Believe in Magic: Teaching Yoga on the Grassy Knoll: July 28, 2021

Believe in magic!

In the seventeen years I've been teaching yoga, I can count the times on one hand that I've offered advanced poses, like grasshopper, where literally you balance on one hand. In our practice today I offered two of them.

My crowd isn't a "hey look at me and my bad ass practice" type of scene. While there is an earnest and serious side to our gatherings, for sure, our poses, generally speaking, aren't there for a wow factor, externally speaking.

Part of the reason I teach this way is because I'm more interesting in allowing poses to be a container for a deeper awareness. Life is hard enough without having to feel like we can't do yoga poses. But our grassy knoll yogis have been practicing together for a while now, and in rather extreme external conditions. We've built friendships and we've built trust. We've also built a capacity to do harder things.

Yoga and daily life are the same thing. We are always connecting to something. A shift if afoot for all of us, and I occurs to me if I never offer hard poses we miss opportunities to practice the internal qualities that we must have in place to grow.

And this also includes me, as a yoga teacher. I've never thought capable and worthy enough to guide beloved through hard poses. And thank God for the grassy knoll yogis because trust is a two way street. They have helped me trust myself deeper. They are helped me show up in the realest of ways. They help me have fun and take life a little less seriously and love myself more seriously.

This all happens magically. I mean, we don't really talk about these things but it is all happening as we move and breath through poses week after week. Sometimes it's easy, sometimes it's hard, but our practice is steady and our hearts are dedicated.

How I've arrived at believing in myself and trusting myself more and more I'm not sure. It's magic, i suppose.

Real magic.

Here's our sequence:

Sukasana circles

Eka pada janushirrasana with twist

Downdog with hip opener
Single leg plank
Mountain climber
Low lunge
Half hanuman
Lunge-Hanuman flow

Downdog

Warrior II
Trikonasana
Warror II

Cobra

Standing Hasta padagustasana with twist variation
Malasana

Downdog
Eka Pada Kundinyasana
Star pose

Pigeon
Seated twist with baby Grasshoppe

Easy supine twist
Savasana

Sit
Namaste