This was a fun night. Grateful to have been invited and honored to teach with such a talented group of teachers. Some beautiful performances after the teacher introductions and a hot and sweaty Zumba class at the end of the night. I even got an award for being one of the students dancing with the most enthusiasm during the Zumba class. Not necessarily with the most talent but with the most enthusiasm.
When did you first start practicing yoga?
Fun pictures at the Guangzhou Dreamer Yoga Festival.
My first yoga practice was when I was studying acting in the UK at RADA for a summer program. We did yoga in one of the movement classes. I don’t know if they were allowed to call it yoga back then because of the perceived connection to religion. I looked back on what we were doing when I started practicing regularly after I’d returned home from the program and realized we’d been doing yoga in some of our movement classes.
Yonion Festival — Day 4!
Yonion Festival — Day 4! My last class at the festival. What a fun day!I taught a Shiva Power Class/Backbending Workshop. We had a thunderstorm in the middle of the class. We were dry under the tent but the power to the sound system had to be cut and it poured rain. It was so loud.
Part of our yoga practice is going with the flow. We shifted to a much more workshop style class. My translator and I tried to be as loud as we could but it was still hard for the students to hear us. I ended up gathering everyone close to the stage. We demonstrated a few things to work on and then I sent them back out to their mats to practice. We did this a few times and it was actually quite a fun way to present to such a big group. Sometimes you get these wonderful spontaneous moments from just accepting things as they are unfolding. My teacher Dharma always used to remind us — Everything is happening the way it is supposed to be. What’s that famous quote — Yoga is not about stopping the waves but learning how to surf.