Yep, I’m getting loud in my home practice. First time I’ve lived in a townhouse, especially an end unit, which means I have no fear of disturbing the neighbors. Apartments are always so constricting.
I get to whimper, yell, brahmeri & purr at will. It’s awesome. While staying in the pose, mind you.
Some Forrest classes can be noisy. Forrest classes at Back Bay Yoga especially. Release through sound can really be fun — try it!
Tell your neighbors I said so. 
Okay, last two of the Forrest Yoga Mentorship Program conference call questions from this past weekend.
4) Are you making a conscious choice to feed your heart in your life and while you teach?
Best thing I do to feed my heart is to take the time each day to practice. Beloved Husband can tell on those days I have given my mat time low or no priority. Like, during the moving in process… he pointed out quite firmly that, for everyone’s sake, I really needed to get my a$$ back onto the mat. 
Best thing I can do to feed my heart when I teach is to breathe. I’ve taught without breathing & it is just awful. Get lightheaded, can’t focus, feel panicked & stage fright-y & it is just Bad Bad Bad for everyone.
5) Sometimes, having a connection to your heart just isn’t in the cards for the day. Do you criticize and batter yourself then?
Yeah, that’s a tricky one too. Somedays, that whole being connected to feeling & heart & frankly being in my own skin is damn hard or impossible. it’s funny how we can end up being horrid to ourselves over not being in feeling, which is a sure-fire way to stay out of it, because who wants to live with that kind of crap?
As Heidi reminded us, best thing to do then is teach from where you are. Live from where you are. That can in fact become the theme of your practice or class — working with anxiety, or pain, or numbness. Being disconnected is a part of human experience & part of one’s process.
Off to a day out in the Florida sunshine!! Yeah, it’s tough to be me…
Seriously. Another entry into best studios I’ve been to. Pictures once I land at home & can sort it out.
It’s a basement studio just outside the main metro Charlotte area. Frequently underground spaces are dank & dark but not this one! Warm, colorful, decorated with homemade art, painted walls & filled with cozy little nooks just right for sitting & having tea with a yogi friend.
The front desk peep was charming, informative, chatty — he danced in the Boston Ballet & Suzanne Farrell’s company! Got checked in easily (first class $10) & the changing/showering/storing facilities were as plush & welldone as the rest of the studio. Nice lockers, lots of organic products for use freshening up.
Classroom itself is a large space with colored walls, prayer flags & a curtain over a mirror on one wall. Props stored neatly out of the way. Used a wall for a few happy handstands before class.
Johnna taught class & she was 99% perfect. Really really really. Introduced herself to all students before class & took injuries. Spoke with humor, grace, education & verve (“Breathe, ya’ll!!!”)
It was a Basics class on backbends, run like a little mini-workshop for the price of a regular class. Lots of open Q&A and audience involvement. I thought her sequencing was pretty intelligent. Worked slowly through suns but unfortunately included Up Dog right away. I’d go with building the backbends in the suns from Boat/Locust through Low Cobra, Cobra then Up Dog. It’s just too much to do UD right away, especially with beginners/tweaky.
But the work in Warrior I was intelligent & psoas-smart. Then lots of repeats in Boat/Locust, Bow/Half Bow before Bridge, Wheel, Wheel at the Wall with Blocks.
She hit all the high points I like for teaching backbending — opening psoas, as mentioned, lifting up out of pelvis, bending in thoracic spine rather than lumbar, opening shoulders, keeping low back long & belly pulled in, tuck tailbone, inner spiral legs, use legs strongly.
Then after a happy journey into repeated wheels, including some nice strength-building held variations of head to 1 inch/2 inch/3 inch lifts, things went off track.
The class ran out of time. Happens. She was doing two hours work in an hour. We went directly from wheels into lying in Legs Up the Wall (Viparita Karani) for Savasana.
Now, if you have only one pose to unwind after backbends, VK is a good choice. Probably the best. But I was sad that we didn’t get a nice unwind, at least partly just cuz I wanted to know what Super Johnna did!
