Black Cats and Backbends: Teaching A Private: December 13, 2020: Wailea, HI

Ahhhh the backbend. Good medicine.

I’ve taken a thousand and one yoga workshops, but it's really a matter of who shows up to practice together that I really get to learning. My Sunday friend is such a gift. For many reasons, but one because I am learning to work with his nooks and crannies, and he is endlessly fascinating.

My repertoire isn't so huge, in spite of my nearly two decades as a student and a teacher. Set in my yoga ways, I guess, and afraid of doing it wrong. But what I’m learning, in addition to how to communicate new things in new ways, is that the most fruitful connection in any case takes place when I’m fully present.

It’s like a backbend. Even where there are “back issues”, a backbend, when mindful, is medicine.

And being concerned about the amount of poses as opposed to the quality of the yoga is putting the cart before the horse, anyway.

And meanwhile, right before my very eyes, my yoga offerings are widening, deepening, and expanding in all directions.

A stray black cat, who’s been wreaking havoc on this yogi's. property, popped out of the bushes at the end of our standing savanna. He went joyfully chasing it down. Then, stopped suddenly, mid step, and glanced back at me, still in my tadasana but enjoying the world of black cats, ocean breezes, swaying palm trees, and sounds of laughter come out of his mouth. …”oh, are we finished?, he said, still giggling.

I love this.

There is no division, really, between practice and everyday life. There really isn’t a beginning and ending to yoga. There’s just….life.

Here’s our sequence:

Seated windshield wiper
Dandansana forward fold
Seated parsvatadasana with twist and side bend
Hallelujah

Cat and cow
Half push up twists and wrist twirls

Sphinx

Tadasana
Marching

Warrior II dance with tippie toe warrior
Extened standing triangle
Triangle

wide leg forward fold

Tadasana
tapping
Heart meditation
Namaste

Health, Love, and Rock and Roll