Commitment and Goals

This is annual review explores three questions:

1. What went well last year?
2. What didn’t go so well last year?
3. What am I working toward?

Last summer I sent out an email to all who had contacted me with interest in restarting Aspiration Community Yoga after a long pandemic induced pause. I was not really interested in returning to teaching, but you asked, and so I asked you what you were willing to ante up on your behalf:

• What you want to work toward and
• What you are willing to do to get there.

Are you ready? Send me an email!

1. What went well for what you wanted to work toward?
2. What went well for your willingness to do what it takes to get there?
3. What didn’t go so well for what you wanted to work toward?
4. What didn’t go so well for your willingness to do what it takes to get there?

Here’s the rub: only reflect what was within YOUR control!

What am I working toward? (From January 2020 Newsletter, “Experiment and Experience”)

1. Finishing what I have started, especially training-wise. Relaxing the grasping and clinging, fear of losing what I have now or not getting what I want in the future.
2. Getting out of my practice bubble by taking occasional classes and workshops.
3. Learning by following my bliss, leaving alone the well-trodden path of expectation.
4. Staying in tuned with what brings on emotions of overwhelm and too much-ness.

What went well this year?

• ​2021: “Learning by following my bliss, leaving alone the well-trodden path of expectation.”

Librarian and critic Nancy Pearl once laid out the “Rule of 50”: if you’re 50 years old or younger, give a book at least 50 pages before giving up on it; if you’re over 50, subtract your age from 100 and use that number instead. I have something similar for yoga classes and teachers. I like to say try it for 16 weeks and then decide. However, at this point, 20 years in of consistent practice, I have to admit that I’ll make a decision within 3 weeks whether to stick with a yoga teacher consistently. Some teachers I like to practice with intermittently, but not weekly. In the bigger picture, however, I consistently practice 3+ times a week, usually rotating between the three teachers I am currently feeling energized and comforted with. I found some online teachers that really inspire and comfort me. I look forward to my practices with these teachers and am doing my practice for me, rather than “taking notes” for how to teach to students.
I also was able to really integrate what I learned in 2020 regarding core, pelvic floor and breathing. As you are well aware, I have spent the past year focusing on this intensively.
When my personal trainer moved out of state, I was able to find a new trainer without missing a week! The new trainer, Steve Trumfio is diametrically different from DeOnté Durden-Jackson and this has brought some interesting new challenges and delights to my workout. Additionally, I continue on with a shoulder, back and chest workout program I started several years ago, as I find that the same program changes as my understanding of movement and strength changes.

• 2021:” Staying in tuned with what brings on emotions of overwhelm and too much-ness.”

I am very happy that I stopped chasing students, that I no longer am interested in working harder for their well being than they did for themselves.
I am very happy that I decided to not worry if a monthly email is late and that I decided to days off from teaching, guilt-free.

​What didn’t go so well this year?

• “Finishing what I have started, especially training-wise. Relaxing the grasping and clinging, fear of losing what I have now or not getting what I want in the future.”

​Well, I STILL haven’t finished the “Complete Hip And Shoulder Pelvis And Shoulders” course, the Anatomy Trains’ “Freeing the Shoulders and Arms” or the last hour and test for “Deeper Ground: Restoration and Vitality for the Female Pelvis”.
I must admit that hiking has become consuming these days, and I have segued to taking courses with The Mountaineers on Navigation, Snow Routes, Scrambling and First Aid.
I could give a lot of rationalizations for the incompleteness of anatomy courses and completeness of hiking courses, but why? Just let the bright shiny object speak for themselves.

• Getting out of my practice bubble by taking occasional classes and workshops.

​I still have not found an in-person community to practice yoga or workout with- I continue to wonder how much this will “bite me in the ass” one of these days…..

I have not yet completely released my thinking that students will put forth the time commitment and effort to learn and understand outside class. I put more time investment in these monthly emails as a way to save class for practice rather than long, clarifying lectures on how the body moves. I admit it sucks that less than half the students read them.
Even more, I am not sure that those who do read them figure out how put into action the muscular engagement I write about. I am not sure there is the understanding that no matter the yoga pose, no matter the particular exercise, 99% of the muscular engagement will be the same. Am I communicating, "Don't worry about where your leg is so much as pay attention to the sensation in your torso. Do you feel the traps working? Do you feel the obliques working"?
Should I be reducing the full form of the exercise or the yoga pose until the muscle activation is felt in every position? If I did that, would we be able to get the other benefits of moving in class, too? I don't know.

What am I Working Toward?

Well, I am going to put:

1. “Finishing what I have started, especially training-wise. Relaxing the grasping and clinging, fear of losing what I have now or not getting what I want in the future.”
2. Getting out of my practice bubble by taking occasional classes and workshops.

​back on the list. I am still very interested in what I might learn and still really like the individuals who offered them. But I will take note that I seem to do better with courses where the study and completion is not self-paced, rather has a deadline.

I will add to this:

• Release expectations and fears of future outcomes.

​The past year has been a learning of letting be what is, even when there is fear of what will come as a result, without manipulation without editorial comments (aka criticism). The past year has been a year of working to unlearn manipulation and criticism. The past year has been realizing that I always want a positive outcome, that I always want to avoid dissatisfaction and unhappiness. I am REALLY uncomfortable with discontent and turmoil. For the past year my practice has been to “learn to turn toward the pain we feel—toward the dukkha we are experiencing in these difficult circumstances—and to hold that dukkha with a quality of patience; thinking, I will be with this situation, period. In other words, there’s no expectation that the situation will change or get better.” - Bhikkhu Bodhi and Ajahn Sucitto

​Why I am I sharing this as “Something I am Working Toward”? It is something I have to deal with- sooner or later. It is an underlying cause and condition that unconsciously and subconsciously drives me and affects all my relationships. It’s the boogie man in the closet- the monster under the bed. The tempter Mara, coming in for tea, his daughters and his army waiting outside. Welcome Mara, may I offer you my friendship and ask what it is you need.