Excitement at Shala X!!

I am guessing that I am probably in the minority of folks who enjoy it when a guest teacher comes aboard at the shala. To me, it kind of shakes up the energy. It gives me a chance to have someone see my practice anew - not with ideas of what my practice is, based on where it started. I love having Sir as my teacher, don't get me wrong. But it was fun to meet his new assistant today. Ah, what shall I call him? Perhaps his name will do?

Patrick has an accent that I cannot identify. At first, it seems English or Welsh, perhaps. Then it seems to veer off into something vaguely Eastern. He has dark skin, almost Indian looking skin. But his hair is lighter brown than mine. He wears it in a smooth little bun. Patrick is, in a word, adorable. When I came into the shala today, I was actually...ON TIME. A first for me, in a long while. It's easy to be on time on Fridays, since there is Philosophy and Pranayama until just past 9:30 a.m. So, if I come in at 9:30, then the shala isn't even really ready for anyone to begin their practice. But I digress.

Patrick was standing in the vestibule, grinning and welcoming people into the shala. When he saw my cuppa (joe, not chai), his grin lit up a bit slyly, and without a word, I was dropping the rest of it into the garbage bin. "I'm only drinking it because it's so cold out, and I need to get my organs warmed up," I protested, kind of embarassed, kind of laughing at myself. Patrick went and turned up the thermostat. I LIKE a yoga teacher who makes friends with the radiator!

So, for once, I began my practice at the same time as most everyone else, give or take a Surya Namaskar or two. I was even present for the invocation, which Patrick led in a huge booming voice and a tune that I neither recognized nor could carry. Oh well. It's just chanting...it's not a concert. For my sixth day of practice in a row (yes, sixth...Yoga Chickie did not observe the moonday this time around because she had observed her own private moonday last Friday, out of sheer exhaustion and just wanted to really kick it up this week and took Erika Hildebrandt's Half Led Primary on Tuesday, which ROCKED....sorry all you traditionalists....), I was surprisingly energetic and agile. I smoothly progressed from posture to posture, occasionally sliding my feet through at the end of a vinyasa here, a vinyasa there (as I have been doing lately...I would say my rate is 20% at this point).

By the time I got to the Marichyasanas, Patrick was helping out a bunch of other people who were in the middle of their Marichyasanas as well. So, I got no assists at all in Mari A or Mari B.

When it came time for Mari C, I figured that any minute now Patrick would be all over my binding-impaired ass. But I bound on the first side....and I held it for a looooooong time, figuring, "Any minute now...he'll be here any minute now...."

Patrick looked over. And then he went on to assist someone else in another pose. So, I vinyasa-ed my way to the other side, bound that and held it. Again, I figured any minute he would be coming round, saying, "OK, let's do the first side again...."

But it never happened. A minute later, I was on my back, preparing for backbends. Patrick came over to my mat and asked me, "Is that all for today?"

IS THAT ALL FOR TODAY?!!!!

And to that I say, "WOOOOHOOO!!!" By which I mean, I must have looked as if I COULD have been further along in the Primary Series....by which I mean, my Mari C must not look mangled and tortured anymore, or to paraphrase the Yoga Sutras, I must not have looked all bothered by the "play of opposites". At the very least, there must have been a lack of prana leak...

But since I often note that students tend to guess what their teachers are thinking, perhaps guessing wrong, I decided to get some clarity. After savasana, I asked Patrick if my Mari C looked alright. "See, usually, someone runs right up to me and adjusts me into it," I offered by way of explanation, "And since you didn't, I was hoping that it looked like I could handle it on my own...."

"Your Mari C looked fine to me," Patrick responded nicely, if not a bit bemused.

And now, happily, I get a day off. I made it through six days of practice in a row, probably for the first time since my surgery (and by practice, I mean at a shala, as opposed to putzing around at home in and after a bath), I feel good, and I am ready to take a one-day break.

I wonder when I will begin work on Mari D at Shala X, not that it MATTERS. I am binding in it with Erika during led class, sometimes with help, sometimes not. But frankly, it would be nice to REALLY be ready for the next pose by having all of the prior poses mastered. And in order for that to happen, my Parivritta Parsvakonasana still needs work. I think that when I really can get my palm comfortably to the ground in that twist, Mari D will be right around the bend (assuming my healthy happy hips continue to be as such).

YC