Room to breathe.

If I took a moment to deconstruct my teaching technique, that’s what it would amount to. My goal is to give you room to breathe. Room to breathe into your body, into your heart, into the space around you.

Because we fill our lives to the brim.

My fundraising project, A Woman’s Face, ended with its book launch on Saturday, the 2^nd of November. The next day, there I was: a woman looking at a life that had some space around it. Finally, I had room to breathe. The problem is that space doesn’t always embrace its emptiness. A vacuüm longs to be filled. And when the universe provides our waking, working lives with a bit of room we love nothing more than to set goals and maximize production.

The gift of time and space is like that long, silent gap in the middle of a conversation. It makes some folks uncomfortable.

But not me. There’s nothing I enjoy more than a bit of space and some longed for silence.

And that’s what you’ll find in my classes. Space and silence. Room to breathe. Room to grow.

Because we’re trained to crave achievement, and because achievement implies hard work and pain, my classes might create a sense of unease at first. They might feel too easy. Too gentle. I have been that person who believed that if I didn’t feel a hurt, a pull, a sharp tug – then I wasn’t feeling at all. I have been that person who loved being yanked more deeply into the asana until injury finally forced the futility of the approach. But when we slow down and trust our body and our breath and give ourselves the space to experience the asana we gain a new perspective. Asana practice is about the body. We know that.

But it is also about our Self.

We are meant to move forward in our yoga practice. Our yoga practice. What does that mean to you? Why don’t you give yourself the room you need to find the answer?

I teach Hatha Yoga at Samyama Yoga Center, where the first class is free, on Tuesday and Thursday from 7:00 to 8:15 AM and on Saturday from 4:00 to 5:30. I teach Yin there, too, on Friday afternoon from 1:30 to 2:45.

I teach Hatha Yoga at California Yoga Center, the studio where I began my beloved yoga practice in 1984. My classes at CYC are on Tuesday and Friday from 9:00 to 10:00. I teach Yin there, too, on Monday evenings from 7:30 to 9:00.