Slacking on the Blogging.

Hard to believe how fast a week goes by. This is especially true around the holidays.I spent most of the past weekend shopping for Christmas presents, and dealing Casino parties. I dealt a wonderful party in Paradise valley on Saturday evening. A large palatial home with all the amenities. The Hosts of the party were very gracious, and the party went smoothly. I enjoyed dealing blackjack. I am usually called upon to deal poker. The party was very upscale, and the larger than normal tip we dealers received was appreciated. This party was in direct contrast to the party that I dealt poker at on Sunday evening. It was a corporate affair held at Dave and Busters. The players were friendly, but definitely not upscale. The play was slow, and the players had unlimited access to play money. This makes the dealers job infinitely more difficult because half of the time is spent calculating side pots and changing play money for chips. I endured the three hours, but was not particularly pleased about it. The owner of the company said that he would be sending a tip to the casino company which we, as dealers, will in turn see, but unless it is a fairly large tip, I will not take this job next year.

Shopping, on the other hand is something that I enjoy. This is especially true when it comes to shopping for my family. I love to buy them stuff. Not just any stuff. The stuff that they want. I try not to get caught up in all the materialism espoused by the media.

I have been thinking about all the materialism in our culture, and at one point decided that next year our Christmas card should read " Merry Materialism" and " A Prosperous 2009" The picture on the card should have the whole family grinning and holding up cash in our hands. The bills fanned out for easy visibility. I abandoned this folly, and wrote it off as a reaction to my temporary frustration at the importance our society places on material possessions. I decided that a better card for next year would simply be a card that reads "Peace" with a picture of the family seated in full lotus in a calm meditative state. I think that a positive message is more clearly stated in that type of expression. I do not consider myself a Christian, even though I attended Catholic grammar school and was forced to attend church every Sunday until I was 18 years old. Without religion, what is Christmas..... "Materialism" This is where most people are in the world. People are "all about" the acquisition and consumption of material wealth, and possessions. Now, I would not have a problem with this if it went hand in hand with the acquisition of Spiritual wealth as well. I do not want to sound negative here, but I am not getting the feeling that this is largely the case.

I like to use this time of year for reflection The end of the year is always good for this. It is a time to be grateful for the life experience that I am having.

Yoga is good. In my classes I am joking about what level class it will be in terms of how many Sugar cookies you will be able to eat afterwards. Some classes are 2 cookie classes (not very active or difficult. Not many calories burned.) Other classes are 6 cookie classes. I am basing this loosely on Sugar cookies. (for those of you who were wondering).

Oh! nearly forgot...... Last Friday evening, I was taking my wife out for her belated birthday dinner. Beforehand, she took us to the Wellness Center. It is a business where you go and they place you in a room for a half hour, and you experience Light Therapy, Aromatherapy, and Sound therapy while seated in a relaxing chair with neck and lumbar supports. I really enjoyed it. I think the concept is great, and I vowed to let my yoga students know about it. Here is the web link to it.

www.wellnesseffect.com

I have been giving out complimentary passes, but the first experience if free, so if anyone is interested, just go to the website and make an appointment. Let them know that you received the information from me. Anyway, a very worthwhile experience.

The good news is, all my shopping is complete, so I can relax the rest of the holiday season. relaxation is good. I suggest that everyone try it. The only minor stressor in my life is the fact that I am experiencing some electrical problem with my new hot tub, and it is not working. I am still waiting for a repair person to come out and look at it. I had become somewhat attached to my daily sessions in the hot tub. This is obviously a lession in non- attachment. It will be rough, but I can survive......
Enough of my ramblings for now. More later.....

