yoga update.

I just updated my website and I have to say... I'm starting to feel like a real-deal YOGA TEACHER. It's extraordinarily exciting. I have twelve weekly classes on my schedule right now, at six locations, one of which is an eight-week course I'm teaching as part of the community education program at the local community college. Just call me Professor Lowbridge! (Or, wait, I think my dad already has that one...haha). I really am excited for the opportunity to actually teach a course that builds week by week, as opposed to the majority of my classes, which are all-levels classes and attract quite a few lovely one time, drop-in, brand new to yoga types. And that, by the way, is simply wonderful in and of itself - it's really rewarding to see how deeply people can be affected by just one yoga practice. (Don't get me wrong. I've had plenty - PLENTY - of people seem deeply unaffected by just one yoga practice, and I've never seen them again...and that's discouraging and invites second guessing of myself and my abilities. Boo. But part of the yin/yang of it all, right?) But there is a different reward in being able to teach in a way that allows people to actually LEARN as opposed to just having an EXPERIENCE that they may or may not try again for two or three weeks, if at all.

I'm feeling similarly good about my meditation class I offer at my home on Wednesday evenings. There is a core group of four who attend religiously, and then four other ladies who come sporadically, a couple of whom I'd never have had the opportunity to get to know if they hadn't somehow found out about my meditation class. To quote Amy Grant: "baby, I'm the lucky one." =) I feel as though I've been able to hone a skill, that of leading group meditation practice (mostly inspired by the Kripalu tradition of non-judgmental, compassionate self-awareness). It deeply informs the way I teach my twelve yoga classes that are decidedly more asana-based.

Since this is a yoga update, apparently, I'd be remiss not to mention that for as positive as I'm feeling about my TEACHING of yoga, and my abilities therein, I'm feeling less positive about my personal practice of yoga, which really needs a jump-start. Living in a location where there is not a true yoga studio less than forty-five minutes away, it's really discouraging to not have training-opportunities, or even the opportunity to sustain a studio-based practice. I have to admit that I've used YogaGlo as almost my own yoga graduate school - I don't just practice with YogaGlo, but I actually STUDY the classes, the teachers, the styles, the alignment workshop videos - because it's the only real outside voice I have to inform my practice and my teaching. THANK THE BABY GIRAFFES FOR YOGAGLO. Sheesh. Yes, of course I stay current with Yoga Journal and various yoga websites, etc., but truly - it's not the same. It's been a year since my ten days in California during which I was very inspired by practicing at Yoga Shakti twice a day. I desperately need another California Yoga Immersion. I'd absolutely LOVE to take a class with Kathryn Budig in person, after meeting her and taking her back-bend workshop in April. In any event - I'm struggling with the INQUIRY (high-five, Kripalu Kids!) of how to boost my personal practice and feel as fulfilled in that realm as I do in my teaching of yoga.

Breath, Relax, Feel, Watch, Allow. Take a sauna.

Oh! And make these pumpkin smoothies. I'm about to do so RIGHT NOW. Particularly healthy? Nah. Dreamy looking? Yep. =)

om, shanti, shanti, shanti - om, peace, peace, peace xo