TGIF

Friday is Primary Series for everyone and it is busy.  There are just two groups so the 4:30 am is now packed and you are ready at the gate when Prakash opens.  You have to remain like a yogi, no pushing, and just shuffle along and wait for your turn to slide on in to get your space.  I have not been sliding out of my shoes so easily and in the brief hesitation I get further back from entering.  A brief panic can set in if you let it.   No fearing as it doesn’t matter.  Everyone is going to practice and you will find the comfort level that you need.  It’s all part of the experience and if you have any preconceived notions of where you would like to practice, you had better let it go now.  You see, it is all a practice from the moment you wake up to when you retire for the night.  On the mat we just get to have the time to really center and focus and practice being a yogi.

In the led classes you are taught not to hurry and not to worry.  Sarath’s led class is solid, intense and calming at the same time.   He is doing the counting, he is setting the pace and our job is to do the practice with the proper vinyasa.  You are reminded to breathe at each count.   As you tune in and let yourself be taught and led it makes sense to focus on what you can control which is really only your breathing.  You want to balance when that comes, you want to stay in headstand till  you are told to come down and you want to lift when you are told to lift.  The mind plays the funny trick of wanting you to think about something other than your breath.  So you play the little game with it and just like in meditation, have the thought, let it go and come back to the breath.  Otherwise you come down or out of the asana that requires holding.   Today we held.  We did not come down.

It’s nice to finish and feel the prana pulsing through the body.  I have heard this before but when you come to the final three it is really put there as a gift so you can have a time to just breath and loose yourself.  It really is what you have worked to get to. Then comes Utpluthih and you are ready because you know the mind is going to try to win but you don’t come down, something keeps you up and you just don’t come down.  Sometimes the only way to loose yourself is to push yourself and let go of the chatter that says you can’t.  You do!

Om Shanti!