So today I wrote an amendment, almost a retraction, to my last post about Matthew Polly’s books. Then I came on the site and saw that Mr. Polly had responded to my post, in generous fashion. Anyway, the first two paragraphs below are what I wrote earlier.

In my last post I all but accused Matthew Polly of being a misogynist. I’d like to amend that a bit. I got the impression that it’s more like an awkwardness around women, rather than a hatred. He’s not mean-spirited, just kind of scared into the old goddess v. whore thing. Which is not to say I’m not susceptible to that myself, but when I am I try to realize there’s a whole lot of middle ground that’s missing. I’d also emphasize again that I admire him for laying everything out there. He makes himself very transparent and vulnerable. All in all I like the guy; he’s a warrior.

Also, I watched his MMA fight on youtube (watch it here, which he describes so vividly in Tapped Out. Fascinating to have an account of what was going on, and then be able to see it as it played out, like seeing it from both the inside and outside.

Interesting yoga teaching experience yesterday. I got a call from a friend (Genny) to sub for her for an organization that brings yoga to condo dwellers. She was going to sub, so it was actually a sub for a sub. I was told beforehand that there might be only a few people attending the one hour class.

The condo is on 38th St. The room is amazing. Beautiful bamboo wood floors. Lots of window space giving out on a patio and plants. Bamboo forest wallpaper on two of the walls, the whole effect light and minimalist.

I had only one student, Catherine. She was lovely; a year younger than me, has practiced for decades. Earlier in the day I’d enjoyed my rehearsal, because I was told it was usually taught as a vigorous vinyasa, and I haven’t taught that for awhile. So it was nice to imagine pulling out some of the stops. And we did some more advanced poses, she has a fine headstand practice for example, but there was also chatting during the session, because we seemed to have a lot in common. So we ended up with a leisurely journey, still a good workout.

And now I’m the sub list and may even teach, depending, on Saturday at one of their other locations. Yay!