Yesterday after rushing to work, I managed to get a few pieces of code under my belt then did a long lunch to teach Kids Yoga. I have to admit that I was somewhat nervous. I mean, let's be frank, 15 5 year olds in a room and you are the only adult... well who wouldn't be just a bit freaked out at the thought. I have to say, however, those kids blew me away. First, more than half of them knew what yoga asana was and many of them madly raised their hands in wild exclamations of their experience when I asked if any of them had "done yoga" before. The class was fun... and easy... the kids were barking in downward dog, swaying like trees in the wind. Not a single one of them had an issue touching their little butterfly cacoon heads to their feet (or flapping their butterfly wings in the air after they burst forth). Most of the children gave 100% of their effort not only to asana but also trying to get my attention to tell me all kinds of interesting tidbits of the lives of 5 year olds... everything from why their little brother got a yellow basket ball to the fact that they've done a backbend before because they practice gymnastics (I did not, lest you think I'm insane, have them do backbends but my darling little yogini and one other child burst forth backbends when I said "bridge" instead of the bridge I was doing). During the class I told them that they would have some homework from yoga class.... that they were each going to get the book My Daddy Is A Pretzel and they could take it home and read it with their parents. I told them to be thinking as they read it of whether there are any poses they can teach us... or make one up and teach us... they were so excited about this and one little girl came up after class, very seriously and said "Where's our homework at?"

I got to thinking later about how many of the kids knew the word yoga. I certainly didn't when I was 5, hell not even when I was 15 or probably even 25. I sort of felt this horrendous let down and stab of ego about the commercialism of yoga. But lets face it... I like my Satya Ganesh necklace as much as the next guy so I'm not claiming to be above this commercialism myself. I got to thinking about this and I realized how wonderful the commercialism of yoga can be. I mean, these little 5 year olds... they will "know" yoga from such a tender age... they'll grow up with this knowledge of the word or the idea of it... and quite frankly, I feel good about that. It can only be a good thing that the next generation of human inhabitants of this country know yoga. In many ways, it should be our biggest hope.

Friday night turned into a lengthy and not so fun affair. The details are quite boring but all the "being a parent" mumbo jumbo just jumbo'd on up and before I knew it, I just wanted to hit the hay. I hemmed and hawed over practice today but I didn't go. Instead I went "shopping" with my niece. Really, we went to lunch at Swamis and wasted so much time looking into stores, I never actually found to purchase the work attire I was looking for.

I spent the evening looking at Where's Waldo books with The Son... have you ever looked at those books? They are GREAT. I found Waldo once... but I found the Girl Waldo a couple times. What's best about those books is that they include double meaning images... for example, they had a banana doing the splits... I said "Hey, banana split." It took my 8 year old a minute and he said "HEY, I get that!" It's great when you see a lightbulb moment... after that he found a few of those himself.

Tonight while we were in the jacuzzi, The Husband asked some questions about how I practice (after I explained why I didn't go to class this morning -- my realization that I'm a Mysore Snob). He didn't realize, I guess, that the practice is given out pose by pose or that everyone is doing their own thing. I think I've mentioned this a bazillion times but he asked a lot of questions like "So if I just showed up and started doing 3rd series what would he do?" It was interesting to contemplate all his questions because you really realize how much of your own perceptions you cast on this practice. It's interesting indeed.

Tomorrow, first series.