Hey there – a spontaneous change for tomorrow means that I will not be able to teach the normal 8am class at Crestview United Methodist Church (CUMC). However, the 10:30 class at Yoga Black Lagoon will not be affected – so I hope to see ya there! Don’t worry, class will resume at CUMC next week.

Don’t forget, I’m also teaching Beginner’s Hatha at Yoga Black Lagoon, 4:30pm on Wednesday, and Candlelight Mellow Flow at Yoga Con Amor, 7:00pm on Sunday.

Happy November!

News for all: new classes will begin next week! Weekly classes on Sundays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays at Yoga Con Amor and Gallery Black Lagoon. 

I’m quite excited to join two studios with awesome communities. I hope to see ya’ll in my new classes, and I also encourage you to check out the other classes and workshops offered by these studios. These teachers provide excellent classes – and I’ll probably see you in some of them, too!

New Percolate classes:

Sundays, 7:00-8:00pm – Candlelight Mellow Flow @ Yoga Con Amor
A relaxing evening class of lights, breath, and gentle movements to rejuvenate the body, preparing you for the week ahead. A flow influenced by Viniyoga, we will focus on finding stillness in movement, and on integrating breath and inner energy with the changing postures. All levels welcome.

Tuesdays, 10:30-11:45am – Gentle Hatha Flow @ Gallery Black Lagoon
A class to wake up the body by cultivating the connection between breath and movement, Gentle Hatha Flow draws on Vinyasa and Viniyoga influences to help students find stillness in the middle of movement. This class is less of a vigorous workout and more of a study of the body and what it needs to rejuvenate (while still exercising your muscles, brain, and breath, of course!). All levels welcome.

Wednesdays, 4:30-5:45pm – Beginner’s Hatha @ Gallery Black Lagoon
This class is an introduction to Hatha yoga – the practice of yoga that focuses on physical postures, breathing exercises, and the balancing of prana inside the body. Emphasis will be placed on practicing and building basic postures, posture modifications, connection of breath with movement, and investigation of basic Hatha yoga philosophies on the mat. Excellent for all levels, from beginners who are interested in discovering yoga, to long-time students looking to re-examine their own practice.

So I’ve been researching, getting to know the community, marinating in juicy thoughts, and in general steeping with all sorts of new granules of information and opportunities. I keep waiting for my life to “settle down” just a bit – but life is life, and it just hasn’t settled down yet! It’s better that way, really, though – all I can really do is tame my mind, I can’t tame the world around me. So maybe I’ll just focus on that.

However, it *is* really nice when pieces of the puzzle start to settle into place after months of hard work. For Percolate, that means that I have just found a part-time job (can I get a hallelujah?! crimeny, it took look enough!) – which means, furthermore, that I can now commit to teaching more classes as I work around that schedule. Hooray! So there will be new classes and Percolate opportunities coming up soon.

Until then, here are some updates about what’s going on in the Percolate world right now:

• The About Hatha Yoga page is finally updated. This page talks a little about what “Hatha yoga” is; for example, why a Hatha yoga class is different (or not) from an Ashtanga or Bikram class. It also helps explain my foundation of yogic philosophy and the approach I bring to Percolate.
• Tuesday morning class is now donation-based! And the proceeds will go to a really great Austin non-profit. The details are still being honed, but this non-profit will be announced soon.

Crestview’s yoga space

• Private sessions are definitely up and going. They’re a lot of fun, too! Here’s a photo of some work I’ve been doing with one couple:

• And finally, starting in November, I’ll teach a Sunday evening gentle flow class at Yoga Con Amor.  Que padre, ¿¡no!? 

In other words: things are crazy, but life is good. Thanks for dropping by. Until next time! Cheers, love, and hugs,
Maggie

I’ll be subbing for Mimi’s Restorative Yoga class this Thursday, 9/26, at Gallery Black Lagoon! It’s from 7:30-8:30pm, and $10 for drop-ins. Be sure to check their website for more information about their yoga program and for tips for the class. Hope you can make it! (And thank you so much to the Gallery for bringing me onto their sub list. I am beyond excited!)

Cheers!

Whew! Moving to a new city sure knocks the wind out of ya! But fortunately, I got these awesome, cozy NEW yoga blankets for recovery napping… *ahem*, I mean, for all of us to use in Percolate classes, of course! (Don’t worry, they’re being washed as we speak!)

