Clearing The Path: Teaching a Private: Wailea, HI: January 17, 2021

Pick up trucks and green smoothies make good friends.

After a lovely morning sprinkle of rain and a sky still filled with rainclouds, at precisely 10AM our yoga start time, the clouds parted, the sun came out, and the Hawaiian breezes wafted over south maui with the perfect amount of gentle. Warm and shiny, beautiful and majestic, the stage was set for our yoga today.

It was perfectly in tune to how I felt inside.

While the Sunday yogi and I are world’s apart in many aspects, yoga isn’t one of them. Politics isn’t one of them either, and we enjoyed a nice chatty catch up before class. While my upbringing taught me to Never Talk Politics, that rule now feels stale at best, and irresponsible, at worst. Yoga, too, has it’s difficulties, the practice has it’s dark spots, in fact, reveals tight spots, for the purpose of transformation. Nothing will change , after all, in our bodies unless we take our tight spots on.

Tough pickup trucks and dreamy green smoothies can co-exist, get along, and in fact, thrive.

We are inches away from a new administration. Inaguration Day happens in two days. The threat of violence is alive, it feels real. And it feels unacceptable to not talk about doing what we can to keep the peace. Even if it’s starting small, which, for me is severing my relationship to staying compliant to the okayness of what clearly feels, to me, not at all OK.

We all have our thresholds and boundaries, and I’ve reached a new one. Now, maybe because I align with the Sunday yogi's politics, I can say I spoke my heart freely, but it sure felt nice. And like everything, giving rise to a new way of being takes huge, steady, unrelenting practice. It was a sweet moment, a mighty fine set up, like the Maui sun coming out, to practice yoga off the mat.

Our asana practice today cleared space. Both physically, of course, with a full body attention to joints and big muscle groups in our arms and legs, but also allowed for a stretch and some strength, because it feels like the world is going to need more yogis in it to fix some of this world’s deep challenges.

Here’s our practice today:

Standing windmill twist
Standing Side to side Sashay (one arm , then both arms)
Mango throwing
Uttithatadasana with half gomukasana arms

Utkatasana play
Tippe Toe play
Single leg Side step utkatasana
Warrior II with upward facing palm press
Trikonasana
Extended trikonasana
Warrior II
Peaceful Warrior with Strength flourish

Shoulder rolls
Swimming shoulder rolls

Cat and cow
Half dolphin
Puppy dog
Easy side plank
Cobra active recovery

Eye of the Needle
Savasana

Tadasana. We ended by taking a strong stand with open, happy hearts. (I know that’s not traditional, but neither is drinking organic smoothes beside a pick up truck).

 Namaste

Health, Love, Rock and Roll