Intensive with Dena

One week down of the 4-week intensive with Dena! I did it - actually made it to all 6 days' classes - some didn't!! Wasn't sure I would be able to cope with the intensity - I think it's actually the first time I've been to 6 days' worth of classes in a week. Except for workshops of course ... But they are just a week - will have to see how I go over a 4 week period! I was, however, very glad to hear that Sunday was a moon day, so 2 days off this time!

Dena said to me that she was glad to have a month to 'work on' me!! Ha ha - she'll need it I think! Jokes aside, I'm really glad to have this chance to deepen my yoga practice. I know I've been doing more / putting more effort in since I've moved, but this is definitely another step!

We've been doing various breathing / pranayama 'exercises' at the start of each day ... That and the things Dena has been saying to me (which all yoga teachers say to me, and even my mother ... !!!) about sitting up, straightening my back ("think of it as a big push-up bra"!!) - well, they all apply to singing too - singing teacher is another person saying the same things! ! Interesting how different parts of my life have such strong links!! Hopefully it'll all go in properly at some point!!!

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Part of the music family

Went to a really lovely lunch in Tweed Heads with various friends on the weekend. We were all told to bring our singing voice/instruments, so I knew it was going to be a musical afternoon! A couple of the people invited were professional musicians who I've seen perform in front of 5,000+ people, the rest of us were (just) people who like to sing!

And after a yummy curry lunch people started singing and playing different songs - mostly that they'd written themselves. Some were a bit shy, but it was lovely to see them blossom when they took the plunge and started singing/playing. I sang a couple of the songs that I'm singing at my music teacher's soiree on Thursday night ... One of them is a duet I'm singing with someone else so I sang that one to a recording I had on my phone of the two of us rehearsing it - otherwise it'd have been missing half the song! We finished up by all singing (and dancing!) along with some Aretha Franklin videos on YouTube ... Such a fun day, although my voice is still feeling the effects of that high Aretha Franklin singing 2 days later! (No photos being shared because some there specifically didn't want photos on the interwebs!)

And I'm so pleased that I seem to be able to sing in public now without too much embarrassment ... At least with friends anyway! How I'll feel at the soiree is another question - but I have certainly moved a long way from the initial panicked response when I was 'told' I'd be singing a couple of songs, solo! My friend K who's the professional singer told me her strategy for getting over stage fright (which I was astonished to hear she did experience!) was to think of herself as a warrior going into battle. And of course once she starts singing it's all okay - just the going out and starting being the problem sometimes! So I will definitely bear that in mind!!

That night when I was in bed I realised that I could think of myself as being part of the 'music' world now ... It certainly consumes a lot of my every day ... Felt really nice! Mind you, don't anyone think I'm imagining I am or ever will be a professional in this field. But an extremely enthusiastic amateur, yes!!


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Musings on life and changes of direction

(( Warning!! This post contains a lot of 'navel-gazing'! ))

I've been thinking lately how it's funny that when you (I) make a big life change, you can think you have a plan for how it's going to be ... And it all turns out completely differently! I mean, really I shouldn't be surprised at all. I'm always thinking that I'm in control, and then discovering I wasn't! But anyway ...

I had this fixed idea about how my life would be when I stopped working in university IT and moved down to this lovely green area with soft green hills to the west of me, and beautiful beaches just to the east. I was going to do more yoga - get to more Mysore classes (tick!). I was going to find a good classical choir to join (tick again!).

So those ideas have worked out wonderfully.
But the other two are a different story ... !

Having come from a website/IT background I also had a big focus there - and it had been something I'd really enjoyed (well, the website side anyway!) So I was planning to do more website development, finally learn Python properly, and really get into learning other coding languages / stuff, and other website-related things.

And another thing I'd thought I'd maybe like to do - albeit a bit more of a distant possibility, was to get back into curtain-making. I always loved working with fabrics, and did a 2 year course on soft furnishings at the London College of Furniture years ago while living in London. I then had a small soft furnishings business both there and in Sydney.

And when I was packing up my old house in Kholo I just couldn't bear to get rid of the cutting table we had gotten made in London for the curtain-making business and then brought back to Australia. Had done virtually none of that since we moved up to Queensland (and lost access to people with wealthy connections who could afford to get expensive curtains made for them!!) But I still had all the 'stuff' from those days and so ended up bringing most of it down to my new home ... Where it now sits either in the garage or stored in cupboards! (And I still don't know when if ever I'll do anything with it all ... !)

