Gonna fly now.

I was moved reading this article yesterday. I was lucky to have been raised by a Mom who always embraced whole foods, home cooked meals, and moderate exercise.

My Dad? He once went like 6 months as a teenager eating only apples because he had some acne and he heard apples were good for that. So…..theres that.

I remember having conversations with my Dad where he told us that if he had an obese kid he would take drastic measures to intervene (aka fat camp) because he felt like he would owe it to us to help our lives to be the best that they could be. That sentence really never got finished, but I suppose that the implicit conclusion was that that meant that skinny lives were better lives. I lived to impress my Dad, who traveled a lot when I was young. The main way that I did this was through my athletic performance and academics. When he isn't around enough to charm him with your sparkling wit and cutting sarcasm….you rely on quantifiable items like grades made or records broken. I think that this is one reason that it was so devastating to me to get mono right at the beginning of my Jr. year ~ right when so much of the college scouting was going on. I was 16, had just hit puberty at 15, and here I was, feeling fine, but due to an ultrasound which revealed a swollen spleen from the mono, forbidden to play the sport which at that time defined me and was going to be my NCAA ticket. Little wonder that that is also when I chose to stop eating.

Now, I'm not throwing my Dad under the bus. This was all in the early 80's before the world got touchy feeley and Dad's got hip to their role in creating healthy body imaging and positive self acceptance in their Daughters (if it happened way earlier don't tell me, because this is the story I'm choosing to believe.) I'm grateful for the healthy self image that my Mom promoted and promotes. I'm grateful that I was able to overcome some of the overt and subtle body image messages my Dad inadvertently provided in spades (if he sounds like a bad guy here, he isn't. He is simply extremely disciplined and goal oriented and ~ well, I guess he has a hard time understanding when other people can't just easily and naturally be that way. My Dad is an incredible man who was trying to give me positive messages ~ but they got dreadfully twisted in translation). He's one of my best friends today. And he never (yet) has sent anyone to fat camp. :)

Anyway. One of the classes that I am really really looking forward to teaching is the gentle yoga class that I have on Mondays at 12:15 at the Y. I DO believe that language is incredibly powerful (we spoke a lot about this in our Kripalu weekend at school), and I am again reminded of my need to speak with intention, to speak with love, to speak from the heart with my students best interests always at heart. Speaking to my children is the exact same thing. Sometimes it is breathtaking how almost every day some opportunity to provide either positive or negative modeling arises~ whether it is talking about the foods we eat, my own body, their own bodies as they grow out of clothes….all of it…..opportunities. And it takes thoughtfulness to try to frame every interaction as a positive one around these potential trigger subjects. Man, does it take thoughtfulness. And they are YOUNG! I can only hope that practicing this mindfulness now will help us navigate the coming teen years. I love how my children love their strong bodies ~ not for how they look, but for how they serve as amazing vehicles to carry them through and navigate their worlds of endless possibilities. I literally pray to a God I don't have a name for, that they can, against all odds, retain that. And I pray, that I can be a positive example to my students, or that my own personal experience can help someone in need of help. It already happened with a fellow TT in my program ~ and when those sorts of connections are made they are POWERFUL.

Yesterday was a long day of yoga. I went to the 6 am vinyasa class, walking out to an incredible sunrise. After getting the kids off to school I went to the 9:30 vinyasa class as well…..I start teaching my own 75 min vinyasa class next Sunday and I'm getting nervous, trying to soak up as much vinyasa as I can……..I'm actually writing out a lesson plan for this first class to take the nerves out of it for me. As time goes on I know I can just wing it ~ I've been practicing vinyasa flow/ (Which at most gyms is really some variation of Baptiste flow) for….15 years, 18? I know it. I need to find my voice in teaching it. Jyoti and I met at her house to practice together from 11;30-1:30 as she is in the same boat, she is trying to land a vinyasa teaching spot, but she is really an Ashtanga practitioner. Over and over, trying to figure out our words, our pacing, our voices. Its fun, its scary, its awesome.

Meeting together again today but also with Sue, our mentor. I have a trial class this coming week for a job at that cross fit gym I worked out at last week and we are going to work on specific athletic conditioning release and vinyasa flow with her for a couple of hours this afternoon at my house. I get to get my wine and cheese on tonight at CVG with the first "golf chicks" dinner event of the season. It's 20 degrees out today, so its hard to believe that golf season is right around the corner, but the first competitive wGap matches are actually only about 5 weeks away, which is terrifying as I have yet to swing a club outside due to snow covered ground.

May you all find teachers who speak with intention, who practice loving kindness not only to you, but to themselves.



Namaste.