Long Day

Well it was a long day but I must say I love what I am doing. Going from one place to the next working with different people; one day I will have a film crew follow me for a few weeks to all my sessions. People ask me what it is I teach. They ask what style of yoga I teach. It is a hard question to answer. My teaching is based on the concept that practice should be matched to the person. People really are so different that what I teach each person varies quite considerably and then on any given day what I teach the same person can vary based on their needs on that particular day.

www.kym.org is the web-site of the Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram, a center in India dedicated to the concept that practice needs to be matched to the individual.

www.breathingproject.org The Breathing Project in New York is a center created by Leslie Kaminoff and Zack Kurland who have studied within this tradition from India. Leslie and Zack are both good friends and I have learned a lot about many things from both of them.

www.heartofyoga.org is the site of my good friend Mark Whitwell who also teaches based on the idea that practice needs to be matched to the individual. I Mark really teaches from his heart and I have learned so much from being around him and having him as a friend.

The end result is that when I work with someone I try to stay open to their needs. There is a sense of give and take. I ask questions. I attempt to remain open to changing directions and not getting stuck in any one concept of practice. When things are working not much needs to be done, the process of practice simply unfolds. But I have had sessions where a client had not told me they were having problems with their back and in the middle of things I saw something was wrong and did a complete 180-degree turn to help them make what was going on better. I have even had people have stuff come up in group classes where I ended up teaching the group one practice while I gave a completely different practice to the person with the problem.

I recently had this happen in one of my classes where a woman’s back started to spasm in class and I had to give her very special attention. The group practice she had chosen for herself on that day probably was not the best option for her actual needs but once the problem came up we worked together to help make things better.

I felt great compassion that such a thing had happened but I also felt very fortunate to have been able to be a part of the kind of healing that was able to occur as a result for this person.

Peace.

upsidowncarl@yogascope.com