Welcome To The Lift

Hey there,

May is almost done.

Four weeks ago I welcomed you to the lift. Three weeks ago I asked you to stay there. Two weeks ago I asked you to remember a time you felt open, and to consider a time you could be open again. Last week I gave you the percentages 25, 50, 75, 100, and told you the practice is finding the honest one.

We spent a whole month learning how to lift. The heart up. The chest open. The backbend deeper, breath by breath. And the last lesson of May is the one nobody likes to teach. The lift doesn't mean anything if you don't know how to come back down.

100% all the time is not the practice. 100% all the time is how you end up not coming to class for six weeks and then telling me you fell off. You didn't fall off. You just forgot that 25% counts too.

So if this weekend is a 25% kind of weekend, let it be one. Lie in the grass. Read a book that has nothing to do with anything. Take the long walk. Take the actual nap. The lift you built this month does not disappear when you rest. That's the whole point of building it.

And then June.

June is still OPENING. Same theme. Same heart-up energy. But the pose shifts: Half Moon, Ardha Chandrasana. One foot on the floor, the rest of you reaching sideways into space. It's the pose that asks: now that you can lift, can you also balance? Can you trust the ground while most of you is in the air?

We'll figure it out together.

For now, this is your last invitation to the May lift. One more Sunday at Utepils. One more class with the High Lunge with Backbend at its peak. Come at whatever percentage you've got. The mat doesn't care.

The monthly quote one more time, because it's been the whole thing:

Walk slowly. Just don't walk backwards.

See you on the floor. One last time before we change the pose.

Annie

PS-If you're traveling and missing class, that absolutely counts as 25%. Take a deep breath wherever you are. You're still in the practice.