Manju Jois

I should be doing marichiasana d or something right about now with you all down at the shala, but with two sick kids and Dan out of town I'm sitting here thinking about the past week and already starting to feel the post workshop blues... or maybe it's a yoga hangover - I'm not sure. I do know that it is really something special when we all get together and practice and it is even more special when the space is held by someone as gracious and humble and respectful as it was by Manju.

Like many of you, I can't get in a morning practice during the school year, so the opportunity to practice four days in a row at the same time of day, in the morning was special and worth every ounce of energy it took to even show up. Manju's quiet presence during the mysore classes felt respectful of our practice - he was un-assuming and provided simple direct and firm adjustments to help us see that we could be feeling something new in a pose that we do everyday.

A big thank you to all of you who made the effort to be there for some or all of the week and of course deep gratitude to Manju - we look forward to seeing you again! If you want to post a comment of email me one we'd love to hear about your experience.

Encouraging words, parampara and more...

Dr. MA Jayashree in Mysore...
Me with Lucy and Sharath in 2004, in San Diego.
David and Joanna last fall...
Lucy's dance teacher out in front there.
Shelley...
Darrel...


"There is no quicker way to stop someone from being successful than from helping them to think they can’t be. And there is no quicker way to help someone be successful than to help someone think they can be."

"Teaching people who are not struggling to figure things out is the easy part; the real teaching comes when we are put in a position to figure out how to provide that foothold for a student or learner who is struggling to get over a wall."

"The real teaching comes when we put our own frustration and doubts aside and stand firmly with our students, letting them know we will not leave them until we both figure out how to get over that wall. The real challenge to being a teacher is understanding what we do as a practice."

These three quotes are from my college rowing coach Jennie Marshall who rowed in the 1988 Olympics in Seoul. I was so lucky to have Jennie as a roll model, and a mentor while I was in college and starting to think about the possibilities that lay beyond. She's still inspiring me to this day, her most recent achievement was getting her PhD and well I guess too her 200hr yoga teaching credential! Her quotes are from her blog Ordinary Olympian where to date she's only written a couple of posts (I keep checking for more)- but these lines really stuck with me and remind me how it important this all is - we are all teachers in one way or another, and I see people who doubt themselves, talk themselves out of sticking-with-this-ness everyday. I read somewhere recently and I wish I could remember where that said something like when we doubt something that means it is really starting to sink in, and the real learning is about to happen - it is right at this moment that we start to move away from pain and towards healing. Thank you Jennie for reminding me of my role in that special moment.