Sitting Still
Sitting still is much more difficult than moving. And teaching imaginary students is much tougher than having real people in front of you.
Today, I worked up a sweat, sitting in a chair in a conference room, doing a dry run of a class for some folks at the hospital. It went well, I think, and we're going to do a test by holding the class for four to six weeks.
The room will be noisy, the patients will vary in the amount of movement available - including movement of the hands, people may fall asleep. This will be a great opportunity to really teach yoga as a practice of the mind and the breath.
But challenging. I realized yesterday, while preparing, that it might be more productive to teach these students individually instead of in a group class. And at the end of today's meeting, one of the staff asked if I ever see patients one-on-one. We talked about a particular patient who might benefit, and I'm hoping that there will be a chance to work privately with a patient or two. For now, though, I'm trying to keep things simple and stick to the plan we've come up with.
But today was definitely a day to test whether my yoga is working. Phew. Last night I woke up from one of my famous animal dreams. In this one, I had bag after bag - those large, rectangular brown paper bags that dry cement comes in - filled with turtles and mice and even some seal that I needed to take care of. Things were not going well when I woke up at about 3 am, and then was awake for most of the rest of the night.
Today, I worked up a sweat, sitting in a chair in a conference room, doing a dry run of a class for some folks at the hospital. It went well, I think, and we're going to do a test by holding the class for four to six weeks.
The room will be noisy, the patients will vary in the amount of movement available - including movement of the hands, people may fall asleep. This will be a great opportunity to really teach yoga as a practice of the mind and the breath.
But challenging. I realized yesterday, while preparing, that it might be more productive to teach these students individually instead of in a group class. And at the end of today's meeting, one of the staff asked if I ever see patients one-on-one. We talked about a particular patient who might benefit, and I'm hoping that there will be a chance to work privately with a patient or two. For now, though, I'm trying to keep things simple and stick to the plan we've come up with.
But today was definitely a day to test whether my yoga is working. Phew. Last night I woke up from one of my famous animal dreams. In this one, I had bag after bag - those large, rectangular brown paper bags that dry cement comes in - filled with turtles and mice and even some seal that I needed to take care of. Things were not going well when I woke up at about 3 am, and then was awake for most of the rest of the night.
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