From Liz: Where's my drishti?

I won't overthink my own intentions with regards to this blog (since they are always shifting anyway, darned vrittis). I know that I want to hold myself accountable for my yoga practice and teaching. And I want an excuse to geek out over yoga with you, my dear Anna, in a structured setting. You've been my sister yogini since we met, and this pranic exchange is just a continuation of that relationship.

So... The state of my home practice. It feels like a huge accomplishment to say that I have a home practice. I never understood why senior teachers insisted that we cultivate one. And right out of the gate, after teacher training, I just turned my practice over to the studio. I absolved myself of all responsibilty (save showing up) and followed the leader. And I took on way too many classes. I was teaching between ten and twelve classes a week (small potatoes to come people, but too much for me). So I kind of burned out. Then I had a baby. And I found myself tethered to my home, needing a teacher, or at least, a point of focus for this practice.

And what do you know, one did appear. I (re)discovered the Ashtanga Primary series, and I finally got what a jillion ashtangis already know: "practice, and all is coming." Really... While motherhood is a sometimes haphazard and improvisational art, the consistency of this series keeps me grounded and renewed day after day. I just keep coming back to the same point, and it keeps unfolding incrementally. At least it has so far, because let's be honest: I've only been playing with about half of the series, using Richard Freeman's dvds for about a month now. But the month's end has marked a radical change in my practice, and it has been all about reclaiming my original love of yoga, the thing that drew me to teach. Now it feels personal again. The series is my meta-drishti, the point around which everything else organizes itself. It is paradoxically both structuring and liberating.