Astanga

I had a great moment today: I glanced at my calendar and realised that I was looking forward to every single item on today’s schedule. I realise that it might seem like such a small thing, but it’s not trivial. I don’t take happiness for granted anymore.

I finished off my yoga week with a good, but unremarkable practice. I dutifully tried to roll each Chakrasana, but had no luck until the third one. And it was so sloppy, I just skipped the last. Better luck next week. Seriously though, how hard can rolling backwards be? I obviously missed out on an important childhood skill. I’ll blame the terrain of my youth: too much ocean, too little terra. I’m a good swimmer but gravity confuses me.

My hair is starting to drive me CRAZY. I kind of suspected this would happen. Now that I’m no longer trying to look cute for anyone, there’s no reason to put this much work into it. Tomorrow, I’m going to visit the Grumpy Russian stylist and ask him to cut it all off. He wasn’t happy with the longer cut so he’ll enjoy this. No more Orangutan Hair! And it will be SO much easier to deal with in the morning.

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As an antidote to the nasty-NY-Yoga-Teacher link I posted earlier this week, check out Larry Sherman. He lost 365 pounds after he started regularly attending a yoga class. He credits his yoga teacher for ‘seeing past the fat man, making him feel accepted and loved. This video made me tear up a little bit. Kudos to the teacher, Lisa Paskel, of The Yoga Shelter.

I love happy-yoga-stories! And this one is a good reminder that all kinds of approaches and methodology can resonate with different people. Larry mentions that sanskrit and chanting (something I do a LOT of in my classes) made him uncomfortable; he felt at ease in Lisa’s class because she taught the pose names in English and played rock music. It takes all kinds!

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Some of you may be hearing from me via Facebook. I’ve decided to start using that network again. I’m on there as my ‘real name’, so I’m hard to find through a search. Get in touch with me via email if you’d like to connect (Gmail - I’m the reluctantashtangi).