However ....... Since I've moved I've hardly lifted a finger to do anything website or curtain related! Oh I still look after a few websites, and did spend a few weeks working on the 2016 edition of the foame.org poetry website. But, despite getting heaps of techie emails from places like Sitepoint and online course offers from Coursera etc, I have felt no inclination to dive in and learn new things.

No ... Most of my available attention seems to have been drawn towards music - classical music in particular. I'm loving the choir. I'm loving learning to sing. I'm even loving trying to learn music theory! I'm spending at least 1-2 hours virtually every day practising singing exercises, music for the choir, songs that I'm learning to sing at a little private soirée (!! Being run by my music teacher and his partner, just for their students ... But still a very scary thought!!) And then lots of extra time spent puzzling out things like the relationships between major and minor scales, identifying intervals, etc etc. All of which would be a doddle to learn if I was 5, but having a considerably older brain, is painfully and embarrassingly difficult!!

And as well, yoga is definitely getting a lot more attention now. I can see/feel the difference from the improved effort that I've been putting in, and from making it to at least 3 Mysore classes a week (up from just 1 in my previous life!)

I guess the moral / lesson here for me is - once again, to be open to unexpected things that life offers. I'm so glad I was, this time!!


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Been a while

Yeah, it's been a while since I posted ... Guess I feel like my life is in a really smooth space at the moment ... nothing much new to report on! (Although I really hesitate to even write that - don't want to tempt fate!)

But this is (for me) a kind of on-line diary and I do enjoy looking back at what I was doing years ago, so ...

Anyway! Yoga is good and bad! Good in that my attempts at bhujipadasana are moving forward. Now I can just about get my hands flat on the floor, so I can start to transfer more weight into my arms. Slowly, slowly progress is happening. Kurmasana and supta kurmasana are going well too. But ... I seem to be going backwards in the marichyasanas! Can no longer bind in MariB, and C seems to be further away ... sigh! Am wondering if it's to do with me having put on a bit of weight, or what!! Well of course I know what to do about that, but it's much harder/slower to take off than to put on!!

Choir and singing - well that's going wonderfully! Choir rehearsals have started again. We're working on a Bach chorale, a beautiful Liszt piece (Salve Regina) and some other things too, for a concert in May. And in the classes I have with Ian I am working on songs by Henry Purcell (I Attempt from Love's Sickness to Fly) and John Dowland (Flow My Tears) ... Both from around the 15th or 16th century! And of course, as Ian told me, this is just to put into practice the work he's getting me to do on vocal development/technique etc.

In addition to all that, I'm also going to classes on 'musicianship'. Lots of work on solfa (moveable do) and things like key signatures and working out what key a piece of music is in from the key signature. Including whether it's the major or minor key for that key signature ... When I was learning piano as a child it was all learning scales by rote. No explanations of the pattern of tones and semi-tones that is the basis of written Western music. But now, picking it all back up again after so many years, I can see those patterns and it makes it all so much easier. Not that it isn't hard working out the solfa of a written piece of music (ie. no keyboard) in a minor key. But I'm really enjoying the challenge!

Someone told me about some wonderful series on music by a guy called Howard Goodall. One is Howard Goodall's Big Bangs and there's another one The Story of Music. Both available on YouTube. I think they were BBC series ... Well worth watching if you're into music, of a more classical variety - or in fact interested in music generally. Like how it first went from being passed down by memory to actually having a system of writing it down (notation), and how that meant much 'bigger' music could be written. Really interesting!!

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Yoga and choir in 2016

When I started doing yoga at Christian's new place on my return from overseas (see a previous post about this!) I wanted to start it properly. All my previous yoga teachers (in Brisbane) had left poses out, so I felt like I was 'picking and choosing' even though it wasn't me doing this at all. So I said to Christian I wanted to do the first series properly, even though it would mean me stopping at navasana, as I had never been given the next pose (bhujapidasana) despite having been given poses further into the series.

I might say, this decision was kind of cemented for me after being stopped at navasana by Hamish in London twice during two UK visits 5 years apart! It's not that I can even do Marichyasana D. But I do want to at least attempt each pose, and nowadays most teachers don't stop you at those so-called 'gateway' poses like MariD, as long as you are making a real attempt. And I'd really like to at least get to the end of the first series in this lifetime!

