Back to class

A lot of my yoga is home practice. I teach regularly, as well, but that is not practicing, even when I get to do some asanas with the group. Home practice can be a struggle -- squeezing it in during an ever-shrinking nap time, closing my eyes to the messes here and there that beg for my attention, and turning a deaf ear on the phone. Home practice is, in many ways, the real essence of yoga -- focusing, listening to your inner teacher, looking within.

But for me, it is sometimes hard to balance that soft-focused inner gaze with pushing myself. So today, I went back to class with one of my teachers. I'm not sure it was harder, per se, than one of my home practices, but I paid different, more attention to things. Hearing someone else's cues, working them through my body, was a treat. Never mind that I didn't hear a kid for 90+ minutes -- that in and of itself is a huge shift -- but today listening to an outer teacher gave me fresh perspective.

Where was my mind? Instead of thinking about the sequence, which I would do if I were practicing by myself, I was at the four corners of my feet, my thigh bones moving back and my shin bones moving forward ever so slightly -- heart center moving forward -- hips relaxing into alignment -- to so many places was my attention moved. It makes me look even more forward to my next home practice and finding those same places on my own.

Time flies...

when you're flying. From motherhood to yoga and back and around again. It is a wild ride sometimes, but a beautiful one. The views are awesome: my sleeping munchkins, my toes in uttanasana, my husband rocking out, or the view from upside down in sirsasana.

In the last year, my husband changed jobs, my older girl turned 3 and the younger, 2, and I completed my 200-hour yoga teacher training. I'm teaching classes at, Shakti, and carrying the yoga love into Newark Public Schools with Newark Yoga Movement, and practicing whenever I can.

Mothering is its own special kind of yoga: a mix of love, breath, balance, strength, surrender, boundaries and openness. I'm sure I'll come back to this idea a lot as my practice as a mom and a yogini continues.