I confess. The energy level, environment and mood I’m in does have an impact on what I write at any given time. The Yoga Challenge is nothing more than a self-inflicted bit of discipline that isn’t really designed to do anything or merit any results except to attend yoga classes I may not normally go to at studios where I may not normally practice. Its not as if I have too much time on my hands, believe me, far from it; but I am passionate about yoga, about teaching yoga, and about continuing to welcome change in my own teaching, perception and development as a human being.
As much as I have tried to be objective throughout the challenge and focus on the aspects of a yoga class that people reading this may find interesting or relevant, I realize there is a context (the story or back story), a percept (the sense), and an affect (preferences, likes, dislikes) that plays into my own experience, even when consciously making an effort to filter this out.
Case in point. Last night, I was exhausted when I wrote the post about the class I took yesterday with Mercedes. In fact, I was so tired that I couldn’t muster up the energy to make two points about the class. Instead, I conceded and posted the entry without these remarks. This morning, I woke up to this feeling that I wasn’t being completely transparent in my writing, and as a result, I found it wasn’t fair to the other posts that did offer more detailed level of review. The thing is, the two points I wanted to make are small points, and to you or anyone else, may be unimportant. To me though, they are important details simply because they stood out enough that the next morning I was still thinking about them.
The class, as written in the post, was a challenging Level 2-3 vinyasa based class. What I didn’t say was that there was a bit of chanting at the beginning which didn’t connect to the rest of the class. The chant was to Ganesh, the remover of obstacles, but rather than threading this through the richness of a lovely hip opening sequence, it was left behind. Particularly as the asanas became more challenging it would have been the perfect time to reintroduce. The other aspect I didn’t mention are the two adjustments I was given. If moving through he demonstration of asanas and playful sequencing is Mercedes’ strength, the assists were less powerful. While not dangerous in any way, I didn’t feel they deepened my awareness or understanding of asana.
The beauty in this challenge is that there are so many good yoga teachers in London. What is relevant and important for me is different than what is provocative for you.
On that note, I have begun to think about closure. My last official ’30 day challenge’ class will be on February 5th, but I have decided to continue to go to new teachers and studios one time a month, particularly those studios further afield that I was unable to fit into my practice schedule at this time. I also will be developing a more standardised approach to those entries, something I can amend and use for next year’s challenge. I will post this for you to copy and paste and use if you would like to help participate in continuing an ongoing dialogue about your experiences of London-based studios, teachers and classes. You will be welcome to use it on your own blog, or send it back to me to potentially be posted (anonymously or not) to my blog. If you have ideas of thoughts on this, please share!
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