Back to Yoga One for an am class before hitting the road again. Tonight, Savannah!
The house is packed up, in a truck & heading towards Florida.
So am I!
The first day or so on the road I was in a fatigued blur. Feel like I finally caught up with myself & started to settle into the transition yesterday when I hit Reston, VA. It’s nice that I used to live near here a move or so ago & it’s familiar. Staying at a four-star hotel doesn’t hurt either. (Priceline bidding rocks!)
For 72 hours, my yoga consisted of lying with my feet up whatever wall was available for 20-30 minutes when the world got to be too much. : )
Today, I get to go to class at Down Dog Yoga (www.downdogyoga.com) in Herndon before hitting the road!! I used to do classes at Down Dog Yoga’s branch in Georgetown all the time, and did a workshop with Ana at the Herndon location last spring. It’s a great studio — very professionally run, which is something I really appreciate as both a student & a teacher.
Yoga weather report later today or tomorrow!
The packers come today. I’m hitting the 0630 class before they arrive to help me stay sane, feet on the ground!
A week or so ago we did an exercise that really brought home to me the effect of active feet on the rest of the body. It’s quite a simple & elegant exercise that I’d like to pass on to you in my own (Forrest language.
Lie on your back with the soles of the feet together, knees bent & open to the side. (Supta Baddha Konasana, or Reclined Bound Angle Pose.) Let the feet be relaxed & soft. Notice what that feels like through the legs & back especially.
Now activate the feet, pressing the balls & heels together & flexing/flaring the toes.
See what that simple action changes in the body. Go back & forth a few times. Passive feet. Active feet. What is the ripple effect through the body of waking up the feet?
Take active feet off the mat & into the day — see how that changes the way you walk through the world.
There is a new blogger sending thoughts into the world these days. My friend Tara is working on the 21-5-800 project (5 days a week, 800 words, 21 days) and I really love her writing.
http://tarainlimbo.blogspot.com/
In other blogger world connections, I have named my little trouble tweaky spots in emulation of Kai over at Reluctant Ashtangi and her gremlin Nitara. (http://reluctantashtangi.blogspot.com/) These aren’t injuries (Ganesha willing but just places I watch & work on during practice alot. The right shoulder tendency is Frank, low back is Ethel, left hip flexor is Murray. Moving lower, my knees are Lion & Tiger & the left ankle is Bear. (Lions & Tigers & Bears, oh MY!
This is making my relationship with these areas much kinder, lighter & more nurturing rather than just me getting p’oed at what I have seen as the weak links in my physical chain. Naw. Turns out Fred, Ethel, Murray & the Lions/Tigers/Bears are my friends and teachers!! Thank you, Kai!!
These past few weeks my practice has usually been doing double classes in relatively close (within 90 minutes) succession. It’s an awesome experience to have the luxury of doing a class, getting a Kombucha, then another class. Huge growth opportunity.
Also had a huge emotional & physical upswelling & meltdown right before we went househunting following 10 days of doubles. And, as I told Beloved Husband after we’d survived most of the storm, that it was totally worth it & I’d do it again.
So I have been. Right now, one class is sometimes spent “doctoring” — focusing my energy to heal, stretch, or get into whatever needs a little extra TLC — & the other is more play. Frequently I work on my baby nemesis of lingering tightness in the low back.
(There’s two inches down in the circumference of my hips that is quite fascinating to me. Tight along the back & sides & slightly disconnected in the front, as I kinda would expect. When I consciously engage the low abs right along the pelvic line, that two inches of spine directly behind gets spacious. Sorry. Digression.
It depends on the day if the stronger playful class is first, followed by a chill second, or the other way around. (Today both were playful, but that was just a gift!!
Understand that both classes are strong practices done in a hot room. They aren’t different styles. It’s all in the approach on my part. It’s a choice of how to work in each class, what modification or amplifications employed, what I add or skip.
Really enjoying th is chance to work deeper during the calm before the storm of moving.
