And that is what it feels like to be Awake.

Next time you're coming out of savasana, allow yourself to really remain in that dreamlike state as you let the wisdom of the body guide your first movements back into the waking world. The body knows what it needs. It will tell you what to do. As you slowly come to a seated position like this, your body leading the way, not your mind, feel how you're still soft and open, yet upright. "And that is what it feels like to be awake."

And that is how Lisa poetically guided us out of savasana. I usually HATE coming out of savasana cuz it's so seductively wonderful, like being in bed in the morning. But Lisa made me realize, maybe I'm just not enjoying the wonderful benefits of being "awake" properly. Whoa!

I'm reporting from the midst of This is Spinal Tap, a workshop with Lisa West (Lisa has a great new blog here) on the anatomy of the spine and how we can use yoga and posture to address and prevent common injuries and inhabit our bodies more comfortably. Lisa is a bodyworker and an encyclopedia of human anatomy. Really. Since childhood she has memorized things like the Childhood Encyclopedia of Diseases for fun. I could spend days just asking her questions like "now, WHERE does the thoraco-lumbar fascia insert?" Luckily, this weekend I get about 10 hours doing just that.

This workshop feels absolutely crucial for a nervous beginning yoga teacher like me. I'm getting more of a sense of being prepared for all the injuries that might walk in the door. Whiplash, chronic headaches, slipped disc, sciatica, scoliosis, carpal tunnel, arthritis: a formidable list, but I am learning the basics of what causes these issues, how to respond, and perhaps most importantly, what NOT to do. I am also learning that yoga alone can't always do everything; body work is a good idea in many cases.

Lisa genuinely lights up when she talks about fascia and connective tissue. She is an enthusiastic expedition leader into the jungle of the body. I feel like I am coming away from the weekend with a trail map. I have had many 'whoa' moments of being blown away by the complexity of our anatomy. The workshop is a combination of lecture, discussion, and yoga practice. I feel the immediate impact of new knowledge when we get on the mats again after lecture. When I bring my awareness to my pelvis or spine, I now have a whole new visual understanding of the areas. My body is no longer just an unlit, murky thing with vague outlines from memories of high school biology. The stars and moon are coming out and shedding some light on the jungle pathways. The feeling is just plain awesome.

Above: Google Image search result for "spirit spine." Apparently it's a band from Indiana. Oh, google.

I am reminded anew what a sublime vehicle this body is. I am allowing myself to rest comfortably in my new learning, the relatively simple facts of muscle names and vertebral diagrams. Yet I can't help but be aware, as well, that each solid-looking muscle, each vertebra, points to a seemingly infinite amount of complexity and interconnectedness that I cannot possibly understand. Lisa is awesome because she is open to the realization that all her learning may not be entirely true. "We are not linear," she said. Even if we were able to penetrate every cell of the body with increasingly powerful microscopes and tools, it seems we would still not be able to reveal exactly how it works so perfectly as a whole. Where does the spirit come in? Does that live in the cells, too? Is that it, there, mapped on that Chinese meridian chart? Or in those seven chakras?

Class Report: Yoga Basics, 2-24

Impressing the heart
Tailbone awareness--cat/cow on the floor
Windshield wipers
Roll to seated

Ujayii with hands on rib cage
OM

Easy side stretching
Cat/cow
Plank
Dog

Tadasana
Crescent lunge both sides
Chair
Tadasana
Warrior II for 3 breaths
Reverse warrior
Side angle
Warrior II
Prasaritta
Left side same, then Hammock

We did a vinyasa here
Baby cobra 2 times
Child's pose

Introduced a flow at this point

Crescent lunge
Warrior II
Reverse
Side Angle
Triangle
Twisting lunge
Plank
Baby chatarunga
Baby cobra
Rocket cat
Dog
Left side same

Meant to do tree and option for standing shiva, but who knows what got into me. We did Reclining Hereo's pose, or Saddle pose, instead.
Rabbit pose
Wall splat or plow
Supine twist
Savasana
OM

Just Sitting Around

Sorry for the slow down in posts on my part. I'm in the midst of a transition, I think, and sitting down to even document sequencing feels unnatural now. Whatever I've planned for class usually gets thrown into the breeze on my way to the studio, and I'm discovering new asanas, or new approaches to the usual ones. There is a shift happening in my practice, toward silence and stillness. Just sitting there. 

