Giving Thanks

I've decided to leave my 20-hr a week job as an Office Manager. Income won't be a problem, thanks to a supportive MSH who's been encouraging me to quit for some time, to focus on my yoga teaching. It has really been a challenge to fit in 20 hours a week, the office work has been interfering with my regular personal yoga practice, which we've all learned is VERY important to one's well-being as well as the quality of one's teaching. Not to mention I've been trying to do a 40-hr a week job in 20 hours, and that doesn't work for me, and especially not for my boss and my coworkers. I am really, really looking forward to the change, and we've put out an offer to an outstanding candidate so if he agrees to work for us, I'll be confidently leaving the office in good hands.

I knew this had to happen for a while, but I've had control issues over letting go, and it took the intense stress I've been feeling over the last month or so to get me over that, and the fact that I'll miss the people... But I'm so excited for January 1 (I told them my last day would be Dec. 31) when I can start a regular practice (maybe even daily!!!) and perhaps PERHAPS get around to cleaning off my desk.

I taught my last class tonight before taking off tomorrow to visit family for five days. I feel like I'm really starting to project my voice better (although how would I know?) and tonight I tried chanting a bit in the car to "warm up" like a professional singer does. My timing problems are behind me for the most part, and I am loving the students, at all three studios. At one studio, it has NOT been getting hot, but that is another story, one which will have a swift and happy ending, I hope!

I know it sounds corny, but I love teaching more every single class. I've been feeling stressed out in other areas of my life, but teaching is my refuge, my center; I feel this palpable sense of calm and purpose when I step into the studio. I am so grateful that I get to teach yoga.

So, during this time of Thanks-Giving, I'd like to thank MSH, for being so supportive throughout this journey. Get a partner who really believes in you and your dream and the rest is butter. To my dear friends, who came to the first late-evening classes when I got back from training, when they were one of two or three students and I was making a complete boob of myself. To my family, for being supportive even when they thought the idea of doing yoga in 105 degree room was a little crazy if not dangerous! To my sweet A1A, my roommate in training, not sure if I could have made it through without you and SURELY wouldn't have had such a kick-a** time! To Jimmy, for teaching me to find my authentic voice as a teacher, while passing on this yoga lineage with passion and precision, to Tomas for giving me a boost when I needed it, to my studio owners for having faith in me, and last but certainly not least! I thank each and every student I've had in my classes--you are all my teacher. I like to imagine you around me, an ever-widening circle of beings to which I hope I've brought benefit, before which I am humble.

Seane Corn

Last night and this morning I took a Detox Flow yoga workshop with Seane Corn. She is amazing. Heartbreakingly, I cannot find a sub for my Sunday morning class tomorrow (grrrrrr) so I will miss the last, SUPER detox class. It's a challenging, but centering flow that she teaches--a lot of emphasis on stabilization of the foot/ankle, pelvis, and shoulders to protect the knee, lower back, and neck, areas which she says a lot of Vinyasa yogis tend to get injured. BOY is she serious about the lower backs. My legs, butt, and shoulders are sure sore, but not my lower back, not a peep. She just has a wonderful nurturing energy, but her voice has so much POWER. She says "INHALE, Lift the arms, Drop the hips" and I think "YES! I WILL!" (My usual response to coming into Chair pose is (inwardly) "Oh frick, not this again. My quads burn.")

I had been looking for a sub for tomorrow morning for a month. There just aren't enough hot yoga teachers (that are willing to teach at that studio?) It is really chapping my hide that I won't be able to complete the workshop. It's already on her schedule for next year to come back to Seattle, so hopefully I'll have the opportunity to do it again then.

Anyway--the Seane Corn--if you have the means, I highly recommend taking a class/workshop with her.

www.seanecorn.com

Question Answered

The comments ask: "not being someone who knows you personally, i've been wondering what the significance of your blog name/URL is. do you just like marmots, or...?"

Well, maybe I should have a FAQ. When I started this blog, it was a simple run-of-the-mill navel-gazing affair, and did not pertain exclusively to the yoga. When yoga became the focus, I just didn't have the energy to come up with a cute yoga blog name and create a new blog. Kind of a one-blog woman. Anyway, I named the blog for a line in my favorite movie of all time, The Big Lebowski, written and directed by the Coen Brothers, and starring Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, and Julianne Moore. To wit, the operative portion of the screenplay, formatted in play-style for the sake of . . . better formatting:

(One of them holds a string at the other end of which a small animal skitters excitedly about the floor.)

(The Dude looks curiously at the small, nattering animal.)

DUDE: Nice marmot.

(The man with the string scoops up the marmot and tosses it, screaming, into the bathtub.)

(The Dude screams.)

(The marmot splashes frantically, biting at the Dude in a frenzy of fearful aggression.)

I started to paste more of the screenplay here, but I thought some readers might be bored, and others might just want to rent it. HINT!!! NOTE: The animal in the actual film was not a marmot. This is understandable, since they are not normally domesticated (it may, in fact, be illegal.) They used a ferret, which is as it should be, because this makes the Dude's line funny. I, however, have seen actual marmots in an actual national park. They were completely unconcerned by human presence at the time, and so the encounter was rather up-close and personal.

And in case you are saying to yourself: "What a freak! 'The Big Lebowski' wasn't all that great of a movie...this blogger chick is off her nut!" Well, I don't dispute that I may be off my nut, however I'm not alone.

