Goal : talk to people in meaningful ways
Staying in nice hotels is great, though stupid me I figured out this morning that I had a black out shade... Dumb dumb.
My first class wasn't until 10 so I had a relatively slow morning. The hotels continental breakfast is actually really good. They had all the essentials, fruit, yogurt and BREAKFAST sandwiches. Hurray. Ok maybe I'm a sucker for them but it's all about the simple pleasures. I had a quick- ish breakfast and got my stuff together. I wanted to get there early today to make sure I knew what was what.
The festival is being held at brazos hall and, coquincentally wanderlust yoga studio... Which is next door to it. It's all very compact but so far the weather is holding so being outside isn't bad.
My first class was essential vinyasa in the mothership. With gioconda Parker. I really liked it. I didn't realize when I signed up that it was more of basics class, but it was the perfect way to kick off the weekend. She went slow and methodically, which was nice... Since sometimes advanced classes feel a bit jumpy. The coolest thing she showed us was a way to get into flip dog without tweaking your shoulder (novel concept I know) basically you start in down dog, go to side plank, then bring your top foot behind you. It was sort of like the set up to rock star... And as your rotate your ribs the sky it opens you up while being gental on your shoulder. Hurray!!!!
She also did some interesting things in engaging your core in salavasana by tucking your head and tightening your belly, then raising your head again... Hello abs. And if you bring your hand forward ( parallel to the floor in front of you in side angle ) you can lock your shoulder back in its socket and get more length when you go for extended or bound side angle.
After the class I had a nice break so I walked around a bit. Walked up to sixth st.. Which is where the night life is in Austin. Definitely had the feel of walking around bourbon st during the day, and enjoyed a chicken swarma at extreme pita :)
Goal update: so far I talked to four different people. Two from Austin and two from Boston actually, one teaches in the south end so will have to check it out when I get back.
On another goal note. I made friends with this really nice man from Kentucky, named tim. He was in my fluid fire class and we ended up talking after.
My next class was "fluid fire" with Chrispy Bhagat Singh and malia Scott. It was awesome. The whole concept was to create the inner fire... Aka holy abs man... To burn away the toxins and rejuivinate the body. We did a tough flow with some pranayama meditiation at the end. And if anyone is in the area or has a chance to take a class with Chrispy... Holy crap this guy was amazing. If I wasn't in yoga coma right now I may be able to remember some of the stuff that he said but it was great... And a little weepy, but yoga weeping is always a good thing.
After that class I went directly to "flip it and fly handstands for everyone" with Janet stone. I was excited about this class because I don't have a handstand in my regular practice so learning more about them is even better. We did mostly partner work, so I was able to make friends with this women name Sid. We did a few neat things to get into handstand prep. First we did assists on each other in inchworm pose. Which is delisious. Then we did this thing that was sort of like bridge but she held my feet and then I practiced keeping the center line by having to keep my feet together and up. We did that in plank as well. Then we moved over to the wall, started with working on keeping our ribs down by holding a block overhead. We did L sits on the wall. Then moved to helping each other into handstand with the wall. Then moved to a two person assist away from the wall. And guess what... I actually balanced for a few seconds each time. Woot woot. It was awesome.
The other thing that was great about this class was it was my first yoga dance party. The great thing about wanderlust is so far all the class have had live music. In this class it had a dj and a pianist. So half way or at some point because with no watch I had no freaking clue we had a dance party... Legit... It was totally odd and totally awesome.
After the class I boogied back to the hotel to dump my stuff. Since I had a bunch of stuff, yoga mat, back pack.. I also had a quick shower realized I brought enough undergarments to change for the evenings.... Woot woot. Yep in talking panties here people. Life is good. I had to be quick because I made plans with tim from earlier to get some dinner. So I made my way back to brazos hall. As it turned out rooted in Austin (the opening musical event ) actually had food so we saved some money and just ate there. It was all sorts of platters from whole foods, so it was good. And met some other fun people from New York City.. We even discussed how living in the northeast makes you naturally skeptical of people's niceness. We also listened to dj sukha who was really good.
I called it a night pretty early because all that yoga I was tired. And got to do it again tomorrow... And it will be awesome.
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