Heart Up

I love practicing back bends and I love teaching back bends. There's a crazy rush I get from my heart lifting up without me having to balance on my hands (kitten arms and such). Last week I knew what I was going to teach but I wasn’t sure how I was going to get there. Camel pose, Ustrasana, is one of the poses that I struggle through. My body resists it and my brain really resists it. I blame some scarring Bikram experiences and near pass-outs. However, the idea of creating a firm base and offering up my heart is something I need to feel both in my practice and in my life.

I knew I wanted to work through that with my students but I didn’t have a good way to connect it. The sequence worked but it felt a little hollow without the right stroke of inspiration. Luckily for me I had scheduled some time to talk with a client Friday afternoon, just before my class. I asked him where he gets inspiration, his answer was so astonishingly simple but incredibly inspiring. By talking to people he admires or sees doing cool things he gets energy, he gets excited.

It really is that simple.

I feel it in classes when we’re flowing together, I feel it when I can talk to someone about what they’re going through, I feel it when NamasDrew and I work on a project. Opening up, just throwing it all out there can be disorienting but it’s heady, it’s energizing. It’s special.

Here’s how we did it and what we listened to while we did...