Teaching Yoga Class

Friday: January 29th

I am feeling pretty proud this evening. Today Yen, Alley and I woke up at seven for our morning yoga class. We were all pretty exhausted from last night. I offered to teach yoga. I had offered to lead a class a while ago but the thought somewhat terrified me. Then I realized that this fear made no sense. In only ten days of living here I have a mutual love with these women.  So this morning I led my first yoga class and I felt right at home.

Being a dancer for so long has made me comfortable with movement but uncomfortable with speaking. I have been practicing yoga on my own for some time now. I knew how to set a class but did not know how to explain a beginning meditation or the flow between each posture. Alley and Yen were the perfect students to practice on. Alley has taken about three yoga classes, most of them being here, and Yen has been practicing for years spending some of her life living in an ashram. Once I began I was no longer nervous. I was strong, confident, and at peace with my current life. After class Alley and Yen were very kind. They enjoyed the beginning flow and the deep stretches at the end. I don't think that I could have hand picked a better people to teach my first class to. Thank you so much, you beautiful women.

We spent the rest of the day working our butts off at the guest house site. We began clearing a trail for Brian to dig a trench for the house's power lines. When we got the the end of the trail it was time to cut the massive tree we had taken down the day before. Never have I seen a tree more beautiful than this one. It is Scott's favorite tree on the property. Since we had to take it down for the guest house we are going to repurpose it in many ways so it lives on. Christian had been chainsawing for a while so I offered to relieve him. I cut for about an hour and it was everything. It was intense, exciting, loud, heavy, hard and liberating. When I shut off the chainsaw I let out a kind of battle cry from how much adrenaline I felt. My blood was pumping, my ears were ringing, and all of me was sweating.

Tim and Brian headed in and we worked for a bit longer. The second we got back I began to crash. My body had been worked to its limits. Now I feel sore all over. Typically I love being sore because it means I worked out really hard at the gym or had a hard yoga or dance class. Now I am proud to be sore because I exerted my energy for manual labor. My soreness is not for my personal gain, it is helping build Scott's dreams for the wonderful Lost River Hostel.

Tim and I shared a nice talk on the living room couch. We talked about different aspects of life. The good, the bad, and all of the moments in between. Tim has experienced so much in his life. Some experiences of his life have been so hard I hope to never encounter anything like it. Others are so inspiring that I hope to achieve even a few of the things he has done. He told me how much he enjoyed visiting orphanages in Thailand and China. He adores children and is so wonderful with Li here at the hostel. It is interesting that as I get to know everyone here I realize how different and similar we all are. We have all experienced completely different lives but we can work well together as a family and a team.

So all in all everyday is getting consistently better. I TAUGHT YOGA!!! I accomplished one of my dreams and was reassured that it truly is something I want to pursue.