Reports of the demise of my teaching career

are not exactly exaggerated.

My cousin from far away emailed me and asked me about my teaching schedule so that she might be able to take one of my classes when she comes into town in April. I told her that I am barely teaching anything these days due to a mixture of burnout and an inability to find classes that fit my very specialized scheduling needs (those needs reflect my burnout - lately, I don't want teaching to interfere with ANYTHING - not my practice, not my time with my family, not my time for relaxing, etc.). But I did tell her that I would be THRILLED to be able to work with her on making some sense out of the David Swenson practice manual she purchased at my suggestion.

It seems that my joy in teaching, of late, comes almost exclusively from teaching my friends, or people who have come to be my friends after having started out as my students. I have gone from loving teaching big crowds (say, 22 people) to really enjoying the one-on-one vibe. I have gone from wanting to be all over the schedule of a place like New York Yoga, to wanting to teach one or two goup classes, period.

The thing that hasn't changed is my desire to practice yoga. Well, actually, that's not exactly true. My desire to practice consistently has increased. Increased, in fact, to the point where I don't want my teaching to interfere with it. Back when I first started teaching, if someone called and asked, "can you sub this class," I'd be all over it. It didn't matter what time it was. It didn't matter if it was the fourth class I was teaching that day, leaving me with neither time nor energy to practice, myself. But that has fallen away.

A part of me longs for that hunger to teach. That excitement. But those were the days before I realized how much of a performance teaching a Vinyasa class really is. And much as I love to perform, it is DRAINING to do 90 minutes of improv several times a day.

But another part of me is just accepting the change and seeing what comes next. I feel that it will involve yoga. But I am not exactly sure how.

Meanwhile, I am contemplating how to fit my beloved passion into a family ski trip. It looks like I am going to be waking at the crack of dawn and gettin' jiggy wid it. Wid Asthanga, that is.

So...about that...what exactly is the crack of dawn, anyway? How does one go about waking themselves up and moving about at that hour?

Necessity is the mother of invention, they say....

There I go, answering my own questions...

Time for beddie bye. One more class to teach, one more led class to take, one more appointment with my chiropracter, and off we go, into the clear Jet Blue Sky....

YC