do it from center

A couple weeks ago, I was prepping a bucket of SWEET peppers to roast on the grill. Yum, roasted red & yellow peppers, my favorite summer bounty. Suddenly, my hands start to burn. It occurs to be that I had a bucket of Anaheim (hot) peppers next to a bucket of Carne del Toro (sweet) peppers in my truck. A hot pepper or two must have tumbled over. Unfortunately, once the “pain” kicks in, its too late to wash - the oil has already absorbed. Capsaicin is the oil in peppers that causes the burning (pain) reaction and is known to take about 2 or 3 days to naturally come out of the skin. This is time that I did not have to wait…

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Most people would agree, no amount of education or training guarantees a teacher will do a “good” job or impact their students. On the first day of Anusara yoga teacher training, we were all asked to ponder qualities that we saw in our favorite yoga teachers. We then looked at our list to identify which qualities we already possessed and which we would like to cultivate. As a group, we shared our findings. The most overwhelming trend was leaning towards qualities like patience, encouraging, presence, challenging, and playfulness. Everyone agreed that knowledge and experience were necessary qualities, but that they were not the most important and certainly were not synonyms with expertise or quantitative experience. It is most important to embody authenticity and a genuine compassion for students rather than having all the answers, accolades, or certification. To teach for the love of the practice; now that makes a good teacher.

Yesterday, I met Tom Meyers… while in my underwear. When signing up to be a KMI (Kiensis Myofasical Integration) Practice Client for student practitioners, I didn’t realize that I would be assessed by the originator himself! This is a truly unique opportunity.

This session was the first in a set of 12 that aim to correct structural misalignments that my body has created through the years. In particular, the first session works with the Superficial Front Line, which is Anatomy Train that deals with superficial fascia on the front side of the body.

The work was deep, slow, repetitive, and required a lot of slow movement on my part. Mostly, I was quite comfortable and it was easy to focus on the work because of the movement required. A few times I experienced mild pain because of some tender musculature, but nothing unbearable.

Tomorrow, I go back for session 2 which will work the Superficial Back Line. The KMI series of 12 sessions are subdivided into 3 groups; the first 4 sessions are the sleeve (superficial fascia) sessions, the second four sessions comprise the core (deep and visceral fascia) sessions, and the last four sessions are the integrative (girdle-balancing and functional) sessions. I will receive all these sessions over the next 2 months, completing in mid-January.