Growing Pains

(butterfly pic cheesily symbolizing changes and transitions)

I taught my last Wednesday Vinyasa class tonight. On one hand the end was bittersweet as I was just starting to find my groove with the class, on the other hand I'm grateful as teaching the class was wearing me out in terms of my schedule. I had a few regulars in the class tonight and we took time to explore inversions such as handstands and forearm stands.

This week has been like magic in terms of yoga. Someone told me to teach from the heart and I've really been trying to do that. I come to my students open and honest about where I am in my life and in my practice, and instead of "teaching," I bring them on my journey with me. And something has changed. In my UT classes, students are binding and popping up into headstands for the first time. Tonight, I had a student hover in pincha mayurasana for the first time, and another taking courage to attempt handstand for the first time ever! Teaching can be more tiring that people think, but the look of wonder on their faces when students are finally able to do what they've been working on for years makes it all worthwhile!

As the semester is closing out I've been completely burnt out. I'm exhausted, unmotivated, and emotional. I'm also finding myself just in a place of brokenness. While I have a lot of hope towards what's to come, I think I'm facing a lot of ugliness in my own life, seeing flaws in my character and in my heart. I truly believe that this sadness and brokenness is a righteous brokenness (much like what people call righteous anger), and that it's going to serve as an impetus to really examine my life and ask for a change in heart. Like I had mentioned a few blog posts back, I'm entering a time of transition and great things are about to happen in all aspects of my life! I think right now I'm just experiencing some growing pains.

Anyway, I'm embarking on a month long detox to start ridding my body of all the junk I've been eating this past semester. This week, I'm cutting down on animal products (meat, eggs, and dairy) and weaning myself off caffeine. Next week I'm cutting out processed foods. I'm also looking forward to changes in my yoga teaching schedule starting this Saturday as well as the semester (finally) ending next Friday. Projects I'm going to be working on this summer include designing a website for my yoga teaching as well as designing and ordering some business cards. I'm also hoping to write up my Master's thesis and my prepare my dissertation proposal for this coming fall. Then I'll be in Israel for most of July and coming back and moving into a precious little studio apartment in Hyde Park.

Hopefully I'll start updating regularly soon! I'd love to have a public record of this journey and time of transition!

Updating Soon

Wow, this month got away from me. Hopefully I'll start updating again either next week or at the latest in May....

Day 2

I've updated my yoga schedule for May. May will be a little crazy as I'm trying to set myself up financially for the summer by teaching 7 yoga classes a week. I'm still in the process of figuring out my UT teaching schedule for June through August, but that will likely fall into place within the next few weeks.

I taught my first private yoga lesson today. It was an Ashtanga lesson, and so I walked in with nothing more planned than to observe and correct. It was a really fun experience. Mike once said something about teaching based on flow of energy rather than simple anatomy, and I found that to be helpful in figuring out how to correct and better teach my students.

My friend Jessi is in Austin this weekend for a wedding, and I used her being in town as an excuse to check out First Thursday for the first time. South Congress was transformed into a street with performers and vendors, and it certainly had a feel of a small scale Ann Arbor Art Fair. It broke up this week and made the second half of the week feel like a continuous weekend. However, work is hitting hard as my relationship identity negotiation research is gaining momentum, and I just received possibly the most positive reviews for a paper I'll ever receive in my career. Hopefully, I'll find some time to get some work done this weekend!

Day 2 of the 40 Day Yoga Challenge, and I've actually been able to practice all of first series and half of second for two days in a row! It helps that I've found that I can finish all of that in about 1 1/2 hours (it used to take me a full two hours). I've realized that my lower back, while very strong, has become very very tight, and I've been working in primary to start stretching out that lower back. The result is the lower back has been feeling a little more floppier than usual lately, but hopefully it will all balance out.

I've learned many things in Ashtanga, and one of them is that imbalance is sometimes necessary to achieve balance. Injury is sometimes necessary to heal. Sometimes brokenness has to occur to strengthen and grow. That isn't to say I'm going to purposefully injure myself, but injuries and other little detours to serve a purpose and can actually enhance and grow the practice. And hopefully I can begin to take the same perspective on life. That the little detours and valleys I experience aren't debilitating - rather they are opportunities for me to mature and grow stronger and become more equipped for my purpose and goal.