I have been teaching a new class, Hot Flow, similar to CPY's Hot Fusion class. Bikram meets Vinyasa. I'll post those sequences soon.  

Finally, a Post about Pastries

PASTRIES are back!!! We've been irresponsibly neglecting the pastry half of our mission statement. Our mom sent us this poem and we both love it. Thanks, Mom!

People Who Eat in Coffee Shops

by Edward Field

People who eat in coffee shops
are not worried about nutrition.
They order the toasted cheese sandwiches blithely,
followed by chocolate egg creams and plaster of paris
wedges of lemon meringue pie.
They don't have parental, dental, or medical figures hovering
full of warnings, or whip out dental floss immediately.
They can live in furnished rooms and whenever they want
go out and eat glazed donuts along with innumerable coffees,
dousing their cigarettes in sloppy saucers.

"People Who Eat in Coffee Shops" by Edward Field, from Counting Myself Lucky: Selected Poems 1963-1992. © Black Sparrow Press, 1992. Reprinted with permission

Yoga Massage for Feline Friends?

Three minutes of kitten bliss. Remember the fuzzy feeling you get watching this next time you're feeling anxious in Savasana..

Yoga for Recovery Sequence

This is hot off the presses. I subbed for Winifred tonight. It was a gift to teach this class in so many ways. Without further ado, this is what we did:

-Restorative Heart Opener on Bolster with full yogic breath and letting exhales get longer than inhales, and fact-sharing about the parasympathetic nervous system

-Supta Padha Gustasana/Reclining Hand to Big Toe Pose with feet against the wall

-Roll over and press to tabletop, lots of cat/cow first together, then on own, encouraging peeps to move it side to side and linger where it feels amazing

-Easy Side Plank

-round down to extended child's

-Uttanasana, bending one knee at a time

-had peeps close eyes and roll up one vertebra at a time to tadasana, encouraged extreme slowness

-tadasana...hands in anjali mudra (flower bud mudra) a la krishnamacharya (see photo)...I LED AN OMMMMMM i'm so excited. peeps jumped right in, not shy at all. it was awesome.

-1/4 Sun Salutations x about 6? i'd planned 3 together, 3 on your own, but it seemed like guidance was still needed so i just gave simpler cues the last half.

-Lunge Salute with Crescent Lunge...lingered here low and wiggly for a long time then option to lift up into Halleluiah arms

-Sphinx to Seal

-Reverse Windshield Wiper

-Rocket Cat to Child's

-Plank to Down Dog

-repeat other side

-step forward to Uttanasana

-Squat and then come to backs

-Bridge x 2

-Restorative Twist on Bolsters

-Savasana

-Sit

-NAMASTE

Prelude to Class 3

I'm preparing to teach my third ever yoga class tomorrow! This time we will actually move, unlike my first classes where we held poses for 5 minutes each and I could sneak a glance at my notes easily. I will be subbing for Winifred's "Yoga for Recovery" class, which attracts a wide range of students--many beginners, some brand new. She has given me an amazing opportunity.

In preparation I just emailed my sequence to my brain trust and read about everything from foot anatomy to Patanjali to Tiger Woods' apparent return to Buddhism (I'm skeptical). At one point I had to let go and decided I probably know enough by now to not have to 'cram' for tomorrow as if it's some sort of final exam. I'm trying to land on a sequence that's relaxed but interesting. Soft, gooey, flowy, juicy. Appropriate for nighttime, too. Melting, not energizing. Ooh--writing that reminds me I don't have any forward folds! Something else to try to squeeze into the mix! Uh-oh.

I'm really hoping that the class will simply feel good. That's all I ask. For people to be happy in their own bodies. To feel a little more connected. To feel like everything is okay, even for just 90 minutes. I'm not going to push people to the limit; instead i'll just try to nurture a safe space. That's the feel Winifred creates. I'll let you know how it goes...

Creative Morality

"That, in fact, is an advance of morality--when I begin to sense my moral blindness."

~from "And the Moral of the Story Is..." aired February 17

This radio show, aired last night on Canadian NPR, examines the nature of the link between morality and mysticism. A neurologist, a professor, a Catholic priest, and Ojai teacher Willem Zwart are the guest speakers. They address whether examining our own social conditioning and becoming aware of our physiological addiction to certainty may help us find a "creative morality" rather than needing to rely on extremely faulty sets of rules.

