Favorites

Every day when I walk home from yoga class, I rattle on to my partner about how much I loved that class with my favorite teacher.

Only problem is: they're all my favorite.

"Is it Mr. D today? Or Ms. M? Or Ms. D?" he'll ask. I love them all. I have the greatest teachers. I love them for different reasons.

Ms. D. is excellent at integrating the emotional with the physical. I'll say, "I'm having an attack of Seasonal Affective Disorder" and she'll incorporate all these invigorating light opening poses and bang! I feel better. Ms. M is a Brennan method healer, and does some incredible work with using energy and vibrations to heal physical injuries. I am sitting comfortably now because she did some work on a horrible tailbone injury I had for no less than five months. She also teaches a very athletic class that pushes my limits every time. And she gives assists to make it possible for me to achieve new poses that I didn't think I was strong enough for. Mr. D is a classically trained western personal trainer, and approaches yoga as our cheerleader. He's so much fun, and teaches in a way that makes me feel like he's on our side, rooting for us the whole way.

So I have favorites. Three favorites. They're all my favorites.

So far I've practiced at a little studio in the suburbs of Philly, but come January I'll be practicing at a big studio in Center City Philly where they have class on the hour and where one of my teachers took her training. I am a bit intimidated. Do I have the right thing to wear? Will they think I'm fat? (probably.) But one thing I've learned from yoga is: just do it. Just be there. I was at my worst, my near lowest point, when I took up yoga and a week later I felt like a goddess again. Let it take you where it takes you. Somewhere between you and it, somebody knows where you need to go.

Why You Should Do Sun Salutations Before Making Any Strategic Decision

I was about five months into my yoga practice when it dawned on me: we should do sun salutations before we make any strategic decision.

Here's why:

-- Backbend: looking behind, considering our experience.

-- Forward fold: experience the freedom and flexibility we need to make new choices

-- Flat back: gaze on the horizon, looking towards the goal

-- Foward fold, again: once again, reinforcing the flexibility to approach the situation in a new way

-- Step it back: high plank. Position of strength. Need I say more?

-- Up Dog: opening the heart to new possibilities.

-- Down Dog: Firmly rooted in reality, from every limb.

-- Mix it up. Need some strength? Go into some warrior poses. Lunges, warrior 1 and 2, etc. My favorite is to step back into high plank and then flip in and out of Sage Pose a few times (aka side plank) and see how wise you feel when your arms are burning. In any event, put in the moves you need to accomplish your goal.

-- Back to foward fold. Earth touch. Firmy rooted in the earth, flexible and loose.

-- Round up to another backbend: considering what we've learned.

-- Conscious mountain: receiving our lesson.

At least, that's how we do it at my studio, here in a little suburb of Philadelphia.

The Itsy Bitsy Yogini Climbed Up the Water Spout

I'm not an expert. No, not at all.

I started practicing yoga about six months ago, after a couple of years of doing Pilates.

What I found completely changed my life.

The practice of yoga teaches directly. It transforms the physical lessons into spiritual teachings without so much as a word. It is obviously my way forward.

So I'm not really a yogini, as yet. Hoping to get there someday. As of now I'm a yogista: someone who is passionately in favor of yoga and an avid practitioner thereof.

Let me make a few things clear:

1) I do not hold myself out as an example for anyone. These diaries are simply about my experience, not meant to be instructive or even entertaining. If you don't like it, just change the channel.

2) I don't believe that yoga is for everyone. I'm not trying to convert anyone. For many years I knew I wasn't in the right space to do yoga. If it's not for you, don't do it.

3) I don't think I'm good at it. Not at all. But I love it, and I learn more about myself and the world by doing it than I ever did from all the books I read in college.

So here I am... the Itsy Bitsy Yogini, climbing up the water spout.