The Sunshine of Second Chances: Teaching a Private: Wailea, HI: December 6, 2020

The only thing scarier than teaching a first class, is teaching that second class.

"See you Sunday?", the text read. Oh boy! I get a second chance with my yogi friend. The first session was so hard to read. I mean, the yoga always "works", I'm confident about that after almost two decades of practice. Yet yoga is defined as "connection" and "relationship", and the question begs, what kind of connection is it making?

A second class, in many ways, is scarier than the first. The newness of yoga wears off fast because the practice itself is healing. It will bring with it the greater truths of love and serenity, but you have to go through some tight spots to get there, and a second practice always reveals more of them. There will be things the yogi likes better than the first practice, and also, much to the diffuculty of a second class, not as much as that first practice, either. It's easy to get stuck in the mental-emotional realm of what sages call raga..attachment to pleasure. If you're in the presence of a yogi who is raga obsessive, it's likely a second class will throw the proverbial baby out with the bathwater and your practice together will cease.

Which is a huge bummer to a yoga lover.

I’m learning, though, that it’s not really my business if people like yoga or not, no matter if I’m the person presenting or if it’s Desikachar himself. So really, this grip of it has to be good, is on me. Yet, I do feel responsible for offering, to the best of my ability, the most helpful contributions to wellbeing. It’s a sneaky version of raga, I suppose.

We all have raga; it’s part of how we are put together, as mind mapped by sages and succinctly described as the kleshas (yoga sutra 2.3 list the five of them). Raga or no raga, though, I’ll take it, because just the effort of the relationship (to yoga, the yogi, and myself) draws me out of myself.

And this is such a relief.

The self I've been hanging out with this week has been slightly south of panic. Yoga grounds me in all ways, especially if I have to show up somewhere and be fully present, because, after all ,you can't share the teachings authentically unless you're living the practices genuinely.

So it feels good and warm and inviting to be in the yoga as much as possible. It’s as nourishing as the Maui sun. Diving in to the depths of the practice, the scary second class and all, feels like the safest place to hang out these days.

I’m trying to remember we always have opportunity to choose the yoga, these second, third, fourth, or hundredth chances. Yoga is just waiting for us all to embrace her, in our own way and in our own time. Yoga is a lot bigger than a few rounds of sun salutes.

The second class is now behind me. But the yoga? It’s still right here. And very much alive, long past our namaste and our sun salutes.

I’m grateful because this yogi friend makes the yoga so fun. So much so, I totally forgot my self inflicted weirdness of the cursed second class. Without fail, Yoga works in the most magical of ways.

Like today. Wow. What a boomerang.

Here is our practice:

Standing mango picking
Dropping the Basket

Pyramid heart opener
Pyramid half forward fold
Tree

Standing Twist taps
Heart and Thymus tap

Guitar hero

Uttithatadasana
Forward fold
Standing Cat and Cow
Single arm neck stretch

Cat and Cow
wrist stretch child’s pose

Reverse windshield wipers
Easy eye of the needle with Hamstring stretch

Savasana

Sit
Namaste

Health, Love, and Rock N Roll