Adjusting My Pants

More yoga to report. Oh, the yog. It just gets better and better. Today met with H, my early bird, and we rocked out with lots of up dogs and chatarungas. I've been backing off those with her because she often has pilates the night before we practice and seems quite sore. But we tried it out, and it seemed to fit. I got an email from her this afternoon saying the class was great and she feels a lot stronger. Now that I'm onto her secret upper body strength, I plan on working her a bit harder. She loves the opening and softening so finding a nice balance of sweat and soft is key.

What else. Due to a misunderstanding with clubhouse scheduling, my three ladies class at 2 today was held in the bathroom of one of the ladies. Weird. We focused on breath and and lots of core stuff. One woman mentioned a hysterectomy I did not know she had, which explained a lot about her core work. Need to research further.

I'm not really planning the classes out. Winging it, really. I've been taking cues from Kira on meeting people where they are, and for me that means just showing up with an outline and usually, letting it all go. It feels good, though, because I trust myself to work it all out. No panicky moments yet. I even made a joke, about warrior two and tadasana being the universal 'adjust your pants' time for women in yoga classes. (personally, i've always been more of a 'check your cleavage' kind of yogini. never know when the sports bra failed you in headstand. kept that one to myself, though...)

So I was thinking about when I first taught my two peeps one-on-one, way back in Singapore. I was so nervous about the intimate setting, about what to teach, what I would possibly have to say with them just sitting there in front of me! I wrote the sequences down step by step, created some talking points I was too nervous to use and basically practiced with them so I wouldn't just be standing there awkwardly. Now I'm making jokes! Cuing left and right without actually doing anything to the left or right! Adjusting my pants, symbolically speaking, about what I think a yoga teacher is, and what kind of yoga teacher I am. I don't want to show up with a rigid plan. I kind of like talking for a minute, seeing how they feel, hearing about how pilates sucks, or how they really want a lot of hip stuff, and then easing into the practice, like, what, I do this all the time, right?

Also: I had a banana muffin just now. Burnt brown sugar on top, delicious. Not so delicious was the middle part, which was a bit dry. Really feeling the need to bake. Gotta get an oven, first. And a mixer. And an apron. Been really feeling the whole food is nourishment thing recently. Stress is eating away at me, and Benjamin. I have overwhelming desire to cook him a hot, healthy meal, but so far I've just come up with over cooked, over buttered spinach noodles. I'm no barefoot contessa in the savory department, so this weekend I gotta bust out the skills I have: making sweet, sweet treats.

But before the weekend, one more yoga class. Tonight at 7:30. She's a studious, focused one. Takes it very seriously but has been opening up more the past few weeks. Recently mentioned she hugs a big pillow every night to fall asleep, and we've worked it into her savasana, a big heart opener to melt over. She loves it. It's awesome.