Grateful! Grateful! Grateful!

Image courtesy of Recreating Eden
I am so unbelievably grateful today - I truly feel as though I have dipped my toes in the river of abundance and it's sweeping me faster and faster toward my goals. And, I have felt recently that the universe is benevolent.

Recently I completed a yoga photoshoot, in order to use pictures that I own for my sequence handout sheets at workplaces. Little did I know what I would hold in my hand when I completed the document, design and all. All the work I do on newsletters, forms, and other marketing materials I generate in InDesign by Adobe has paid off - I have a document that looks great. Truly original! If you would like to see it I would be happy to send you a pdf but it belongs to jointly to me and my employer (they agreed to shared intellectual property). You can see some pics here.

On another note, we have been in an ongoing struggle to replace our failed leach field at my house. The project has dragged on and on... so I finally changed designers. Today our new designer showed up and our excavator uncovered beautiful soil for an in ground system on part of our land. This means - a much cheaper job for sure. In uncovering this soil, we cleared part of our land that we thought we would be waiting years to get to. Now it's all open and I have news that I'm going to be able to easily afford the system, and will have a huge new 1acre lawn bulldozed and seeded with grass by the fourth of July. I cannot believe how wonderfully this has turned out!

When the universe closes one door, another opens. In this case, a beautiful set of french doors with stained glass.

Turn up the Heat

Last night I practiced hard. It was great. It's not that I don't normally practice hard. But yesterday I was in the zone and was working every posture during class. I am beginning to feel something of a six month itch, I think. My six month anniversary from coming home from training is coming right up! I have the urge to do a 30 day challenge sometime this spring - probably after I get home from New Orleans.

My goals in class right now are to really really try to hold standing bow without falling out. I fall out so much that I know I'm not getting the effects of the posture in my body a lot of the time. So I'm really, really trying to hold it. Most of this has to do with (duh) the standing leg. When the muscles are burning, you're so present with the body. A momentary lapse of attention and the leg loses stability. I have a nice deep bow - good flexibility, but need the strength and stability to hold the darn thing!

I also want to use my core muscles more in standing head to knee. Well, there's a lot about the standing leg I want to work in this pose too. I am prone to external rotation in the hips so it feels like I'm always being pulled outwards. These are the goals, it seems to me, ongoing!

The Bikram series is so amazing. It's continually a place to work. In other news, the scholarship I'm applying to in Bali (teacher training, viniyoga style) at www.YogaTrex.net is pretty much good to go - I've submitted most of my materials and a marketing plan and now I sit back and wait. I would love to be a social media ambassador for this training. The thought of Bali is with me always - and it's alive on my desktop a click away... all day long.

Ho hum....

I did a lovely water-free class yesterday. I drank about two liters of water beforehand so I knew I was juicy enough to not even bring water into the room. Right front and center. I was pouring sweat during the breathing! It felt like just when I got back from training, when the humidity and sweat of the east coast felt really foreign to me.

Standing head to knee was not wonderful yesterday - I have such a hard time with the initial set up of that posture. Because of the length of my arms / the size of my chest / the size of my thigh getting the initial grip around the foot is so very difficult. However, yesterday, when I kicked out on one side, I quickly readjusted my hands into the fully interlocked grip and it felt great.

I know the point is to have that grip the whole time but my arms do not reach at the beginning. I'm not sure what to do with that. Just keep trying, I guess. I don't want to be moving my hands a lot in class, setting a bad example... but it's much better form to have the full grip as I kick out. Thoughts?

Standing bow is coming along. My flexibility is there. I need to take a pic from the side to see how close the leg is to straight. I'm sure there's some ways to go but I'm completely abdomen and chest parallel to the floor. I know what it means to come DOWN in that pose. So many people spend so long (like years) not coming down! Come down! Fall out! Join me! Fling forward! I do it a couple times a class, but I know it's the right thing to do. Keeping the standing thigh burningly tight squeezed to the bone is the name of the game in this posture for me. I try try try. I'm one of those people who can easily get the leg straight (because I'm flexible) but it's more of a challenge to keep the thigh burning tight to the bone. I'm working on it.

Some postures that were awesome yesterday
- Standing separate leg stretching second set legs close... felt good.
- Separate leg head to knee did almost all of both sets with both legs locked out, hands in prayer. Where did THAT come from!
- locust - for some reason my body is loving this pose again. Haven't since training. Finally getting the leg back up to 45 degrees and getting a little more height and strength with both legs.
- full locust - a teacher came into our studio to practice on Sunday and the teacher had her demo this posture. Thank you - it has changed my idea of what it's supposed to look like going in, being in, and coming out of this posture. Love it.
pretty much the rest of the floor series felt great too.

I think my body is healed from training. I can't explain how much better things feel this week than... any time since I was at training. Whoopie!

I got some feedback on my energetic class from Monday night... participant (not teacher) said - great class - amazing energy! Then said that there was too much energy in triangle. !??!?! I know I have to take all feedback lightly which I'm trying to do. I need all the energy I can get in triangle, and I figure most people do too. The line that was the most energetic was "reach up, reach up, reach up, touch the ceiling!"

I liked what I did with it. There. I said it. :)