Thanksgiving miracle..... Well maybe, this is normally a rough holiday for me. I was due on Thanksgiving, my dad even calls me "turkey" , but I was actually 3 weeks late. Even then, a true procrastinator! My mom likes to make a big fat, anxious, obnoxious, dramatic spectacle for every freaking holiday. As a child I was enslaved, elf like, to the busybody,crafty, cute crap my mom adores. I've been to a Christmas bazaar, let me tell you....At a fairly young age, shrouded in the matching holiday outfit, putting on the matchy-match holiday "show", I turned to a bottle of Harvey's Bristol Cream that someone gave my parents but only I seemed to enjoy{ my inner old lady must like the sherry!} One good pop an occasion and I'd be out cold, blissfully released from child servitude. It is no surprise to me that several years later I'd spend one Thanksgiving buying valium in Mexico and eating turkey at a CoCo's with my drug buddies, and another passed out cold in jail after a drunken driving spree through Laguna Beach. That one earned me jail and rehab, which gave me a Thanksgiving in said rehab, and another one working an AA dinner. Since the yoga took hold I usually teach a class as I am one who has no problem working on this holiday and yoga makes everything better.

This Thanksgiving my brother and I want to go to the beach. He's recently taken up surfing and re-inspired me to the waves and we try to go a least once a week. We don't want the whole ordeal, with a turkey usually named after my escapee father, and the over eating etc. We want beer and waves and the dogs and smores and a big turkey sandwich. I want to play volleyball and have dog races and surf and eat sandy marshmallows. No matching outfits, no crying, no fricken green bean casserole! And after a big argument last night with the mother and sister, who are desperately trying to ruin everything and force feed the tradition, I am holding strong. I am even going to make the fruit salad from Top Chef, wis a spicy mint chimichurri!

Who knows, maybe it won't suck.

As for practice news, I just barely made it to my classes, I actually took off for 2, LH and an asthma bout, but I did make it to Tims Improv {watched Tiffany put her toes up her nose in Scorpion!} and to Leigha Nicoles workshop at Diana's on the backbend sequence. Almost kicked myself over from viparita dandasana. Almost. My plan is today MOON DAY! I'll teach naturally but no practice, and tomorrow, bust ass to get to Tim's for 9 am mysore. Wish me luck!

Namaste you Turkeys!

Really nothing much going on, why I haven't blogged, etc. Fell off the practice wagon, been picking up a bunch of subs for the holiday stash so after 4 classes, or in between 4 classes, I really want to lay around, not practice. Only surfed once last week as well! Humph. See why I haven't posted.

But I miss you guys!

Stupifyingly hot



really, really quite bright and hot. Damn.

Today , taught class, surfed- San O was packed..I mean really, where does everyone come from? don't you people work? Not every one can be rolling wit the yogi life! and now I am getting in the car to drive up into Hades itself, LA to take class with Shiva Rea.

Yeah I know, awesome, I do understand how lucky I am.

Old Wheeze Bags



So I'm sitting here at the computer and it's like 6:15am bcs I'm not going to make it to Diana's shala to practice this morning. Last night, during standing poses in my last class, my lungs chunked out on me. I have asthma, fairly serious...was hospitalized a few yrs ago for 2 weeks {imagine that bill!} and hit up the ER at least once a year. Yoga has helped tremendously, and "the energy guy" I'm seeing should also help eventually, but last night as the marine layer rolled in my lungs tightened beyond the help of my inhaler and I actually had to sneak out of class to take a pill before the ER was a solid option. It worked, 2hours later, and the meds kept me wide awake until 1 am.
The hardest part was I had a random student come in who is a student of BOTH my teachers, very talented, very sweet... but my ego lit up a bit and to be honest it made me nervous enough to push it as I didn't want her to be disappointed and concievably "report me to the authorities" Crazy, no?
So my plan is to practice this afternoon after breakfast, surfing, and a private I have scheduled, to take it easy, and to consider my intense lack of ishvara pranidaniha [yeah I know, painfully misspelled] bcs after all, the practice is the teacher, everyone ALWAYS gets the class they need, and I should maybe try to be a little more proud of my skills as a teacher and my rock&roll application [we played Dark Side last night] that my students enjoy. But the class was small for Friday and I think that also affected my composure, remember I'm in the process of asking for more money and small classes never look good to the numbers people.