Willem is the Nietzsche and Krishnamurti expert. Pretty impressive. Willem asked me - are you sure you want to put this on your yoga blog? I am. Need I say more than the fact that Krishnamurti taught Erich Schiffmann, who taught Kira, who teaches Zen Muffin and French Toast? (I don't know of any yoga teacher who has appropriated Nietzsche, but maybe I will be the first because he knows a thing or two worth sharing.) Krishnamurti points towards a state of clear seeing, in which, by freeing our minds from conditioning we naturally respond to every moment intelligently, responsibly, and with love.

Yoga happens to help a lot of people, including myself, to free ourselves and let go of addictive beliefs. With each breath, we hopefully come more fully into the present moment and leave behind rigid preconceptions. But it's only one of thousands of ways.

Willem comes on at around 34 minutes if you must skip straight to our local Ojai celebrity!

Forgetting Sarah Marshall

Hopefully you've seen Forgetting Sarah Marshall, in which Jason Segel plays a character trying to get his life back together after a bad break-up by visiting Hawaii, meeting a beautiful girl, and writing a vampire puppet musical. My attention was recently brought to this hilarious deleted scene, in which hapless, adorable Jason attends a yoga class.

We Are One. QED.

In Season Two, Heroes introduced a new superhero, the copycat girl, whose power was to be able to watch any skill being performed and immediately execute it herself without any training. Well, on a very real level, we all have that superpower, thanks to our "Gandhi Neurons." Check out the video below to hear about these neurons, more scientific proof for our oneness. It's convincing evidence for why demoing poses in a yoga class can be so effective. Maybe just watching yoga can make us feel better. Conversely, just by doing yoga we might very literally be spreading peacefulness in a scientifically provable way. Enjoy:

Jam Session 3

We finished our final Lulu Bandha's Yoga Jam Sessions this weekend, a gathering for yoga teachers to come together, practice, and talk about questions and challenges from 'the field.' At each gathering, I've noticed and been fortified by a growing group mission: to follow our inner guidance in every way so that we can be helpful to others and to ourselves. We are all trying our best to find "alignment" in everything we do, and it's exponentially easier with each other's support.

I got support from the group in a direct, unexpected way on Sunday, thanks to my neck issues. Kira had asked us each to bring a "very real, practical question" to our final Sunday session. I debated sharing a few questions on behalf of friends and family. But Luna asked about her neck, and before that Kira talked about yoga being a practice of intimacy, so I figured, why not get intimate and say what my real issue is--my neck.

My neck. With the long, lovely, 10-year-old scar down the back that, when it was still fresh, caused a little kid on the street to peer in close and exclaim to his mother, "¡Qué larga!" This neck snaps, crackles and pops on the left side every single morning. There's a steady pain in the left side that crawls up behind my ear and has resided there off and on since soon-ish after surgery and flares up at its worst when I'm stressed. Another, older, even longer scar runs along the outside of my rib cage. And a third one cuts down around the crease where my right femur meets my pelvis.

That's the simplest version, the most obviously factual information available to me. So that's what I shared, my "very real, practical question." I needed support and ideas for taking care of my neck and preventing these scars from tightening the fabric of my connective tissue even further.

I have never.ever. mentioned my neck to any yoga teacher. I've gone to total strangers: chiropractors (maybe I just didn't click with the one I tried) and doctors (really? Advil is all you can come up with?). Arturo helped with his special blend of bodywork techniques. Craniosacral therapy with Sandy helped (she said she used a lot of the same movements she would on a person with rotator cuff problems). But I thought it was up to me to use yoga to help myself. And it is. But having yogi friends on board doesn't hurt at all.

There are a million reasons not to share problems like this. With such a record for being an invalid as a child, I've been determined since graduating high school to be healthy and normal and strong if I can help it. Plus, broadcasting that you have 3 less than aesthetic scars doesn't really seem advantageous to finding a good love life. Even now, I hear sneaky doubt creep in about whether I should have shared. Am I imagining this like a hypochondriac? Am I just not doing the right neck stretches? Worse, did I bring all these surgeries and health problems on myself? Will other yogis think I did?

