One week into the New Year, I’ll be returning to the schedule at Pause Yoga Amesbury, after a brief hiatus. I’ll be offering a Yoga Basics class, which is intended for all levels.

Find depth in the basics. This class makes the hard poses easy, and the easy poses hard. Beginners and more experienced practitioners alike can benefit from attention to fundamentals. We use the same alignment and actions to build a foundation or strengthen it. We open ourselves to what’s new by reinforcing the familiar.

This is based on the fundamental insight that the same alignment cues and actions used by more experienced practitioners, are used by beginners. Moreover, poses we think of as “easier” or “more basic” can be intense with the right sort of attention.

I’m happy to have a class that suits my regulars and welcomes a brand new crop of students who are coming into the studio from Introduction to Yoga series. Although it’s my philosophy that each person’s practice is unique, it’s also my view that we benefit from the energy of practicing in community. We learn both from exposure to “beginner’s mind” and the breakthroughs that come from consistent practice.

I look forward to teaching from this approach, and hope you will join me. To add the class to your Facebook calendar, scan the QR code below, or use the following URL: https://www.facebook.com/events/284111975446404/. To sign up for my mailing list, use the following form:

I’ve a full week of teaching yoga. In addition to my regular Mindful Vinyasa and Form and Flow yoga classes at Pause Yoga Amesbury and Discover the Wonders Yoga in Dracut, respectively, I’ll be subbing for Roberta Dell’Anno’s All Levels Yoga at Essential Yoga Studio in Andover, and for Linda’s Slow Flow class following mine at Discover the Wonders.

I’ll be squeezing the most out of summer!

I have some good news to share on what is a snowy and reflective day for me. I am fortunate not to have University classes to teach on Fridays, and I decided to forego traveling to my “goto” Friday morning public class because of the weather. Home practices are in order.

One of the most delightful practices I engaged this morning is to prepare a yoga class for a studio to which I am applying to teach on a regular basis. I haven’t been on the schedule at a studio for a year. When I haven’t been recovering from a second shoulder surgery, and rebuilding my own practice from it, I’ve been mainly subbing for Roberta Dell’Anno and Linda Moran.

I get to prepare this class for a group in teacher training; for colleagues, then. I get to do so when this month, I mark seven years since I immersed myself in Anusara Yoga. The decision to do so took my practice and my life in directions which have not yet seen their full fruition. It has given me the gift of vital and decisive friendships I’m committed to treasure without consideration of cost or effort. The maintenance of these relationships has become a practice in itself.

It is one of these improbable friends who introduced me to the studio to which I am applying. The opportunity to teach is something which had “come together” more than which I had to overeffort to seek. So the aphorism on the Yogi Tea bag is appropriate. I welcome it.

A teacher of mine suggested we don’t fully appreciate the wisdom of the assertion of Jois, “Practice, and all is coming.” We think it means practice improves our lives. That’s the half of it. Practice, and all is coming: joy, sorrow, ease, challenge, love, and conflict. In some sense, the greater capacity we presumably develop to live and to savor life means our spirits grow. Larger spirits seem to attract bigger challenges precisely because of this greater capacity to grow from them.

It is with this in mind that I embrace the sacred duty to theme and sequence this practice. I treat it as a challenge, rather than take it lightly. Should I be extended the opportunity to teach at this studio, I will post that outcome here, with great relish, I must add. For I teach to share. The sharing makes the practices sweeter.