Naptime
I filled in for another yoga teacher this morning at the Won Buddhist temple in Makaha where Imagine and I go for service and meditation. It is an hour class that anyone can attend for free or for any donation they can manage. It is a beautiful space, windows all around with the mountains and trades blowing. The teacher who volunteers regularly to instruct runs through an extremely gentle practice. It is really the slowest and most gentle type of teaching I have ever experienced. Subsequently, the students who come are mostly retired snowbirds who come to Hawaii for the winter and some locals who have mobility issues. I do my best to imitate the teaching of the usual teacher, but no matter how close I come, I can always tell that some of the students are not too happy with my style. So I probably smile too much and take too much time to explain anatomy and benefits of each posture. It is so difficult to be the substitute as no one adores you like they adore their "real" teacher.
After finishing the regular class, the Reverend from the temple arranged for a local Hawaiian stories producer to film two half hour segments of me teaching yoga in my own style for running on the local Olelo channel. Anyone can rent the Olelo's TV equipment for free and make a program to air, so we get a lot of community board meetings on the five channels that run Olelo and also some 1st birthday party luaus, some church programs and lots of keiki school hula. There are two other yoga programs that run sometimes, but I've only seen one. I figured I would just teach as I normally do, cut the class down by half timewise and have a wonderful program. It was so much harder than I thought. Making sure I didn't bungle my words, looking at the camera, smiling a lot more, remembering to speak often enough that there wasn't too much silence. And so my thoughts were all over the place. I know the first taping was totally awful even though they said it was just fine. By the second I had the timing down better, but I think I repeated phrases too often. I cringe at the thought of actually watching myself and knowing it is on local tv for all to see. The guy is going to edit it, put in some background meditation music and give me a copy.
By the time I got home I was wiped out. All total, with stops and starts, redoing segments and teaching the class on the front end I must have done three hours of yoga. I ate some warm raisin pudding, had some juice and then fell into a deep sleep for about an hour. It was perfect napping weather with the windows all open, 80's with fairly heavy tradewinds. The sound of the wind in the palm trees just lulled me into a deep sleep. My tired muscles didn't move and so the cats both curled in on either side of me. It was only the sound of Imagine and his friend in the backyard twacking eachother in the head with plastic eggs that finally woke me. It was the perfect nap while it lasted.
After finishing the regular class, the Reverend from the temple arranged for a local Hawaiian stories producer to film two half hour segments of me teaching yoga in my own style for running on the local Olelo channel. Anyone can rent the Olelo's TV equipment for free and make a program to air, so we get a lot of community board meetings on the five channels that run Olelo and also some 1st birthday party luaus, some church programs and lots of keiki school hula. There are two other yoga programs that run sometimes, but I've only seen one. I figured I would just teach as I normally do, cut the class down by half timewise and have a wonderful program. It was so much harder than I thought. Making sure I didn't bungle my words, looking at the camera, smiling a lot more, remembering to speak often enough that there wasn't too much silence. And so my thoughts were all over the place. I know the first taping was totally awful even though they said it was just fine. By the second I had the timing down better, but I think I repeated phrases too often. I cringe at the thought of actually watching myself and knowing it is on local tv for all to see. The guy is going to edit it, put in some background meditation music and give me a copy.
By the time I got home I was wiped out. All total, with stops and starts, redoing segments and teaching the class on the front end I must have done three hours of yoga. I ate some warm raisin pudding, had some juice and then fell into a deep sleep for about an hour. It was perfect napping weather with the windows all open, 80's with fairly heavy tradewinds. The sound of the wind in the palm trees just lulled me into a deep sleep. My tired muscles didn't move and so the cats both curled in on either side of me. It was only the sound of Imagine and his friend in the backyard twacking eachother in the head with plastic eggs that finally woke me. It was the perfect nap while it lasted.