I've managed to ignore, diminish, and compartmentalize my neck for a long time now. But once I said the problem out loud at Lulu's, that most indisputable fact, "My neck hurts all the time and disturbs me with excessive crackling every morning," everyone gathered around to look closer, listening carefully. I felt everyone's interest, empathy, and acceptance (mad yoga teacher skills) as they asked questions that led, like pulling on a string, to details about my surgeries, my dad's cancer, and eventually to my worst-case-scenario, fear of cancer. All that just sort of came out. After a few questions I couldn't really help it. It was easiest just to tell it like it is. All that information from this teeny little anesthetized strip of neck, revealed because of the acceptance of friends to whom I am so grateful for their openness and love.

Up til now I have done nothing about it. Not REALLY. I thought yoga would make it go away. Apparently you can't just show up and do some vinyasas and watch all your problems go away. You have to face them! HOLD them. As Kira said, "The first thing I would do if this were a private lesson would be to just hold her neck." Radical! We tried a gentle neck hold with partners, and I felt happily overwhelmed by the lack of tension in my neck, like I'd finally found the perfect pillow.

Now I'm looking for more ways to start to give my neck and left shoulder the attention they need. I've just spent a good chunk of the morning watching and doing some YouTube neck/shoulder yoga videos. Scrutinizing diagrams of neck/skull anatomy. Tracking what my mind does when I'm stressed. The language of my body is suddenly slightly more readable. My body is like a book that's telling me where I've been protecting myself, where I've been hiding, and how I can find a little more self-love, even for the tight spots.

Coincidentally, I think getting help like that was the most useful thing that could have happened this weekend as far as becoming a yoga teacher. I got to be on the receiving end of a whole group of yoga teachers using the tools of the trade: compassion, loving curiosity, and of course, creatively applied yoga techniques.

I Just Wanna Say One Thing

A message from Cupid:

Yoga Playlist

Music in a yoga class can be either empowering or annoying. It's impossible to make everyone happy. Since I love music in yoga classes, I play it in mine. Right now I'm trying to find tunes that will inspire and empower but not overwhelm. Very, very open to suggestions!

Gayarti by Wah!
The Storm by Arovane
My Angel Rocks Back and Forth by Four Tet

(by now in the class we are in Sun Salutes, to give you an idea of movement)

Ooh Child by ? Zen Muffin put it on a CD for me, don't know the artist.
Teardrop by Massive Attack
Give a Little Love by Rilo Kiley
Viva La Vida by Coldplay (not my fave, but around this time we're doing core strengthening, and ppl really seem to love this one)
Three Little Birds by Bob Marley
You Are Never Alone by Socalled
By Your Side by Sade
Corrina, Corrina by Bob Dylan
Orange Sky by Alexi Murdoch
The Stable Song by Gregory Alan Isakov
Hare Krishna by Wah!
Treble Thickness by Area C (ambient savasana music)

Just got a slew of new music from the manfriend, and am hoping to incorporate some new tunes this week while I have time. My classes are usually 90 mins, although I do have one hour long on Wednesday nights. Any new ideas? Pop stuff is okay, but I'm looking for more unheard stuff--nothing that will make ppl want to sing along, or make them feel like they're at the disco.

Heard this song off of Ben's iTunes the other night, and have been listening to it over and over again since. It's definitely going on the new playlist.

Entering and Emerging from the Deep

Tonight was the first night of our final Yoga Jam Sessions. I just got home and visited my Blogger Dashboard, only to realize that my current favorite blog, Ugly Overload, had already provided the perfect analogy for exactly how I feel about our yoga session tonight in a teeny post called "A Little Dose of Humility." He writes, simply:

We all marvel at the life teeming on sunny reefs. Well, it turns out that the deepest portions of our oceans, those inky-black abyssal regions, where sunlight will never penetrate, where plants cannot grow, where the human body would implode from the pressure, where once scientists thought that life could not exist, are actually home to more abundance and variety of life than those sunny reefs. And we've only explored 1 millionth of those depths. So much to learn about our own planet.

The highs and lows of my week caught up with me on the mat this evening and feelings burst forth in a teary mess as if being expelled by my cells. My emotions, those creatures of the deep, wanted to be acknowledged. In moments like that I want to do anything but yoga. Normally I'd deal with those feelings with TV or sugar or both. Gradually the yoga and partner work started to help.

Meanwhile, I'm so psyched that Joseph is making a cd of everyone's favorite 2 yoga songs. I am already obsessing about this big and fun decision.

I'd Rather Be Free Than Normal

Yoga asks weird things of us. Sometimes the techniques can make you feel a little bit upside-down in a right-side-up world, like Mr. Mittra here on the left. In an effort to convince myself I'm still normal, I'm making a list of bizarre yoga practices I used to feel silly about, but now I do with such lack of self-consciousness, I have almost forgotten that people in the real world don't do them.

