I stuck with my plan yesterday, got ready and drove to Coeur d'Alene for a class at Garden Street Yoga with Jenifer, an Anusara-Inspired™ teacher with great skills.  She is one who remembers to go back and reiterate the theme throughout the class, reminding us of why we are there - not so easy a task.

In her introduction, Jen talked a bit about the 'protection' that kidney loop provides, and that we must then balance it with shoulder loop (the 'opening up'), for a more complete, well-aligned torso expression in our poses.  And, I believe, her heart quality was to "love ourselves".  (Jen sometimes reads this blog, so I hope I got it right.)  What I can say for positive is that everyone left that class feeling better about themselves -- the primary goal of an Anusara® class.

FYI, to plan an Anusara® class, there are several ways to approach the planning.  The end result is a theme for the class (something students are able to relate to), a heart quality (a feeling that students will experience), a specific action to work on, an apex pose (with sequencing appropriate to that pose), and all this must relate in some way to yoga and Anusara® philosophy.  Whew!  Lots of things to plan and think about.

I've posted the poem she read during her introduction, which set the stage for the "meet ourselves, love ourselves".   What a great poem to correlate back to the reason we are practicing yoga -- for me, it was losing a connection to myself, re-connecting, and re-kindling fond feelings for myself.  To write the word 'love' instead of 'fond feelings' is still a bit difficult, I find - even as I write this.

During the class, Jenifer introduced me as a "great yoga teacher from SLC" -- Wow!  She gave me permission to discard my block in Trichonasana, but asked the rest of the class to use one.  A nice compliment, but I decided to do exactly what everyone else was doing.  I am not so 'great' that I can't step back and learn.  And, Trichonasana with a block once in a while is a very good thing -- it allows us to experience the other pieces of the pose without the pressure of getting that hand to the floor. It was nice to be in a class where we were concentrating on building skills for the future.

I did offer a couple observations, which I hope was o.k.  One was generated by her teaching, so - something I learned on the spot; the other, a tip from Martin Kirk about the front leg in trichonasana.  One thing I don't want to be is the "great yoga teacher" who thinks she knows so much she can usurp the seat of the teacher -- never, never never!

So, Jen - if you are reading this, thank you for a great and welcoming class.  I took volumes away from it in personal and teaching experience.

Here is the poem she read to us at the start of class:



Have a marvelous Monday,