This is annual review explores three questions:
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:
Are you ready? Send me an email!
What am I working toward? (From January 2020 Newsletter, “Experiment and Experience”)
What went well this year?
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.
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?
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.
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:
I will add to this:
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.
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