Sanskrit as a Second Language 101

Last week was one big Sanskrit nightmare. We had double posture clinics nearly everyday. People are stressed. I'm stessed. But still surviving, still laughing, still smiling. The thing is that everyone HERE knows the postures and the diagloge so you feel extra anxiety but the reality is that when we all go back to our home studios and start teaching, NOBODY will know and nobody will judge. We are all our own worst critic here. Someone said to me that teaching is going to be the easy bit but finding out why we are here, under the pressure we are is the hard part. As far as I'm concerned, I'm surrounded by the most beautiful pleople inside and out here at Teacher Training. These are the people who have looked inward and have asked the question WHY? What is it about this yoga that at makes me feel the way I do and want to share it with other people. What is it in yourself that you are trying to bring out to the surface. I can tell you that I have never had a experience like this before. Not ever. and its amazing. I have included a poem called "The Invitation". Please read it when you have a quiet moment to yourself with out distractions and then just be still with your thoughts after. Enjoy. It doesn't interest me what you do for a living I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing. It doesn't interest me how old you are I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love for your dreams for the adventure of being alive. It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon... I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain. I want to know if you can sit with pain mine or your own without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it. I want to know if you can be with joy mine or your own if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful be realistic to remember the limitations of being human. It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy. I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence. I want to know if you can live with failure yours and mine and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, "Yes." It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after a night of grief and despair weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children. It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back. It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away. I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.