Big News!

As my many readers know, it has been a strange and exciting summer for me. I began Teacher Training, was unemployed and unsure of my future path.

While I am still unsure of my future path I can say with happiness and joy that I am no longer an unemployed mooch! I was lucky to receive a job offer from what seems like a great company and to top it all off? It has benefits and all that good stuff a grownup wants in a job!

I feel lucky and nervous all at once. Nervous to be starting a new job with new people (oh dear, making new friends can be tough for the Juice, she has to reign in her crazy so they don't get scared right off) but at the same time I have the hope that it is the kind of job that I can do for 8 hours and then go off on my merry way to hang with my friends, do yoga and otherwise enjoy the good life with actual income coming in! It means I don't always have to go to the cheap night at the movies and that I can buy new pants when my old ones rip!

It's truly exciting.

A short post for this week but a happy one. When I found out on Friday that I had the job a HUGE weight lifted off my shoulders and I was able to truly relax without worrying about the other foot falling down upon me. Knowing that as of October 31st I will be making a steady wage again really puts the rest of my life in perspective and gives me the space to breathe a little bit. To know you WILL be able to afford rent, utilities and food for the rest of the year and beyond makes things a little bit better.

OK...now I feel as though I am gloating which is not my intent. I just wanted to share my good news with the world! Or, at least, the six people who read my blog.

Stay classy Rhode Island.

Fear and Loathing in Yoga.

This past weekend was my third Teacher Training Weekend. We are in class 3 days, Friday 4-9, Saturday and Sunday 9-6 so they are long days of learning and practice. It really rips you a new one pretty quickly and can suddenly take you from the space of knowing about yoga to realizing that you actually know nothing about either yoga or yourself. I walked into the space on Friday feeling cranky, angry and with NO DESIRE to be there at all. I left this weekend feeling fan-freakin-tastic and SO GLAD I am a part of this training. Go figure.

For those of you who may not know it or for those that maybe do not practice yoga there is this thing that yoga does to you if you do it alot...yeah, it fucks your shit up in weird, crazy, super fun and super awful ways. It is not uncommon for yogi's to come running out of the studio weeping, cranky, euphoric or even high as a kite. Because for some people yoga is not just a physical practice of poses, it is a way to commune with your body and with the universe and possibly God.

(Now, if you don't believe in God don't get twitchy. Use whatever term you want to use, nature, the Universe, your momma's fried chicken - it makes no difference to me.)

As I was saying...

Yoga has this way of very subtly getting inside of you and taking a firm grip on your guts and your soul and not letting go until every last drop has been wrung. the fuck. out.

Hence the weeping.

I am seriously not trying to frighten anyone out there, I am simply stating my experiences and the experiences of my friends with their yoga practice. Your yoga is most likely something different and that is great, fantastic and almost as bitchin as unicorns and glitter!

The benefits of yoga FAR outweigh any of the negative side effects of it. Yoga stretches out your mind along with your body. For me personally, it helps me find an inner peace that no other type of meditation or movement has ever done. It has brought me peace. Good God almighty, it has brought. me. peace.

It feels so good to say that. I spent so many years of my life feeling torn up, wrecked out and just down and low that to have found a way to find peace is the most wonderful thing that has ever happened in my life.

Have you found peace? No? Might I suggest some yoga as a start?

Don't get me wrong, yoga is not a cure all, it is not for everyone. It will make some people cranky and mean, it will make some people feel inadequate and small, it will make some people scared.

I have been all of the above people.

Before you go thinking that Juice has turned into some kind of schizophrenic mess let me explain.

This weekend, we learned about Prana Flow Yoga Sequencing. It is quite different from any other kind of yoga sequencing (from what I understand but I could be wrong on that point) and it is far more complex than I ever imagined it could be. But it all makes sense, it is a wave of motion, a flow of prana (that means breath). It's amazing.

So we, as a collective, sequenced a class around the pose Hanuman (Full Split) and I was like, uh OK, I have NEVER practiced Hanuman in my entire life but thought I would give it the ole college try because why else was I there really?

So there came the point in the class were it was time for Hanuman and I felt panic. Yep, PANIC at the thought of coming down into a full split. I had my blocks on either side of me for support (and a possible rescue) and down I went. I quickly realized two things:

1. I could most likely get all the way down to the floor (holy shitake!)
2. I was scared to death that I wasn't going to be able to get out again.

So I breathed as best I could (suddenly my breath was very tight, very blocked) and held onto my blocks for dear life as sweat dripped down into my eyes.

Release the pose. Thank you Jesus.

I made my clumsy and totally NOT graceful way out of the pose and realized that I wasnt broken, I wasn't injured and holy craptastrophy, I had just done a friggin split.

We still had to do the other side though.

This side was MUCH harder and I don't know if that was because I was tighter on one side than the other (quite possible) or if knowing what was to come my brain was trying to conquer my body but I gave it a try and did my best and it was equally as terrifying.

I was truly surprised at the amount of fear that welled up in this pose. I mean, it's not a simple pose by any stretch of the imagination but still, it wasn't going to kill me right?

I am leaning towards being dang proud of myself for trying the pose and for doing it well but I am still working through why it filled me with such fear. Which really means only one thing, expect to see me working on my Hanuman in yoga class.

See ya on the mat yogi's.