Take My Hand

“A good teacher can never be fixed in a routine. Each moment requires a sensitive mind that is constantly changing and constantly adapting. A teacher must never impose his students to fit his favorite pattern. A good teacher protects his students from his own influence. A teacher is never a giver of truth; he is a guide, a pointer to the truth that each student must find for himself. I am not teaching you anything. I just help you to explore yourself.” 

– Bruce Lee

Catherine Destivelle

My gift for you today.

Jam packed with fascinating movement! The climbing prowess of Catherine Destivelle (and her short shorts, love them!) and the excellent textile moves of the Dogon tribespeople. Oh and the goodluck music. Brilliant.

You probably already have everything you need RIGHT NOW.

A Notebook for Pessimists

Truth

"...if your yoga does not connect you to a place in yourself that is free of gossip, comparison and lack, it is not serving you.  if your teacher does not facilitate this kind of practice, they’re not teaching yoga, they’re teaching you poses...."

-- Stacey Moves

Miss Vivian Marinelli giving the gift of the Charleston to basketball players of Washington, D.C.’s Palace Club.

From retronaut

thought

What one thing do you do for yourself each day, just because it makes you feel good?

I take time before leaving the house.  I'm not naturally a morning person and I really don't like being rushed. Ever. So on a daily basis that means waking up with enough time to stretch a little, shower (mostly ; ),  prepare a proper breakfast, drink coffee,  put on an outfit (rather than “any old thing,”) put on jewelry and perfume.  Even on the days I teach at silly'o'clock.
It's important to me and it means I greet the world ready.

be kind to yourself, you're wonderful. 

Bruce Lee had me up to three miles a day, really at a good pace. We’d run the three miles in twenty-one or twenty-two minutes. Just under eight minutes a mile [Note: when running on his own in 1968, Lee would get his time down to six-and-a half minutes per mile]. So this morning he said to me “We’re going to go five.” I said, “Bruce, I can’t go five. I’m a helluva lot older than you are, and I can’t do five.” He said, “When we get to three, we’ll shift gears and it’s only two more and you’ll do it.” I said “Okay, hell, I’ll go for it.” So we get to three, we go into the fourth mile and I’m okay for three or four minutes, and then I really begin to give out. I’m tired, my heart’s pounding, I can’t go any more and so I say to him, “Bruce if I run any more,” –and we’re still running-”if I run any more I’m liable to have a heart attack and die.” He said, “Then die.” It made me so mad that I went the full five miles. Afterward I went to the shower and then I wanted to talk to him about it. I said, you know, “Why did you say that?” He said, “Because you might as well be dead. Seriously, if you always put limits on what you can do, physical or anything else, it’ll spread over into the rest of your life. It’ll spread into your work, into your morality, into your entire being. There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. If it kills you, it kills you. A man must constantly exceed his level.”

The man.

(Found here)

(in my sleep i dreamed this poem)

"someone i loved once gave me
a box full of darkness

it took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift.”

--Mary oliver

Something real.

This yoga stuff is just the best gift i’ve ever given myself.  Something sustainable and real and very, very deep.

(photo of me in the park)

--Margaret Atwood

(Found here)

"...with gifts that are agents of change, it is only when the gift has worked in us, only when we have come up to its level, as it were, that we can give it away again..."

-- Lewis Hyde, The Gift.

Recommended read

The Gift. A must read!