Rain in the Desert

It was a busy weekend. I dealt Casino Parties Friday night and Saturday night. All day Sunday I ran a Poker Tournament. It has rained on and off all weekend. It took me over an hour to drive to my dealing job on Friday evening. This is a ride that without the rain and rush hour traffic would normally take half an hour. I used the time to relax and practice patience with the other idiots, I mean drivers, on the road. The rain has persisted into today. I love the rain. It gives me a chance to play my Monsoon Mix of music in my Yoga classes. All the songs have something to do with rain. Rain is either in the title or in the lyrics somewhere. I am always looking for new songs to add to the Monsoon mix. If you have any ideas, let me know. Here are the songs that are in the play list as of now.

Goodbye Blue Sky 2:48 Pink Floyd
Like The Rain 4:22 Clint Black
Rain 3:57 The Cult
Only Happy When It Rains 3:57 Garbage
Chicken Noodle Soup 3:21 Webster & Young B
Box of Rain 5:19 Grateful Dead
Rain 5:25 Madonna
Wish It Would Rain 5:28 Phil Collins & Genesis
Rain in the Summertime 5:15 The Alarm
Let It Rain 5:04 Eric Clapton
Love Reign O'er Me 5:48 The Who
November Rain 8:57 Guns N' Roses
No Rain 3:37 Blind Melon
Raindrops 2:48 Dee Clark
Rain 4:31 Dana Glover
Purple Rain 8:41 Prince
Fire And Rain 3:26 James Taylor
The Thunder Rolls 3:44 Garth Brooks
I'm No Stranger to the Rain 3:35 Keith Whitley
I Love A Rainy night 3:07 Eddie Rabbitt
When The Rain Falls 4:01 Zetta Bytes
Have You Ever Seen The Rain 2:38 Creedence Clearwater Revival
After The Rain 3:20 Ottmar Liebert
Rainsong 4:39 George Winston

Rain is a wonderful thing here in the desert. What is with the underline thing???? Hold on and I will try and fix it...... Not sure how to fix it. There is no U or underline control, just bold and italic. I must have dragged the underline over with the play list. Oh well. It is only mildly annoying.
Back to the rain... Rain is an unusual occurrence here in the desert. The monsoon season is in July. We usually do not see rain at this time of the year. Two full weekends of rain in a row is almost unheard of.

My yoga classes today were wonderful. Each in its' own way. Yoga 101 this morning consisted of an introduction of Yin yoga to the 22 students who attended. My Ipod was not charged, so no music....I charged my Ipod in the car on my way to Flow. Flow after that was energizing. I played the Monsoon mix, and got excellent reviews on the class and music. The rain prompted me to start the class slower than usual with some additional stretching, and a few extra Sun salutations A & B. Not as much core work as usual, but an active practice none the less. The afternoon Gentle yoga practice was relaxing. The play list that I selected was relaxing, and the ...... Cat on the lap makes typing difficult.... Cat feels that she deserves attention after the dog is away for the night in the kids room. She is trapped on the top of the refrigerator while the dog is downstairs. The dog chases the cat endlessly. ..... This is a particularly challenging blog. Wife is distracting me. She wants attention as well. Back on track.... and the poses were more passive than usual.... I arrived at my Yin class up north. It was foggy, cold, and dark, and reminded me of being back on the east coast. As 6pm rolled by, none of the regulars arrived. This is very unusual. I attribute it to the inclement weather. Just as I thought that no one would show up for class, the new girl whose doctor had referred her to yoga, came in. It was just the two of us. She has wonderful energy, and I was happy to see her. I know that she is interested in Yoga Philosophy, so I took the opportunity of going over the 8 limbs of ashtanga yoga with her, and at the end of class while she was in shavasana, chanted the sutras along with the recording that I have of Sanskrit Scholar chanting them. I referred her to Sanskrit Scholars monthly chanting workshop. I taught her the first Yoga sutra, and just like that, class over......... A dark and quiet drive home. I was going to stop and food shop on my way home, but it was raining hard, I forgot my shopping list, and my debit card expired, and I have not found my new one in the mail yet..... They are all really poor excuses. The truth is, I just didn't feel like going.. Tomorrow is the Wife's birthday. I took the Kids shopping for it last night. I will take her out on Friday night and we will celebrate... That's it for now. It is time to give the cat and wife the attention that they both so richly deserve.......

