Hello everyone!
Hopefully you’re all staying warm in this wet weather. A couple notes about the schedule this week:
Gentle Yoga on Tuesday evening (10/16) has been cancelled due to an event at the Township Hall that evening. Tuesday evening class will resume the following week. Early Tuesday class (6am) will still take place this week.
Chair Yoga will be back at its original time of 5:30pm this Wednesday evening. The feedback was very positive after our first Chair class, and even a couple yogis who normally attend Gentle Yoga enjoyed the change of pace. Feel free to spread the word, or give it a try yourself!
Lastly, there is something I heard over the weekend at a yoga class that really stuck with me, and that I want to share with you. I took a class with Philip Urso, a Vinyasa teacher who taught a great, challenging class of about 80 people. Before the class he was talking about the power of forgiveness, and how the things about ourselves that we haven’t forgiven, or that we think are unforgivable, can manifest themselves in our yoga practice as as a blockage – a discomfort or difficulty with certain poses. His answer wasn’t to just plow through the discomfort, be annoyed or frustrated by it, ignore it, or shift our attention to something else. It was to send love to the source of that discomfort; to welcome that sensation with love and forgiveness, not aggression, irritation, or ignorance. (He was not talking about pain, mind you – pain should be avoided at all costs.) I find sometimes in yoga, especially with balancing poses, students will lose their balance and suddenly become visibly disappointed or frustrated. Instead of getting pissed off or sad, why not greet that situation with love and a smile? So what if I’m more flexible on one side than the other, or if I can’t touch my toes today but I could last week. What’s not to love about ourselves and our little idiosyncrasies? They are what make us unique.
Philip, this teacher, strongly believed this. In face, he would make us say “ha ha ha” every time we would lose our footing in a balancing posture during the class. It didn’t take long before the whole room was laughing. His message was simple and beautiful: to greet uncomfortable situations in our yoga practice, our bodies, and in our lives with an open, loving , forgiving heart.
Just some food for thought as you kick off your week. Hope to see all of you in class soon. Om shanti, shanti, shanti – Happy Fall!
