Lineage

So the first thing that comes to mind is in terms of tracking, you know, my lineage as far as teaching goes. It's in that Iyengar room. It's in multiple Iyengar rooms with different teachers. For me, at the time, it was this, like, a strict, loving, like, pay attention for teaching. So I really got to, like, tune into my thigh bones and how they were rotating, and then prop myself up coming into supporting backbends and, like, really start to pay attention to my body.

You know, that got me interested in this yoga thing. When I showed up in Ojai, I walked in the door, there was this whole invitation for this older type of teaching, this invitation really towards the inner work. It was the inner landscape, the sweet time to say, the inner wild, and I was introduced to Eric Shiffman for the first time, would do his training, and I was just, like, completely blown away by the permission to be myself, which is, like, an endless process. I am learning it moment to moment, what it means to be myself. But that was really, that was, like, a turning point inward, where it shifted from alignment-based asana, oh, I feel so much better after my practice, to actually, maybe I feel a little worse after my practice, but I think it's a good thing.

I wouldn't be sitting here if it weren't for sangha and community, and I really, truly mean that and feel that, the sangha, the community, it's like a safe container. It's easy and tempting to feel isolated in the yoga practice, to feel like I'm on my mat, maybe I'm in a room or I'm on my mat at home or wherever I find myself, and it's easy, it's so tempting to believe that and feel isolated. And so being physically in a community or being connected, you know, globally, online, helps us remember who we are and where we're going, if we're going anywhere. Going back to that train of thought is also hard to motivate, to get motivated to actually move in practice, to move the body or to sit in meditation alone.