Weekend Seminar with Annie Pace

Contemplated in the hot tub, and decided to go to the seminar this weekend...I drove down to the Studio in downtown Scottsdale, about a 20 min drive if there is no traffic. I was delighted to find that Sanskrit Scholar, The British Director, and Donutzenmom (names borrowed from Donutzenmoms' blog) were all also attending the Seminar. VB guy also popped in for the Friday evening lecture... It was a small intimate group, and with a few exceptions, most of the participants were experienced astanga practitioners. The studio was warm and inviting, as were its' owners. The space was well designed. It boasted a mix of Thai massage rooms, a sitting and retail area, and a yoga area bordered with movable horizontal slatted screens that had an Asian, Feng shui kind of feel to them. .The area was bright and inviting, and the energy was relaxing and calm.

I found the seminar instructor, Annie Pace, to be engaging and intense. She was very passionate about the practice of asthanga. She was strict about the foundation and form of the poses, yet at the same time, engaging and witty. She had a wonderfully calm energy in a dynamically strong, slight frame. She spoke about Yoga philosophy, the eight limbs, intention, astanga tradition, her time with Guruji, etc. Saturday evening session we did a mysore style practice. When it came to the physical practice, she was all around the room doing adjustments. She was funny, and referred to some of them as "alligator wrestling". This is especially true when she assisted me into marichasana D on both sides. This is usually a pose that I cannot bind in. She got me into the pose. She reminded me a little of my first ashanga instructor Wendy Green. Wendy had the same intensity in adjusting. There was no question, or doubt, just the energy to assist you into the pose. At one point in the seminar, a girl asked what Annie had done to adjust her into supta kurmasana. It seemed a strange question, but what I got out of her answer was that, she did what was necessary to provide the foundation to allow her to move into the pose. I found this very insightful as a guideline for adjusting. As I hone my adjusting skills, I have found that my adjustments of my students have become more in depth.....

In reflection, I feel that part of the reason that I am not attending my regular morning Mysore practice is that I am not getting the depth of adjustment that I am in need of at this point in my practice. I need someone to twist me into marichasana D, and to assist me into supta kurmasana in a more traditional astanga method.

back on track...

I was impressed with the way that the practice went on Saturday evening, so I spent the money to take the oldest daughter to the Sunday morning led primary series. It was done in the traditional counting method. A method that I am not all that familiar with. Primary series is primary series however, and it is my friend. I enjoyed the slowing down of the practice to the instructors count. This was especially true in the lifting and jumping back. It was more mindful, and less of a blurring of motion. The count kept everyone together and breathing. At the end of the session, everyone sat around and chatted. Two of the participants were on holiday and lived in Mysore, India. They were friends of Annie's. We, VB guys students, comprised 4-5 of the 11 participants. As for the others, a few I think, practiced regularly at the studio. No sure though.
I was really tired Sunday afternoon. Arrived home, sat soaking in the Hot tub, took a nap, and then went out to deal a casino party. Home by midnight....

Awoke this morning to really sore shoulders and upper back. I really enjoy this experience. It is not often anymore that my practice makes me sore. I work too often and hard to get sore. I really enjoy the sensation. Taught my morning classes, and now am on break before teaching my 2 evening classes. I think a soak in the hot tub is in order, and then a light lunch..

As for my astanga practice. I feel more strongly now than ever that I need to find a strict practice of astanga. In the new year, I am going to finish my Yoga room and start doing a mysore style practice every morning. I will put the invite out to whoever wants to practice with me. It will be a good chance for me to delve deeper into my practice. I will have the older daughter help me with the adjustments that I need. I am going to also start attending the Friday astanga mix practice down at Inner vision Yoga with Jeff Martins. I will see what my experience is there. More later....