Auspicious and Other Alignments of Abundance: Teaching Yoga at Maui Yoga Path: Kihei, HI : October 2, 2021

There’s nothing like the feeling of teaching your first class in a new studio!

Oh what a feeling! I’ve had the honor of teaching in a few studios, and that first class is always a doozy. I woke up this morning with a feeling of excitement, mixed with that oh-so-pesky anxiety, yet anchored by repeating the sequence I’ve been preparing all week.

And I’m keenly aware I’ve been preparing my whole yoga career for a moment like this beautiful Saturday morning.

Way back when I started yoga, in 2006, in and enclosed hot room in Reno, Nevada, I remember thinking how awesome it would be to do yoga by the ocean. Which was a little crazy given how far I was away from a beach, and even farther away from being a yoga teacher. So many alignments and so much work has had to happen to land on my mat today on the shore of one of my most favorite beaches, Keawakapu. And in front if the class with an “Aloha! Welcome to Beach Yoga!”.

This includes recent habitual hanger-onners like “I can’t, I’m not worthy, I’m not good enough”, but what I’m discovering about following your dreams and crafting a life you’re more excited about living starts with a step forward, which by definition is out of your comfort zone. How else am I ever going to be a better teacher if I don’t endeavor to teach more? To seek (and find, which is a miracle in itself) a teacher, all delivered with an oceanfront studio? I had, just had to say YES!

I’m grateful the universe, who, in the sweetest of ways, delivered an opportunity to grow and expand. It was an easy way to say YES!

It’s not that all my inner struggles evaporated overnight, as evidenced by my all-to-familiar-anxiety this morning. My last Grassy Knoll class was about how one pose prepares us for our next, and how the yoga practice, in general, prepares us to meet our lives. As we get more skilled about getting present, the better our choices are, and the more we can craft the direction of our lives. Edna of The Incredibles said, “luck favors the prepared”.

One of the definitions of swastikasana is “.auspicious pose”. I’ve been learning this pose from Deni. She opens her classes with this pose, so I followed her lead by opening with this pose, too. I’m learning to share fresh alignments and it’s not lost on me that auspicious pose is the very first offering in my first class at Maui Yoga Path.

I love the play of sacred reciprocity of learning and sharing; the deeper I feel the poses, the more I can communicate them. While all kinds of internal alignments and bone stacking are happening, most of all I am feeling the benevolent immenseness of saying yes to the Yoga, and, as they say, trusting the process.

This all feels very auspicious, indeed.

Here’s our sequence today:

Swastikasana
Gratitude meditation

Marichiasana using blocks
Upavista konasana using blocks
Dandasana with forward fold using strap

Table top
Single leg lifts with opposite arm balance option

Tadasana
Uttithatadasana

1/4 Sun salutations
High lunge using blocks
Low lunge with heart opener option
Ardha hanumanasana with blocks

Warrior II dance
Peaceful Warrior
Prasarita padatadasana
Tadasana

Gomukasana with virasana legs on blocks

Bridge

Savasana

Sit
Namaste