“Ksero ta vasika Ellinika” my husband proudly announced to me recently. “I know basic Greek”. He’s been using a language learning app every day for nearly a year since UK went into first lockdown. He does a couple of exercises everyday with an occasional splurge of more concentrated work. It’s a classic case of the... Continue Reading →
Masterclass in shouting?
I went to a zoom ‘masterclass’ with one of my teachers recently. Hubby wondered what a yoga masterclass is. I don’t really know. These funny words that get used in yoga land! He hears snippets of the classes I attend at home and I think he receives an odd perspective about how yoga classes work.... Continue Reading →
Learning to learn
After my learning overload of the past month, I was looking forward to making time to assimilate all my new learning. Oh, I’d forgotten I’d signed up for a short series of Sanskrit reading classes! According to my usual habit of imagining all learning situations will be challenging and difficult, with an over-demanding teacher who... Continue Reading →
Recycling
I’m realising how much I am a creature of habit. Not just in the way that I like a coffee in bed in the morning, a walk at lunchtime, eating late and listening to classical music before bedtime. Beyond these obvious habits, I’m learning the habits of my mind a bit more intimately. It’s horribly... Continue Reading →
Baggage train
I’m not a big fan of yoga teacher trainings. I pretty much hated my 200 hour end to end — which (I hasten to emphasise) says much more about me than about my patient teachers. I think they did a good job in 200 hours to set us up to be safe, competent enough, rooky... Continue Reading →
About town
I ventured out one day this week, walking right across town, west to east. All of three miles! It was the deepest into urban space that I have been in the past six months or so of lockdown. I have avoided concentrations of people and enclosed spaces; I simply had no need of them. I... Continue Reading →
Hands down a great class
I went to class with my regular teacher this week for the first time in a month, maybe more. It’s strange that in pre-corona life I used to spend pushing 5 hours with him each week and now it’s down to one at best. And that hour feels a little painful — or least tainted.... Continue Reading →
Virtually enough
I was having a bit of a teaching wobble earlier this week. One of those periodic crises of confidence. I’ve been teaching long enough now that I expect it and am usually content to allow the waves of uncertainty to wash over me a while, knowing it’ll pass. But this episode was magnified by the... Continue Reading →
Resolution on tiptoes
So is it time for a review of those new year's resolutions yet? I don't usually make any, I dislike the whole 'new year, new you' rhetoric, as if life isn't hard enough as it is, as if being me (fully me) isn't a life-long resolution in itself. The attempt to do that is pretty... Continue Reading →
Choose life
I was with my bodyworker on Monday. As always deep, deep work. She sure likes to give me my money's worth! 75 minutes gets right into the very fibres of my body -- the work on my fascia is just the superficial layer compared to what lies within and beneath. I had wanted to address... Continue Reading →