Practice and Teach

Jai Bhagwan!

lotusAh, I very cleverly forgot to mention a few ah ha moments from last night.  The first is that without realizing it, I can now step my foot forward from ashva-sanchalasana without having to tent my fingers and I can almost grip my own fingers in gomukasana.  My shoulders and hence my chest and heart are all slowly starting to open.  The real breakthrough, however, was realizing one very good reason why it is important to teach rather than to practice with one’s students.  The obvious reason is that it allows one the time to help students with their alignments but I found one on a completely different level last night:  Awareness.  Since last Tuesday with Gurudev, I have been able to slip into somewhat profound states of medidation fairly easily and I found myself doing this more and more as class progressed last night.  At times, I was completely entranced by what was happening with my body to the point that twice I had to remind myself that I was teaching and needed to be present externally rather than focusing inward so concertedly.  After the second time, I intentionally remained focus on the students in the room rather than trying to focus on the shared sensations of practicing together.

On a side note, it looks like we’re heading over to my cousin’s for a bar-b-que tonight.  I am happy to go on the one hand because I am quite close to this cousin but on the other, my tummy is already letting me know that it’s skeptical of my discretion when it comes to choosing foods to eat that won’t quickly turn into a regret fest.

Jai Bhagwan!