Lovely To See You Again, My Friend: Teaching a Private: Wailea, HI: March 28, 2021

Thank you to anyone who has ever showed up for any class i’ve ever shared. Teaching yoga is one of my biggest life teachers.

Seasons and cycles, rhythms and the ongoingness of it all...what yogis call ritam. It's impossible to know all the massive meaning behind all the energy that swirls around us and in us, but it is possible to trust that these forces are here for our deepest and highest good. I don't catch this wave of insight all the time, but when I can I like to document it. If nothing, a reminder that trust is time well spent, patience is indeed a virtue, and just keep walking the path, no matter what turns in the road come up.

The Sunday yogi is out of town this week, but two friends visiting the island popped in and wanted to do some yoga together. Yoga with friends is especially juicy, even necessary, as Buddha pointed out as one of the Three Jewels: sangha.

Maui is also one of those friends of yoga. Her year round warm weather, wide open spaces, and clean air have been a dream for pandemic yogis. Grass covered parks and lawns are the softest landing spots, for all kinds of practices that deepen the opening of the heart, and a perfect place to practice a side elbow stand, one of the sweetest arm balances in the world.

I don't offer tricky poses often in a general class (and by tricky I mean ones where you can fall on your face easily), but with my friends in tow, and thereby mutual trust, today was a great day for Anatasana variation pose, a side elbow stand named after Vishnu, the second deity of the Hindu trinity. He is the Preserver (of life), the force that sustains life through adherence to truth, and trust in the higher order of things. , Vishnu promotes discernment through a balance of kindness and compassion.

It is common to see Vishnu seated upon a coiled snake. This symbolizes the ability to remain at peace in the face of fear or worry.

Here’s our sequence:

sit circles with sit bones awareness
forward fold
head supported back bend
tipping buddha
seated twist

navasana

table top
easy side plank with kick backs and psoas stretch
twisted sister
Vishnu’s couch -anatasana variation

downdog
walk back
supported chair cat and cow
tadasana with path meditation

Downdog
criss cross downdog with triceps taps
gecko lizard stretch
hamstring stretch with ankle circles
low lunge with inner arm channel stretch

swimmers

Downdog
Tadasana

Crescent
humble warrior
temple dancer

twisted root
savasana

sit
prayers for the world meditation
Namaste

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