Shala practicing again, and ...

Since I last posted I have been to Mysore class at the Byron Bay shala a few times. Each time Christian was the teacher, and each time Dena was there in a corner of the room, doing her own practice. A strong, quiet presence in the room ...  Feels really good to be back practising in class again.

On the weekend a friend and I went out for a drive, which turned into a bit of magical mystery tour! We had been going to the monthly market at a small village in the hills behind Byron, but it  turned out to have been on the previous weekend. So we decided to carry on driving through the beautiful countryside and ended up in Nimbin. For those either not old enough to remember, or not from Australia, Nimbin was the location for a famous Aquarius Festival back in the 70's (see www.rainbowdreaming.org/the_aquarius_festival.html for a description of it!)

My friend and I had both been at that festival - in fact I remember hitching up to it with a friend from Sydney ... Cannot imagine ever doing anything like that now ... :)  To be honest, I can't remember much about it all - probably too under the influence of various substances! But we ended up in an information  centre in Nimbin and I was completely delighted to see a display of photos from the festival, including photos of two of our musician friends!

And today someone is helping me put in two raised veggie beds! (Actually, he is doing it, I am supervising!!) Can't wait to be able to grow some veggies again. I bought some (biodynamic) seedlings at the farmers market today in anticipation!

Finally, back to class

I'm not even going to say/guess how long it is since I've been to a class at the (any!) shala. A loong time, far too long! Some of that because of sickness or visitors etc, sometimes because of monkey mindtrips!

I have been practicing at home, but a bit sporadically, and definitely lacking in intensity. I did decide to stop beating myself up about it all, and wait till I felt like going back. And finally that has happened. I went to a led class at the Gold Coast Yoga Centre yesterday afternoon. I like that place - people are friendly. The teacher (Danny) remembered my name after all these months! and he told me to take it easy ... I certainly had to do that! Standing was reasonably ok, but once we'd got to the seated poses and all those vinyasas, my arms got more and more tired! I started off just doing vinyasas between the pose (not each side), but ended up not even being able to do any! It's unbelievable how quickly strength goes! I knew this theoretically, but right now I really know it! Today I am aching in muscles I'd forgotten about!

And while on a roll, I'm going to go to Dena's shala tomorrow morning for a Mysore class. Not with her - she is teaching intensives and they are booked up for the rest of the year! But there is a 9.30 class, sometimes taught by one of her assistants, sometimes by Jack. So those are the classes I usually go to.

Hopefully this will get me on track to continue practicing at home with more intensity, and to go to classes regularly too ... Fingers crossed!



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