely even noticed.

Yesterday was another amazing yoga day. I took a 6:30 am class and taught a class at the Murray Scholls 24 at 10:00. It was so last minute that I didn't get a chance to put it on my blog, but I was so happy to see some familiar faces from my 5:45 am class! After that, I took a restorative class at noon (Adult Nap Time), and then a new class at 5:30. We did some flowing to get warm, and then we played around with arm balances. It was so much fun, and finally for the first time I held bakasana with control. Bakasana (crow pose) is essentially the base pose for all other arm balances. Once you can master bakasana, there are so many different places you can go. Arm balances take infinite amounts of strength, something I've lacked for the majority of my life.

I may have talked about this before, but the asana part of yoga isn't something that came completely natural to me. Some people are naturally strong, naturally flexible, naturally balanced. You know how some people just seem to be good at whatever they try physically? That's not me. For pete's sake, I am most certainly not athletic in any sense of the word! So, like many other people, I've built my practice from the ground up. In my Saturday morning class last week, we worked toward astavakrasana (eight angle pose). We did lots of hip openers, hamstring stretches and twists throughout class, and when we were nearing the end of class I showed steps to getting into the pose, and asked that folks stop at their edge. I got a lot of "she's crazy" looks. Well, maybe I am, but I do know from personal experience that if you want something and you work for it, it will be yours. It's not enough to want it, but you've got to work for it as well.

For those of you who practice with me at 24, classes are canceled on Thanksgiving. I will be taking a flow class at YoYoYogi at 9 am and would love for you to join me. I am not sure of the exact rate, I think a drop in class is $14, but I also think this may be a donation based class. Not sure, but either way I think you should come roll your mat out next to mine! :)

Namaste,
Tami