P*ssing about in yoga

I went to my penultimate Iyengar class (5/6 introductory classes done) this weekend.

Arriving early at the Institute I decided to roll out my mat in the neighbouring park. The October sunshine was warm enough to roll lightly through some parts of my teaching sequence, establishing it in my body-brain ready for a few classes I’m leading this week (more on that in a later post I’m sure!!). And all was pretty nice until…. I got peed on by a dog!! Yes, I rolled through from Downward Facing Dog (ironically enough) into plank and found there was a small hairy canine cocking his leg against my bag!! So much for compassion to all living creatures — I did not feel much love for that mutt!

Onto class (via the washroom to clean my bag!) and the teacher had taken on board my query about Vrkśāsana from the previous week and changed his cuing accordingly. I felt weirdly shy about this. Better than feeling smug, I suppose 🙂

After class we had a bit of a chat about how I might continue after this introductory course — we talked about teachers more local to me than London (or Nice, France if you’ve been following my Iyengar exploration!), although I’d like to find some time in my schedule to take more classes at the London Institute. It’s a bit intimidating but wonderful to go there.

And then on to dinner with friends. Inevitably (despite my best efforts) dinner table talk turned to yoga now and then. My friend has the luxury of private teacher each week but was still asking my opinion on a few things — philosophy as well as āsana because she’s the thoughtful type — and she was really encouraging about the public writing I do. I’d been wondering whether to quit the regular commitment I have for a magazine but she sounded so appreciative. I’d happily spend the time writing just for her… so I might as well continue.

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Featured image from Katie Hay Yoga