• Kali Breath with the tongue sticking out: I used to think this was so goofy and ridiculous. Once I realized how much it helped, it was a slippery slope. Now I have to remind myself not to do it at the grocery store.
• Audible sighing with vocal cords activated: Today in Winifred's class I found myself doing this constantly, and then I remembered that I used to think people were weird who did this. Look who's weird (but detoxified) now!
• Taking a deep breath at all has sometimes provoked concern in coworkers and non-yogi friends: "What's wrong? You sighed! Are you ok?" Yup, just taking in a little extra sweet, sweet oxygen. I'm hooked.
• Wearing tight pants everywhere. If you're a yogi reading this, you're probably thinking--but that's not weird! I do it all the time!--I have to tell you, IT IS NOT THAT NORMAL (unless you live in Boulder). I know this because I took a friend to yoga for the first time and afterwards we went to get coffee and she commented on how embarrassing it was to be wearing yoga pants at the coffee shop. It was a moment of awakening.
• Push-ups with knees on the ground. My push-ups are awkward monstrosities. Until I can finally acquire the kinesthetic intelligence and strength to do them properly, I'm no longer willing to injure myself just to look like a more bad-ass yogi. My knees are on the ground, baby.
• Falling: OK this is still frustrating when it happens. But it happens to everyone, on occasion. So whatever. It's playful to fall, get back in, fall again.
• Softening the forehead, eyes, and jaw. Just try doing that at your next family gathering or staff meeting, and you'll probably realize how unusual it is, how you feel almost vulnerable but hopefully more open. Relaxing my face gives me a sensation of automatically turning off certain patterns and protective mechanisms and it can feel a little scary. It's still difficult in class sometimes to do this, because suddenly you can't escape what you're feeling and you face the moment as it is a little more directly.
• Alternate nostril breathing. This just made me giggle the first time I saw it. It seems so affected and esoteric, and it kind of looks like a waste of time when I could be learning to do a scorpion or something equally impressive. But then I tried it, read about it, and fell in love.
• OM'ing and chanting...it really depends on the teacher. I'm fine with a simple monosyllabic chant. I enjoy a good, centering OM. Not sure I'm ready to put stock into the spiritual benefits of it. But, fairly or unfairly, a Sanskrit chant session automatically activates my inner cult alert faster than any other yoga practice. Some teachers do chants well. I liked chanting to Tara with Scott Blossom at the Crib, for example. Why? Maybe because he was laid-back and not overly bhakti about it. I also loved chanting at a zen sesshin, because the words were in English and meant something to me: "Sentient beings are numberless. I vow to save them...etc." And we were chanting in the dark, facing a wall, so I felt more like I was chanting alone but together rather than in a group of people all losing themselves to the group.
• Letting the poses look like me rather than how I think they should look (my yogi friends have such beautiful practices and it can be hard not to wish I looked like them in certain poses). This is still a constant practice of course--in a way it IS the whole practice--but it's been so helpful to learn to loosen my grasp on external notions of what a pose should look like and let it look more like me. Loosening the grasp in any area is always a good thing.

Yoga opens me up to so much new knowledge, but never before I am ready. I resist and resist while paradoxically wishing I could just open up all at once, but the yoga just laughs at me and says, just wait and see. Just wait and see.

Everything

Everything - Radio Citizen fea...

class report

Apologies for the absence. I've been meaning to sit down and document my classes, but then something always distracts me. Now it's raining and the laundry pile is slowly but surely becoming smaller, so I have a bit of time to write.

Classes have been good. I'm slowly moving away from the Warrior dance flow and headed towards triangle/revolved triangle/half moon flow. Lately, we've been approaching both half moon and revolved half moon, by way of crescent twist/revolved triangle.

Last night I interrupted my own flow to demo an arm balance, and couldn't quite get the flow back after that. People began doing their own thing, and the class got a bit choppy. Talking with B about it last night and Bettina this morning, and am leaning towards thinking that a class has to be one or another--flow or inversion heavy. I tried combining the two, but the levels of both ability and interest were quite varied, and no one really bit the tripod headstand/crow/jump back to plank move. But the flow portion, the first 3/4ths of class, was quite nice and everyone moved with fluidity.

