Gate pose. And Creativity.

I was grateful to be able to go to Sue's level 3 class this morning. This is my favorite class of the week, I love the inversion class, but from a pure *mind in body body at work* perspective, this is the class that I can just disappear into. I feel like I blink, and 75 minutes of beautiful, outrageous, power flow have gone by. The best thing about Sue is that you have no idea what to expect from one week to the next. My new favorite thing to do it to take something that I saw her do over the course of a week, and use it in my Friday Morning class. I feel like A. It shows her that I'm paying attention.......and that I have the confidence to modify or expand from the original... and B. I get to focus on something new (whether learning or teaching) at every class I go to. 

I had to stay up past my 9pm bedtime for a wonderful reason last night, we celebrated my sisters 30th birthday with a great surprise party that my brother in law put together. This morning we had to split up ~ Nate to the gym and me to the studio. 

The thing that is forever true about yoga is that there are only so many ways that the body can move. Flexion and extension (sagittal plane), internally and externally rotating (transverse plane), and adduction and abduction (horizontal plane). So. We can use that knowledge in ANY pose. You can raise an arm up overhead and lean left and stretch your side. You can bring that same arm up from a 45degree angle in front of you and bring it up as you bend and twist back.....opening the back waist, and involving multiple planes of movement. Ditto that same arm at a 45 degree behind you ~ move it up over and overhead, opening up the back waist, and you are again moving through two planes. 

Thats it! You can do any pose in a myriad of ways, you could literally do an entire practice doing variations on just a few poses, but ultimately you are simply moving through three planes in space. 

Throw in arm variations, foot placements, twists and balances and combining movements......and you can do ANYTHING. YOu can fill your practice endlessly with a myriad of ever changing poses and combinations. Today we did something Sue called "One legged swimming dolphin". Arms in dolphin, fingers interlaced, one leg raised to ceiling, taking the head over the hands, and pushing back up, then down. Five repetitions of that on one side then switch to the other. Wow! Never saw that before. 

Ditto what we did in gate pose today. I'm coming to learn that almost (almost) any yoga pose can be modified to any skill level. Gate is a perfect example of that. I did it the other night in Barbara's level 2 class and it was lovely and gentle and a fantastic side opener which also opened the groin. 

Today? Somehow, one step at a time, we ended up here:

It is amazing. Yoga is like this blank page. You know the basics of writing a paper ~ introduction, thesis, blah blah blah. Yoga is just like that ~ you can write the practice, write the journey however you want! The more classes I attend the more I can focus in on what it happening, how the teacher is getting us from point a to point b, and then back to point a. 

So much fun. So much yoga. That whole January downtime thing? I'm doing it. I've said no to a few things this week that would have been fun abut its ONLY JANUARY 12~ not even 2 weeks since New Years! This weekend was all about family ~ I was out to dinner with my parents after the kids game friday night since they came and Nate was out of town, last night the party, and today a wonderful celebration of all of the January birthdays in our family (So many its crazy when you look at my family and Nates family). 

We are looking ahead to a week with Nate far off in San Fran. We had so much great down time and family time this weekend that we are ready for it. I got in 13 yoga classes this week, taught, and learned. 

A great week. Wishing you all a lovely sunday evening with your people. 

Namaste.