Finding a Guinea Pig

Wow.  I should be ashamed of myself for telling people I write a blog.  While I really need to work on posting more regularly, I also have to cut myself some slack because I have been up to all things "Yoga", from doing my reading assignments, attending classes, writing papers, and thinking about blogging.  Things do inspire me, but sometimes when it comes down to sitting and blogging about it, it's hard to get to it.  You know, inspiration often strikes at times when it is inconvenient to blog.

Yesterday, as part of the teacher training program, we had one of our monthly, intensive 6-hour classes. I was so happy to be there, but there's a LOT of information that gets disseminated to you in 6 hours, and it takes a bit to process.  We had a 2 1/2 hour session on History and Philosophy, and while the texts are a lot to digest, I'm excited about an assignment coming up in a few short weeks where we need to intensively study the Yamas and Niyamas.  There are 10 of them, and each week we will be bringing our awareness to one of the principles, attempting to observe them in our interactions and reflect on how we react to that.  I am willing to bet there will be plenty of material to blog about!

The rest of our class was devoted to teaching postures.  We talked in our large group about the instruction necessary to get our students into the postures; what wording is effective, how to enter the posture, how to ensure proper alignment in the posture, and how to exit the posture.  We talked about what postures might work before and what postures might work after.  There's a lot to mix and match, as I'm sure you can imagine!  Then, we broke out into small groups where we taught one another short sequences.

Just a few weeks ago, this "instructing" was a totally overwhelming thing to do, but now we are starting to become a little more comfortable with directing a person into a posture.  The only problem is that the people we are instructing are yogis.  Not only are they yogis, they are people who have near-perfect alignment.  They are gals who do yoga allthetime.  Many have been doing yoga for years.  They don't really "need" the instruction.  You can just say "Down Dog", and they know what to do, self-correcting, making adjustments until the form is perfect while you just stand there and watch.

No, what we need are Guinea Pigs - and Betsy told us so:  "Go out there and find yourself a guinea pig".  We need to find people who do NOT do yoga on a regular basis, people who might not have an extensive background in practice,  so we are forced to find the words that will guide someone properly into alignment.  So where do you find a Guinea Pig?  I started out several weeks ago, actually, trying this with my husband in our family room.  Let's just say that it ended poorly.  I said "tuck your toes", and he said "What?  I don't know what you're saying!" and I said, "Tuck your toes.  How can you not know how to tuck your toes?", and he said some more stuff, and I yelled said some other stuff, and, well, you can only imagine how bad it was.  Now what?

Luckily, I am not so easily deterred.  Even more fortuitous is that my husband is rather forgiving and willing to give it another go.  I wrote out a short 20 minute practice (incorporating some of the postures we've been working on in teacher training), and tonight he was my student.  I had a proper warm-up, some standing postures, a cool down, and a Savasana.  At the end, he said he felt relaxed!  I couldn't believe it!  I actually was able to relax my tense, "annoyed" (he writes his OWN blog about stuff that annoys him.  Which is pretty much everything.  I would give you a link, but a.) you probably do something that annoys him and he's already blogged about it; and b.) his blog gets way more traffic than my blog does, so I don't need to send my readers his way; c.) you might like his blog better and stop reading mine, especially since he posts more than once a month; and d.) he drops the f-bomb a LOT) Husband!!

Have I found my guinea pig?  While this was a much better start, I think I must continue my search.  I should add to my flock herd (I looked that up, a group of guinea pigs really is called a herd!) of willing participants
while I hone and refine my teaching skill.  Look out.
Just for now, allow a wave of breath to enliven your experience... Drink in the possibility of being who and what you really are - Danna Faulds

A lot can happen in a week, especially when not much "happens".  We live in an area that has been hit hard by Hurricane Sandy.  I went back and re-read my last blog post and so many things about it seem frivolous in light of the week we all just experienced.  Who cares about yoga pants, board games, and foot massages when homes are destroyed, lives are lost, and productivity grinds to a halt.  Yes, I was advocating "slowing it down", but I didn't mean for it to STOP.  My usual productivity stopped, so not much "happened", but I feel like so much is different this week from my Pollyanna attitude of last week.

One of many fallen trees has ripped down
power lines, blocked sidewalk,
obstructed road

Yes, a lot happened.  This is the first time I've sat in front of a computer in a week.  All of my "news" has been local - obtained from the Facebook feed on my phone.  Yes, I know, first world problems, but I truthfully kept it all in perspective, and didn't complain - or at least tried not to.  I was "inconvenienced" by Hurricane Sandy. Our house came away relatively unscathed.  A few branches fell, our home had no structural damage (as we have been able yet to determine), and we have a gas hot water heater with a gas pilot.  While we lost electricity, we had hot water at home and could shower.  A mere block away, families lost half of their homes because massive trees fell and crushed them.  Given that, I'd say me without a computer is a mere inconvenience.

We had lots of candles on-hand, so dinnertime was "romantic".  Well, those dinners we actually ate at home were candle-lit, because we were so fortunate to have wonderful friends who opened their homes to us for meals, device-charging, and warmth.  We only ate evening meals at our house twice throughout the 5 days we were without power.  One friend lent us a camping lantern, and that's when my "pioneering" instincts kicked in.  On our walks home, I would tell the boys to gather downed sticks and branches for fireplace kindling.  My husband, who never camped a day in his life (putting up a tent in February with your fraternity brothers, building a huge bonfire, and getting completely drunk until you pass out in front of said fire doesn't count as "camping") wondered, "What the heck is that crazy broad up to now?"  We used matches to light the burners on our gas stove so we could cook up food before it went bad.  Luckily, our fridge wasn't overflowing with food, so this was manageable.  We monitored the freezer contents, and as something thawed out on it's own, we figured out what we could make with it, and ate it.  If someone invited us for dinner, we brought whatever was thawed.  It was turkey burgers one night, beef another night, shrimp a third night - we didn't fare too badly.  We also have eaten more meat than I've eaten in many weeks, so I feel like I've actually been overindulgent.  Let's not even mention the mounds of Hallowe'en candy I've eaten.

A home (and 2 cars) crushed by fallen trees.

So, within a week, my mindset has completely shifted.  Instead of wondering how many emails I'll send in a day, when I'll be able to browse the internet for more yoga pants, when I'll be able to hit the gym, what night I'll be able to catch up on my DVR, I needed to wonder about other things.  With electricity removed from my life, I had to wonder about how long I could go without doing laundry and how I could work out the logistics once it was time to do laundry.  I had to plan out when and what path to walk home from friends' houses because without streetlights to guide us, it was really unsafe.  There was no "work" for a week, but before people think it was a vacation, it was anything BUT.  I may not have created lessons, graded papers, or interacted with students, but I certainly worked: keeping in touch with friends via text messages, updating my family who were unable to reach us by landline, reading info feeds on Facebook that reported news of damage cleanup around our area, not to mention the fact that everything takes twice as long when you don't have electricity.  By the end of the day, I was more exhausted than I usually am after a full day of work.  I'm sure the emotional toll had an effect, but I slept soundly for 8 hours a night (maybe it was SO cold in our house that my body went into hibernation mode.)

In the past week, you could say "nothing happened" in the sense that I wasn't productive my usual way, but a lot happened, including surviving a hurricane and changing my perspective.  I'm so grateful for the small losses we had to help us notice and appreciate the bigger picture.

Thank you for reading.
Namaste.