I FEEL SO GUILTY FOR MISSING PRACTICE THIS MORNING!!!

I know you should only miss if you have a fever, and Diana has this lady, Leah, for a few weeks minding the shala who is wonderful, student of Tim's since he was a young buck, and an amazing bodyworker who gives mind blowing adjustments....and I wanna go! But I'm still shaky, a lil wheezy, and really tired underneath the guilty medicated anxiety. Also, when I go to the Shala it is a lot harder for me to chill out, I tend to want to do everything full bore as the prana is intoxicating.

I will practice later, i will practice later, i will practice later....

Beyond the lungs, this week of practices has been really great, I feel lighter and stronger and isn't that why we do this work? To slough off the detritus of gluttony and sloth?

Wah!

Oh well...Leah will be here fo a while, and it'd be worse to have to leave practice at the Shala in an ambulance than to miss this Saturday I guess.

I will practice later today.

namaste

Things you might not know and a couple that I learned today...



So it's been a frenetic Friday and I still have one more class to go. No practice today, though at the close I'll have taught 4, and I am as tired and stressed as possible. At this point i have downshifted to slap-happy so that'll be fun for the last show tonight.

things you don't know about me:

well since this is like my 5th post, you know virtually nothing but here are some highlights:

I teach Ashtanga yoga at Yoga Works in OC
I play TOOL sometimes in class
I too, am a graduate equivalent from a rehab facility
I have never participated in the Rocky Horror Picture Show
I hate crunchy onions in anything, but grilled is ok

stuff I learned today:

sometimes weird is weird even if you're wearing pigtails.
It's always hard to ask for a raise, even when you have the super fluffy love job like "yoga teacher"
Evidently Mercury is in retrograde, no wonder sinkers keep falling from my face!
Four classes is really just too many for me.

I am here primarily bcs I spent almost a year lurking ashtangi.net and then bcs my buddy Sasha asked me to blog. She has moved up to Davis and i miss her enough to type. Tom, is currently mocking my poor typing bcs it prevents me from mooning over him, poor baby. Sigh!

I got on hour before my next class.....anyone wanna sub? Tiffany?

DAY SIX



Ok, so I made it thru week one, 6 practices, six different teachers including myself, Sherrie, Cathy, Geo, Denise, and finishing up w/ the Big Kahuna, Tim. Improv was really fun today, arm balances, backbends, and I got the awesome baddha hasta dhanurasana adjustment which allowed me to hold on to both of my feet. I think Tim was a little afraid I'd kick him, in this precariously placed adjustment, bcs he goes, "Don't Let Go." I didn't...until he was clear! Saw my San Diego girls which makes me happy. I always meet the coolest chicks at Tim's trainings and retreats, usually we end up being called the Shakti Posse. Sometimes my favorite part of partaking of Tim's amazing teaching is it puts me in a group of like minded, burly, crazy peeps and I can just be a humble chucklehead instead of the teacher. And Tim's yoga is powerful to behold, dropped my jaw a time or two today. Big guy moves real smoove.

So good news is tomorrow I'm off, bad news...still teach 4 classes, best news...Sunday is a Moon day so even tho I teach 2, I still will skip my personal practice. It's a Full Moon and I'm felling pretty good to want to play around with fate. Uh Oh, there's a backbend/arm balance workshop @ Costa Mesa w/ Darren Rhodes... hmmmm...... well, I'll decide Saturday.

November 2nd, already and in the South OC it is warm, sunny and quite nice. My honey, Tom says hello to all of you. He likes to have frequent mention....This doesn't mean mention of how bad he was on Halloween, but rest assured, he was very naughty. I'm enjoying the extra kisses. Hee!

Namaste, lil pirates!