The Dog Days Are Over

Hi, Boomers,

It's the eve of August 31st, 2010. It's technically the beginning of the end of the dog days of summer. The end of the week marks Labor Day and the beginning of a fall cycle - back to school, back from vacation, back to work, back to back responsibilities.

In the days when I taught drama in high school, I loved this time of year. I loved going back to a crop of new students, mostly dysfunctional, pop smoking, LDS taking strangers living in the alternative universe of Las Vegas. It was Clark High School, Las Vegas, Nevada, an outpost of mostly dispossessed kids, with one parent, maybe two but they worked shifts on the Strip - some graveyard, some early morning, some split shifts. But they loved coming into my class because they knew I truly thought they were special. Our dog days were times of experimenting with improvisation and reading and acting in the new and exciting scripts from Off Broadway's golden years in the late 60's and early 70's. The weather didn't quit snap into fall mode because it was still hot as hell in Vegas until October. Yet, we sweat through that first month getting to know each other and allowing the senior thespians show the way to the newbies, the wanna-bes who took drama/theater to find a refuge against their adolescent angst.

Dog Days were days of optimism and hope in my life and they still are. Now my grandsons go back to school and I still get a thrill of hearing about their teachers and books and friends.

I love the fall weather. It's my favorite time of year. Los Angeles can provide that fall weather snap, cooler nights and less warm days in the shade. Sometimes there is a bout of heat around Labor Day, but I can still smell football season and see the band practice outside my yoga room at the John Wooden Center on the UCLA campus and sometimes catch a glimpse of the football team warming up on the field as I walk to my car.

As the feeling of renewal comes over me, I am cognizant of old memories from grammar school and high school when I was part of campus excitement and new classes and old friends returning to our familiar posts.

I'm feeing nostalgic for my parents, particularly my father because he drove me to St. Raphael's grammar school for so many years. I was so very happy growing up, and I loved sitting next to my dad in the car as we listened to Don McNeill's Breakfast Club on the radio. We would sit in the car and watch the Dominican nuns get out their taxis on the side of the school while my dad and I continued to listen to the radio. I wouldn't get out of the car until the nuns entered the building.

Every end of August and beginning of September memories come back with a vengeance and take me back deep into my past - a past that gave me my values, my sense of direction, my loyalties, and my sense of self.

Namaste

Joan

Yoga And The Art of Body/Mind Maintenance - Part 2

Hi, Boomers,

I was teaching class yesterday at the Math and Engineering building on the UCLA campus (Boelter Hall). The class is held on the 8th floor of the building and is literally referred to at "The Penthouse." It's hardly a penthouse. It's a meeting room on the roof. My first impression of the scene was one of "OMG" - I can't teach yoga in this place. It's gross.

Amazing how a group of men and women assembled to twice weekly practice yoga changes the atmosphere from an old classroom, designed as an after-thought decades ago to accommodate special lectures and classes, can morph into a really exciting yoga room.

What I should explain is that on the campus of UCLA most of the buildings host yoga classes once or twice a week to staff and faculty. I really expected that faculty would be the dominant group in attendance; to my surprise, my students in the buildings on campus are mostly administrative staff, researchers, and grad students. I teach in the medical (Semel Neurological Institute), the law school, math and engineering and CNsI (or the California Nanosystems Institute). I can truly say I have the most intelligent, tenacious, dedicated students that any yoga teacher can imagine. I also teach at the John Wooden center and those students and some faculty are also truly incredible beings.

We are at the end of our room booking at Boelter Hall and there was a moment when no one was in charge of the yoga program. I announced this to the group last week and asked if someone could step forward and be in charge of booking The Penthouse. The next class, as I put the students in resting pose, I saw one of my students, a woman in her late 40's, early 50's, walking off of the elevator. She had some papers in her hand. I walked outside on the roof to meet her. Julie had taken care of everything for us. She booked The Penthouse until September, listed the dates we were not going to be able to be in the room (we practice yoga on the room outside in these cases in the glorious summer days of August), and told me not to worry about a thing.

"You're amazing," I said to Julie. "Thank you for your efforts."

"Are you kidding, Joan?" she retorted. "Yoga has saved my life. It's more important for me to be in yoga class than anywhere in my life. I'm a cancer survivor and now I have some fibroids in my body and yoga is the saving grace. When I told my doctor I practice yoga, he gasped. I told him never you mind. Yoga is the antidote to my cancer and whatever is in my body." Then she added, "I'm going to cry now."

I hugged her (tears in my eyes) and felt that my yoga bond with my students was the most precious gift after my children and grandchildren that life has given me. Julie's story is just one story in my yoga world. I have heard many stories like that. One woman in my class was so resistant and stiff when she entered my class that I thought she wouldn't come back after her first class. She has come to class religiously ever since. She jokes with me, she teases me, she tells me I'm cruel, heartless, then laughs and continues with her challenging body movements. She is my angel in class; she is the heartbeat; she is why yoga exists for us.

As we yoginis and yogis move through our resistant minds and bodies, as we practice non-judgement and non-attachment, we move through our lives with grace and divineness. We transcend our expectations, we discover there is continued personal growth; and we are amazed by our resilient natures and our consistency and dedication to our open heart practice.

Namaste

Joan