What do you guys expect from a Level 2 flow class? I have some ideas, but am curious what everyone else thinks. Arm balancing, or just a really nice flow with loads of vinyasa?

I'm thinking of ditching the whole sequence, anyhow, and starting fresh with Bird of Paradise. More balancing! I am quite liking the binding and half moon stuff we've doing, and tomorrow morning might toss in bird of paradise to see how she flies with the early bird crowd.

More later!

Class Two Sequence

My second yoga class ever! Again, subbed for Kira's Yin class.

Sit: shoulder drops and rolls (idea was to create nice memory of softness and ease in shoulders-neck-face for reference during the poses)

Tailbone Awareness and Shimmy

Left side

Swan/Pigeon 5 min
-plank + sit to integrate 2 min

1/2 Shoelace/Cowface 5 min
-sit 2 min

Dragon Lunge 5 min (I know this was hard but hopefully enjoyable. Maybe 3 min would be better for a pose this intense. I gave back out options etc but most stayed in)
-sit 2 min

'Center'
Saddle. Plan was to do frog but I felt it would be cruel after the heat and intensity of dragon. Plus what I really wanted to do all along was Saddle, so I let that happen instead. Seemed downright peaceful after dragon.
-savasana 2 min

Right

Swan/Pigeon 5 min
-plank and sit 2 min

OOPS I left out 1/2 shoelace on this side. I was starting to get worried about taking too long and started to rush a bit. I guess that's part of becoming a yoga teacher. I'm sure everyone went home and balanced themselves out. Hah!

Dragon 5 min
-sit 2 min

Active Locust x2, 1 min each.

Sphinx or Seal 5 min
rested on belly a minute or so, pressed to child's for a minute or so

Shorter twist with legs of choice

Savasana

NAMASTE

I'm so glad I got to do this!

Yoga Proverbs

"If the mountain pose won't come to Mohammad, because it's really just standing up very straight and no matter how hard he tries he just doesn't understand how it counts as a pose, Mohammad must go back to the beginners' class."


Many more at McSweeny's. 


And then, naturally, Bikram teaches a writing class. 

Erich Schiffmann Guided Meditation

I am obsessing way too much about my yoga classes this week to take the time to do anything like write a blog about teaching my first class, despite having the richest material ever. Not to mention that I also started a new job. I don't want to leave The Yogery hanging however, so below I'm sharing a link to Erich Schiffmann's new meditation album. I've been listening to this album to help me get grounded as I prepare my classes. I'm super excited about tonight because I'm feeling good about my sequence, which I created with helpful suggestions from Megan Forslin, who has done Paul Grilley's Yin Teacher Training. I just hope I can deliver it effectively now!

iMeditateWithErich - Erich Sch...

Class. One.

Here's the "set list" from my first class ever as the sub for Kira's Yin class last night.

Thank you thank you thank you to everyone who took the time to come! Having you all there was really the best part and made me feel a lot less nervous. I might post soon about my experience but here's the sequence for now:

3 landing breaths

intro sit, setting an intention (suggestions: listen without judging, or openness to the new, or maybe dedicate your practice to a loved one, or anything else your heart tells you.)

ujjayi breath hands on ribs x 3

thanks to french toast for the ideas for the opening!

Butterfly 5 minutes

pause at top to feel results, shake legs out

Swan Side 1- 5 minutes (or eye of needle at wall)

quick plank then 2 minute wide-legged sit feeling results of stretch

Swan Side 2 for 5 minutes

quick plank then 2 minute wide legged sit feeling results of stretch

Frog 5 minutes

rest on belly 1 minute

POSSIBLE DRAGON LUNGES IF TIME IS GOING TOO QUICKLY (these were not necessary)

2 yang, active locusts, 1 minute each, going to bow the second time if it's easily available

Sphinx or Seal 5 minutes

rest on belly 1 minute

child's 1 minute, wiggling, rounding.

Twist (eagle legs) 5 minutes each side

awareness between eyes

I should have demoed the legs first maybe.

Found this pose the hardest to know what to say during. was perhaps too quiet.

2 minute savasana between sides to feel results

Sit 5 minutes (we have been sitting longer in kira's class but it felt intimidating to ask people to meditate)

notice the difference between now and your first sit

recall your intention, breathe it in one more time, exhale let it go, simply letting your awareness widen

option for people to remain sitting or lay down in savasana for last 10 minutes

NAMASTE