So , I terminated my YogaWorks membership (as of end of June), so I wanted to take a few classes with favorite teachers, but I only managed two of them, one with Tzahi Moskovitz and one with Sherman Morris (which I’ll post about after a brief pause).

I took Tzahi’s level 1 last Thursday (his last class before taking off for India for a month). Of course he’s a master and it’s been awhile since I saw him teach an entry level class. And of course it was so great it was ill. One thing I noted this time is how much he smiles when he’s teaching, and it appears so authentic, he’s truly enjoying himself, and even if no one were to get his jokes (hardly likely), he will always be amused by the fabulous fluctuations of his own mind (which is Patanjali paraphrased pretty poorly, just in case you didn’t notice!).

And of course he was insanely creative in teaching the poses. I was most intrigued by the incremental, careful instruction of Trikonasana and Parsvakonasana. However herein, or hereof, lies a sad tale of woe for Ivan. I exaggerate for dramatic effect of course.

Now I know from bitter experience (another exaggeration!) that a great pitfall for me is taking a class, getting all inspired, and then trying to incorporate what I’ve learned too quickly into my own teaching. I know this, I know this, darn it. I know this. And I’ve been pretty successful lately in modulating my tendency to immediately regurgitate. But I guess I thought I had more time to digest and rehearse than I actually did. Because at Friday’s all level class I attempted to do The Tzahi, more or less. And mostly it was less.

Plus it was a challenging class to begin with. There was a wide range of students.

Later I confided my difficulties to my friend Victor, who drove me home, and he essentially said he couldn’t tell anything amiss with the teaching, and to be fair to myself it was probably just a few hesitations, but I typically set the bar pretty high, so I was disappointed in myself. (Stop that Ivan!)

However….Was it Vince Lombardi who said sometimes you need to have the shit kicked out of you to know you can stand back up? I had a couple more days to digest the Tzahi teaching, and this morning in my Gentle Yoga class I worked the Trikonasana (and at least one other bit from the Tzahi class) into my repertoire, and it went fine, it was actually a lot of fun. I had had time to make it my own. So all’s well that ends well. I guess sometimes even if you experiment too much, when you reign it back in, it can be useful and effective.

Note from a week or so later: and by this time, it’s pretty much fully integrated. Thanks again to Mr Tzahi, always a source of revelation.