I love it when the shala is busy, the collective energy and focus are amazing, but there’s still time for smiles and waves across the room.
The shala is so much more than just the bendy stuff, it’s the community and the effort Hamish and Louise put in to make it a community where everyone is included and supported. I’ve needed that support over the years and will be forever grateful not just to the teachers, but also some fellow students who have looked out for me over that time.
Conference is one of the ways the community is supported. Somehow todays seemed to be aimed at me, with the potential changes I’m likely going to have to make to my very part time working and what could come next.
H said as we get older everyone reaches a point in the asana race where they get to an end point, that last ever posture, thinking Kapo in my case, it’s usually an age thing, we lose the flexibility, the stamina, illness or injury take longer to recover from, at which point L helpfully added we start to lose poses.
Once we reach this point then the practice should change from being quantitative to qualitative , it should be about our quality of concentration, that 90 minutes should be about being mentally present where you are, “be here now” as H put it.
Find your strength through your humility.
It feels like I’ve been on the cusp of the Q to Q change for some time, both in my practice and my life. Getting Kapotasana added at 58 is just down to dogged persistence, of not having the sense to know when Im done and a mad determination to make up for the years of illness and injury that blighted my practice, a sense of now or never, (ab)use it or lose it.
As I alluded to in my previous post I think the very part time job is ending, luckily I don’t need it from a financial perspective, but I do need something other than yoga to get me out of the house. When I (semi) retired 3 years ago Louise told me I should teach, but I felt unable, unready and mentally I wasn’t stable enough, still struggling with the shit of the previous years and still receiving counselling. Then the you know what hit and I hadn’t thought about it since, the 2nd lockdown had me considering jumping under a bus I was struggling so much, luckily the buses weren’t running. But today a friend at conference again said I should Teach. I wonder Is it the right time now where it wasn’t before.