So, I received two comments on my last blog, well actually one was mine responding to the first, but it's a start! Thank you nice "comment person" for your support, and...ta da, you won and have helped me name this, Bella's Blog.
Blogging reminds me of when I started teaching yoga and I was so full of enthusiasm and well not much else, but I will say that enthusiastic energy took me far! Looking back I actually think I did a really good job and 12 years later I feel like I actually do know a thing or two about yoga, and I pray the same will happen with this blog...fingers crossed! But, as the yogi's would say, back to the present moment!
(Well, maybe not just yet.) First we need to go back in time. I can remember sitting in the cozy little yoga shala (i.e., yoga school), nestled inside of a large, historic building -- Chautauqua Hall-- in Pacific Grove where I had just started taking yoga classes. My teacher was in Mysore, India for a month studying with the late, great, Sri K. Pattibhi Jois--- and I was subbing all of her classes and running her little studio. Truth be told I had only been practicing with her for a few months and I had my little red book that she had made for me. I sat in that little, darkened room before each class, wishing so hard that I was a more experienced, knowledgeable teacher, well let's face it- a better teacher! But, I had to stop and say, "if I don't move through this 'discomfort,' I will never be that better teacher." So I continued, breathing slowly all the way and I prayed, (admittedly often sneaking off into the restroom to do so), before every class, a tradition that I have continued, (albeit a different prayer and skipping the restroom) that I would not loose all of her students while she was away. By the way, I didn't.
"She" was Emily Griffith and her legacy lives on to this day. Emily was 68 at the time, now 80, and led a "kick butt" yoga class, as someone once said when they were interviewed for the local paper. I walked into her Ashtanga Yoga class wide-eyed and innocent, I walked out and thought, "I'm going to die!" It was so physically demanding and I was so tired when I finished. After awhile I began to ask the other students, "How tired are you?" because I thought that maybe I had a horrible disease that I did not know about. (I am being serious here.)
So, why in God's creation (as my mother would have said), did I continue with this Ashtanga Yoga? Well like I said Emily was 68, but like I didn't say, she was FABULOUS! She was tall, had amazing posture, could put BOTH legs behind her head, well the list goes on. "Heck" I thought, "if that is what 68 looks like bring it on!" She was a great inspiration, and still is to this very day. She can often be found traveling the world, to far away places, far away cultures and sometimes even caves! By her side you will often find Annette Corcoran, another amazing 80 year old who still practices Ashtanga Yoga daily. Corcoran also happens to be a world famous ceramic artist, (google her). Two of my "shero's!" Anyway, I digress, which is something most "new" writers probably do, but I "caught" myself! (I "might" owe that to yoga, the part that brings awareness...) I'll write more about those two beauties, and awareness, in a later blog.
Back to yoga. So one important aspect to yoga is moving through discomfort and learning to teach is about moving through discomfort, and learning to write is about moving through discomfort. Life is about moving through discomfort. And, it is about learning to move through discomfort with ease, (more ease, a little ease, gosh darn it! Where is the fricken ease)?
Wait, I know! Today it comes from knowing that I have an editor (sounds so impressive, I love saying it; "I have an editor"). Basically, someone to watch over me; and thank God! (All that praying must have worked). So, may we all, in each new and brilliant day, move together, "as one," (chime!), through our discomforts: with awareness, love and a little ease. Enjoy the learning, and enjoy the ride, (discomforts and all) and remember... "it's FUN to learn!" Blessings, Bella.