Well, my life is pretty busy. I am sure to stay at my office job 20 hours a week through the end of the year, while the departure of one hot yoga teacher from two of the studios I teach for means I'll now be teaching 8 classes a week! I know my life has changed because I find two things very, very exciting:
1. Getting home before 10:00 at night. Actually coming home anytime if I get to spend more than 20 minutes there.
2. NOT having any calls/messages on my cell phone when I pick it up after a class, etc.
Used to be I was always a bit disappointed if no one called me. No more!

Yesterday and the day before, I took an Advanced Bikram Series clinic at Bikram Yoga of Bellevue. It was actually preparation for the regional Bikram yoga competition at the beginning of next month, so most participants were planning to compete, while I'm not. I was, by far, the least flexible person in the room. So at one point, I spent a lot of time in half-lotus, spectating (because I can't do full lotus.) The class was pretty cool, though. Some of it I was familiar with because of my Barkan training. The teacher was very good. The way they teach the class is pretty snappy, though. I mean, you flow into and out of the postures, but it's awfully fast--guess it has to be because there's nominally 84 poses, if you can get into all of them. It was good, though--knowing or refreshing my memory on some of the advanced poses will enrich my teaching for advanced students in my classes. I did spend a lot of time wrestling with my ego/negative self-talk about not being able to do these poses, and not practicing Bikram 5-6 times a week, but honestly it would months or maybe years of intensive practice to get my hips as open as this instructor and some of the students in this class. I liked the instructor, though--flown in special from NorCal. And by the end of the second day (each day was about 2.5 hours long,) I realized being the least flexible person in the room was a true gift--it gave me the perspective of a beginner in the beginning hot yoga class--not being able to get into all the postures, confused by a lot of the grips, feeling a bit left out or unworthy... So this was very good. Gotta keep the ego in check. The instructor was asking me when I went to teacher training, where I was teaching and you know me, I just innocently flapped my jaw and suddenly I was getting the third degree about Jimmy. In confidential tone, "You know he's not *certified*, right?" And then wanted to know why I'd chosen that training. So, the two most salient points which in my conciliatory, defensive response I forgot to name, I shall now unload on you:
1. It's that 10-page agreement that's so restrictive I'd never be able to make a living and keep it. Plus the way most Bikram-approved studios around here are, they'd never hire me because I wasn't personally groomed at their studios.
and
2. My training isn't certified by Bikram, but Bikram's not certified according to the rest of the yoga world. And everyone else does have more studios.

But overall, a great experience. Good teacher; she means well, she just drank the Kool-Aid. Nice studio, too--tiled showers with phat water pressure. :) Could have been vacuumed a bit better in the yoga room itself, though... Today I sat next to a woman around the corner at Bellevue Whole Foods who asked me where she should go from Rodney Yee's Slow Burn yoga DVD and I sent her their way. (The studio's way--this particular teacher is flying home before too long.)

Today was the first day I worked the teaching schedule for my Thursdays going forward--9:30 Redmond and 4:30 Seattle. After my first class, Alabam and I went running along the river in Redmond. It finally stopped raining! And the sun even shone on our backs on our way back to her office. Tonight, I stayed at the studio to take the 6:30 class (not Bikram) and it was AWESOME. The teacher asked us at the beginning if there was anything we wanted to focus on and when no one said anything, I piped up "Hip openers?" and so it was in this class, I met the pose I'd been looking for my whole life. Or at least, for the last five years. Every time I'm in Savasana (Corpse Pose,) I want two someones to put one of their feet on my two hipbones and lean some of their weight, to open my hips. This pose, a variation of Frog, with belly facing downward, knees rotated out and feet lifted, felt just like that, only it was gravity and the floor opening my hips. I could have stayed there all night, and had an emotional release when I did come out. Oooh, I want to do it every day. I felt just lovely as I left class. I have very tight hips and I just want them to... open. There's a link here that I haven't quite anatomically decoded, because when my hips are really REALLY open, like at training or one mind-blowing Vinyasa class from Krista, the ridges in my lower back just melt and my back is, to borrow from this teacher this evening, buttery!

Ugh.

Just to bring you up to my level of anxiety, or down to my level of fatigue, let me point something out: it's nine weeks until Christmas. Nine weeks! I read this on a blog yesterday, and thought, Well that's swell, Loobylu, whyntcha give me a nice papercut and pour lemon juice on it while you're at it?!

Refer back to my list of roles, to which I forgot to add: First-time marathon trainee. No, I'm not kidding. Although that isn't going too well, my training buddy went down the Colorado and I haven't run a lick since. Will remedy that later today.

Anyway, I'm just whining because I'm busy--WHAT A COOL BLOG TOPIC!!! NOT!!! IRONICALLY I am busy in part because I am flush with teaching jobs. So flush, I called yesterday and turned down the opportunity at the personal training studio. And all my teaching jobs are at yoga studios. Believe me, I know how lucky that is for a new teacher! One of the teachers at the Redmond studio is moving, so I'm taking over two of her classes, so once she's gone I'll be teaching 8 classes a week. Through the end of this year, I'm (gritting my teeth and) keeping 20 hours at the office, but my boss and I are meeting about hiring a new/transitional person for my position and I have put him on notice that I won't be working 20 hours a week starting in January. Hopefully ten, if we can find a good replacement. (I *shouldn't* quit and I actually don't *want* to quit, in answer to your next question.) Until then, I'll be digging in the dryer for clean underwear, creating lots of lists items on which I don't get to check off, and making lots of meals out of the Apple Pie flavor of these things.