So, a few days ago Christian got me started on beginning to attempt bhujapidasana ... I know it's going to take a long long time, but I'm on the journey - in it for the long haul! And today he got me to start doing kurmasana / supta kurmasana again! Which was very pleasing ... :)

And on other matters - I was deliriously happy to get an email from our choir director yesterday laying out what we would be doing in 2016. The one thing I have missed choir-wise since moving down here, has been being able to sing Handel's Messiah. There was just nowhere around here that was doing this. I was actually in the process of chasing up a Messiah 'singalong' held in in Brisbane church every year before Easter. (But this year there's a question mark over that, as part of the roof is being taken off for repairs and they're not sure whether it will be fixed in time!!!)

But It appears there is going to be a big performance of The Messiah in Lismore in December. Directed by a wonderful choir director/conductor called Richard Gill (who directed a performance of Carmina Burana I was in back in 2007 with QUMS -aka Queensland University Music Society - my first choir!)

So that's something (one of many things!) to look forward to this year ... It's going to be a great year I think!




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Looking back looking forward

"Welcome to the last practice of the year"!

That's how I was greeted when I went to the Ashtanga studio this morning. Nice! And it was a pretty good one, which was also nice ... I'm really enjoying practicing at the new studio with Christian, another thing that has clicked into place in my life this year.

2015 has been a great year for me. Really feeling settled in my new life down in the Byron shire, and grateful that someone - 'life', is looking after me so well. I'm kind of reluctant to go on about how happy I am as part of me (the negative part of course!) thinks that will bring bad things down on me! Who knows ... But life is indeed good! Regular yoga practice, the wonderful choir, music / singing lessons, big overseas trip, and of course an amazing 5-day 'event' with Maharaji. Each of those things I could write an entire post about ... But I won't!!

I spent Christmas in Sydney with John and Gina, nephew Peter and his wife Tammy, and lots of other extended family members. It was a really nice few days, including swimming in the seawater pool at Curl Curl, and going to a lovely exhibition at the Gallery of NSW - from the National Gallery of Scotland.

And now I'm home again ... And looking forward to a wonderful new year ... No big overseas trips planned for 2016. I'm going to settle in and enjoy life here!


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Changes, new things

Now that the choir concerts are over for the year, my life is quieting down a bit, and there's time to give more attention to other things ...

One of these has been my yoga practice, and where I actually go to class. It's been quite hard ... 2-3 years ago when I was deciding where I should move to when I sold my place, one of the things that drew me down here was the opportunity to practice at Dena Kingsberg's shala. I know it wouldn't be with her as a teacher - she only teaches here in monthly intensives for part of the year, which are usually booked up almost a year in advance. But there are daily public classes at the shala and I was going to those.

As I'm sure I have said here before, I was going to the 10am class ... The shala has only one yoga room, and so obviously when there is a 7am intensive class then the only morning 'slot' is after that has finished. And anyway - I live 30 minutes drive away and thought I'd never be able to get up, showered and to the shala by that early in the morning. But then, when Dena went to Europe in the middle of the year to do workshops, Christian, one of her students who had been teaching the 10am class, started doing a 7am class as well. And because I had been finding a mid-morning class seemed to end up taking up half the day, I decided to give it a go. Which was, of course, a complete revelation to me!

So then after a few months of this I went overseas, where I went to Dena's Bali workshop, and then practiced at AYL in London, all at 7am or earlier! And then I came home about a month ago. But Dena is now doing the intensives again and so I have to go to a 10am class ... But ... Christian has left and started up another Ashtanga practice place in Byron Bay - The Ashtanga room. Which of course has an early morning Mysore programme!

I agonised over what to do about this for days - it felt faintly disloyal to Dena to go away and practice at Christian's place. But in the end I felt I had to do what was right for me ... I emailed her to explain what I was doing, and why, and she was fine about it - said she completely understood my reasons etc! And anyway, I'm still signed up to go to one of her month intensives in May - which will be another high jump for me but hopefully a wonderful time!

And in the meantime I have now been practicing at Christian's shala - the Ashtanga Room for a couple of weeks, and it's been lovely. He is a wonderful teacher.

Well, after that long long explanation (which must imply that my feelings of awkwardness/slight disloyalty are not completely gone!!) I'll just mention that the other change in my life is a new VW Golf car! Which I'm pretty thrilled with! A very large step forward from my old car ... Has AppleConnect, Bluetooth, all sorts of things that were unheard of when the little Yaris was built!!


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