Goal achieved

I finally reached my modest yogathon fundraising goal today. I have to say I'm slightly disappointed that it was funded entirely by my new work collegues - the readers of this blog must not take me seriously or are just lazy, because I know they're not poor. In the beginning I was thinking about applying the ransom publish model for blogging by stating that I wouldn't blog about the event unless money started pouring in... but then it did, so it would have be kind of pointless - shame, I congratulated myself for the idea. (But if you're feeling guilty, it's not too late. It's a good cause.)

Practiced with Kathy again today (as she was standing in for Jason), and although I have to say I'm starting to like her, I don't like her teaching style. It's difficult to put down why - but I think it's because her classes don't flow. I don't know the secret to this (yet) but somehow ashtanga vinyasa style classes need to have a certain flow so that they make sense - if you do too many asanas without vinyasas the flow stops and body cools down. That's why in primary series and classical ashtanga a vinyasa always separates asanas - it makes sense, it works and it feels good. Certain asanas and vinyasas go together well, others don't - I need to mull on this idea more, but I'm sure I'm on the right track.

So practice was ok - it was peaceful and wholesome - but it wasn't great and although my breath was good this time, I didn't get hot. Except savasana, that was heavenly.

Next week I've decided to put the alarm back 15 minutes, and start meditating in the morning before I get to work. Morning is a good time to meditate, and I feel that if I don't do it in the morning I can't find time to do later either, evenings are so irregular and hectic. I get just about enough yoga, but I don't get enough meditation and I feel I'm going to benefit from it. For the past week or so I've been thinking about Buddha's words:

Finger points at the moon. Don't look at the finger. Look at the moon.

What Buddha means that you should always keep the goal in mind and not get too attached to pedantics. Finger is the Bible or the Koran, and instead of looking at the moon people keep looking at the finger and debating that. I've suddenly started seeing yoga in the same way - yoga is the finger pointing at inner peace, and I should look at the moon more. And thinking about it this way has made my practice better.