Asana 4 Wrap-Up

I walked into the house last night after a 4- hour drive home (in the rain)  preceded by “The Grand Finale” workout, to find the house all candle lit, a fire going in the fireplace, a home-made apple pie, and a chilled-to-perfection glass of my favorite Zin waiting for me.  All the fall decorations were up, the heavier drapes hung, and let me tell you, never was a woman so happy and grateful to be home.

This training was the hardest thing I have ever done.

Now, I know people run marathons, and even trail races which are much more brutal than marathons (i.e. the Megatransect) and those things may not in any way compare with this, but for me?  For me? This was my yoga Megatransect.  At one point, the analogy I kept making was of going into hard labor and giving birth, only to have to wake up and do it again the next day, and the next, and the next, for 5 days in a row.

For the culminating workout, Yoganand incorporated just about every pose we had learned in the entire training. And let me tell you, there was a whole lotta shakin’ and sweatin’ goin’ on in that 2-hour yoga blow-out!

And when it was over my body was a burst pinata.  Little scraps of me were strewn all over the room.  I did my very best to gather them all up and stuff them into my mat bag before saying a speedy goodbye to everyone, but I’m not sure I came home with everything. As my friend Kim would say, I still feel a bit “whifty.”

Thank god for Wanda, my trusty GPS, and her unfailing knowledge of the PA Turnpike with its mazey yields and improbable rights and lefts.  Once she got me to the NE Extension, I was golden.  I set the cruise to 70 and coasted all the way home.

After my Zin and pie I slept 10 hours of deep, Academy Award winning, dreamy sleep, and so far today have just been doing laundry, reading, and staring blankly out the window.

All the way home in the car, I kept asking myself: Why do I do this?

The answers were many and various and included things like: to keep myself from growing cold and stale as a teacher; to learn more, and deeper practices; to challenge my edge; because I love it, and it’s my dharma, and how could I not do it?

And because Yoganand amps my vibe.  And because I like practicing with other yoga teachers and listening to them and watching them and learning from them.

One of the things I learned this time was that my situation at MSY is fairly uncommon.  From a brief  discussion at lunch I learned that not too many, if any, of the studios down there have what I have, which is a really close community.

From what I gathered, if you are a yoga student down in that Philly area, you have your pick of a number of places to practice, but you probably don’t think of that place as your yoga “home.”  You might not have a really strong bond and loyalty to it.  You probably don’t look forward to going to class to see your yoga peeps, for example. You go to do a practice, then you go home.  It could be wonderful, and you love it, but there’s no tribe there.

In a few hours I’ll be heading out to teach my 7 PM class.  I’m really anxious   to get back, to spread out my trusty Manduka, and to lead a few different postures tonight.  Nothing crazy, nothing dangerous. (I really was just kidding about the “Beware!” the other day.)

I wonder how it will feel to “teach” a class again?  It feels like I’ve been gone for a month, rather than just a long weekend.

Some pics: