Eka Pada Frankasana

Amazing day again. God I love Shiva.

I will skip the little things and go to the juicy part. After this morning's practice, which was totally incredible (mandala namaskar prep, mandala namaskar 2, solar waves around bujapidasana, silver surfer, ardha bekasana... peaking in standing visvamistrasana), I had a short rest then went back for the afternoon session. We had this really cool discussion on krama and Shiva made us laugh so much. She is hilarious when she gets into her stuff.

Anyway, during the break, she was alone - FOR ONCE - and I went to ask her my millennium question: how the F-U-C-K do you get up into eka pada bakasana? For those who don't know, this pose is my total kryptonite. No matter how and how hard i try, i just can't make it. Anyway, i started telling her my bullshit excuses: 'uh, I think my waist is too short and my legs too long...' and she told me shoosh, shhooooooshhh, SHOOSH! She said try. After flattening my self like a pancake, I looked at her. After several further discussions including a lot of my bullshit :) she asked me to go into prep, which i did, then she asked to dip forward chest towards the earth which I did, then to coil into the core, which I did, then push my supporting leg down into the arm, which I did, to extend my leg back, which I did. And ooooooooohhhhh miracle. I was in Eka Pada Bakasana. If you have never struggled to the core for an asana, you can't relate. But how great I felt. She was very happy too. And so were the 15 or so people who had gathered around to look at me. And that took 3 minutes. SHE IS AMAZING!

Anyway, after that, we did a bit of practicing teaching, where I met Gopi, a really sweet and nice Indian Brit who lives in DC. We had a lot of fun playing with poetry and metaphors. She gave me some very good feed-back, which is to pause. Take time to take time. My flow is nice and slow, but I don't stop. Great feed-back. Thanks Gopi.

After that, we went to the teacher exploratorium, which was OK. I partnered with Andrew, a guy who i think is gay, from DC. Very nice. We did our teaching practice on Mandala Namaskar prep again. That was good. But after that, we sat down cause people had questions, and that became 'chiant'. Luckily, I had to leave early as I was on my way to Shiva's public class.

OH MY GOD, I have never sweated to much, and I have never loved a class so much. We got into this amazing progression from (uttanasana, lunge with pulsation with back bend and core activation, eka bakasana prep, vasistasana variations, back bend variations). It was totally non stop, non stop for 1.5 hours. People were moaning in a good way, letting the energy out, and loving it. She dedicated eka pada bakasana to me and my birthday, renamed it eka pada Frankasana :) I loved it, I was totally on fire. At the end, 2 urdhva danurasana (how open was I), and shoulder stand and that's it. En vrac: don't just pay the toll in chaturanga, sri sri Chaturanga (YEAH!!!), up dog with toes under from cobra...

After that, I was totally high, really high, as if I had taken illicit products. I was burning, on fire, excited, and at the same time in an amazing space. I went home, did my laundering, had a fantastic and big burrito (I was hungry by then, trust me).

Oh what a day. Shiva, I love you, and though I thought I would never mean that for any of my teachers., I worship you always. I love you so much.

Bye everyone. Sorry if that was thick, but the day was intense.

IY