Looking back and looking forward

Permit me a self-indulgent post (it is my blog after all!). I've been recalling a few silly or strange moments from TT that I wanted to remember for myself. Perhaps you'll enjoy them too: That I featured in a one of the other student teacher's dreams: we were swimming in the river so I could teach her Sanskrit (apparently swimming would... Continue Reading →

August 31, 2016 3

Lineage of a sort

Recently I've been talking a lot on the phone with my original guru -- my high school classics teacher who was a fundamental influence on my intellectual development. He stopped me being a lazy and arrogant teenage sh*t, he set me on the straight and narrow and kept me there through some pretty tough discipline, and... Continue Reading →

June 26, 2016 2

Cruelty in Sanskrit class!

“Can I be cruel?” my Sanskrit teacher asked in class this week. Actually all he was proposing was that we read out loud the new vocabulary lists rather than listening to him introduce us to unfamiliar words. Not so terribly cruel after all, but the rules of engagement for adult learning are very different to... Continue Reading →

May 19, 2016 2

Feedback along the way

In Sanskrit class I'm noticing less feedback from my teacher. He used to be quick to correct mistakes or offer help. Now he gives me longer to figure it out myself, and he no longer offers any encouraging noises while I'm puzzling through the words in a sentence out loud. I'm to assume that silence is good.... Continue Reading →

May 6, 2016 3

Sunday is not the day of rest

Before Yoga found me and took a hold of me Sundays meant this: a lazy lie-in, followed by a cooked breakfast (with lots of bacon!), an afternoon nap, and then a slightly miserable evening involving alcohol in an abortive attempt to avoid thoughts of work the following morning. OK, so this is a slight exaggeration or simplification,... Continue Reading →

April 24, 2016 7

Another year rolls round

What's another birthday between blogging friends? As always it's a time to reflect a little on another year past. But I'm choosing this year mostly to be in the now, rather than in the might-have-been past. Life feels good overall and I'm immensely grateful for that. So by way of a celebration of life, I... Continue Reading →

April 20, 2016 6

Myself as a question mark

Hubby came and sat with me the other day at the end of my āsana practice. I was playing some music he liked, so we just listened, breathed, did whatever we each did for those short moments together. He's a bit cautious with physical practice at the moment which is entirely good and fine but I'm trying to... Continue Reading →

March 30, 2016 0

Walking by myself and talking to myself

My teacher often urges us in class not to close down at the end of our practice but to arrive at a place of mental and physical resolution where we can walk out into the world carrying our yoga with us in some way. Yoga doesn't stop with the closing OM, right? Class ran over... Continue Reading →

March 24, 2016 2

Tee-shirts and labels

I wrote a while ago how imposter syndrome made me feel ridiculously self-conscious about labelling myself as a serious enough yogini to merit mat-storage room at my local studio. Yeah, yeah, I know....!! The problems we create for ourselves! But, seriously -- calming my imposter syndrome down is a very real work in progress. Part of the practice for... Continue Reading →

March 11, 2016 0

Good vibrations

Yoga expands the more I practice. It throws opens new horizons to me all the time. Yet the whole yoga thing still makes me feel uncomfortable and sometimes doesn't settle easily around who I thought I was (or who I used to be). So I find myself examining all new aspects of it to be sure I'm not just... Continue Reading →