Anyway, I made it safe and sound to the ATX – still in the middle of settling back down. I’m also working on getting Percolate classes and sessions scheduled for my new home city. In fact, I already have one ready for ya!

Percolate Yoga: Hatha Yoga classes at Crestview United Methodist Church!
Tuesday mornings, 8:00-9:00
Starting September 10th!

Come greet the day with us by discovering your body, mind, and breath. This class is a drop-in class that is open to all levels – from the beginner, to the toe-dipper, to the experienced. $10 per class ($5 for students, AmeriCorps)

New Orleans Studio

The time has come for Percolate Yoga (aka, me) to start packing up and begin the move to Austin, TX. I grew up in Austin and am looking forward to living in my hometown again – and this time, as an adult! The prospect of being in Austin’s yoga community excites me as well, since I received my teacher training at Yoga Yoga studios.

However, I certainly feel sadness for leaving dear New Orleans. I have lived here for almost exactly four years. I love this city, and I will miss it dearly. Hopefully there will be many trips back in the near future!

Relocations and transitions have never been particularly easy for me (and certainly I am not alone in this!). But I like to think of it as a sort of exercise, like lifting weights. One reason lifting weights makes you stronger is because the physical act of lifting a heavy object actually causes the muscle to break down. Once you stop, the recovery process begins – and as the muscle recovers itself, it comes back stronger than before. So I tell myself that relocations, transitions, and other times when I feel like I’ve lost my footing are just experiences where the status quo is changing; afterwards, I will be “stronger,” more aware, and have yet another story to tell.

I mean, come on – this is a perfect chance to percolate! So, that works out well. =)

Thank you so much to all of the people that have supported me in this journey in New Orleans – particularly Sally Heller, for letting me use her art studio for my classes; Laura Stell, for being my yoga teacher and mentor; Sadani, for being a wonderful teacher trainer, mentor, and sounding board; and all of my friends here who have come to my classes, listened to me ramble on and on about yoga, and who have told me that they think what I am doing is cool. Ya’ll are pretty great, FYI.

Firsts are often rather scary – or intimidating, if you tend to not feel fear (or prefer not to admit it!). The first time you do something, you don’t know what’s going to happen. Firsts are scary because each one represents a leap of faith, an endeavor into the unknown. The unknown is usually pretty scary – you know, the “only thing to fear is fear itself” sort of thing.

I taught my first yoga class the other day – the Introduction to Hatha Yoga workshop. (Well, the first class I’ve taught since completing my student teaching.) For some of the students who attended, it was the first time they had done yoga.

Firsts are scary and intimidating perhaps because we compare them to experiences that are old-hat. I’ve gone to the grocery store a thousand times; I’ve made and drank hundreds of cups of tea; I’ve rolled out my purple yoga mat and done probably hundreds of downward-facing dogs… but I felt preeeeetty nervous about that Into to Hatha Yoga class. And this is my first blog post (finally, right?); I’ve been avoiding it in part for fear of what will happen after you read it. But the grocery store, the tea, and downward-dogs on my purple mat – these acts, these experiences, I have encountered multiple times. So it’s not particularly scary when I face them again. I find some sense of security – a sentiment that, I think, most of us desire to feel; I believe that I am secure when I repeat those acts and experiences – I believe I know what is going to happen as I repeat those acts, what I will experience as I do so, and what will happen afterward. And so when I encounter the first time to do something “new,” I can feel insecure, because I do not know any of those same things.

However, the underlying assumption here is that an experience can actually be repeated. What I sometimes forget is that, even though I may have done fifty sun salutations, every single one is different. Each experience is new; perhaps sometimes it feels familiar – but sometimes even doing something that has been done a thousand times before can feel like a “new” experience. I’m sure some of you have heard those stories about people who have started practicing yoga, and then had that “off-the-mat experience” of feeling the wind on their cheeks for the first time, for example.

This concept of new, yet repeated, experiences reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from a literature class in college:

“That is the paradox of our [human] condition… Our experiences are not historical, but we are. Each of us is unique but the experiences of death or love are universal and repeated” – Octavio Paz

This is true not only when comparing ourselves to the people around us right now, and when comparing ourselves to others in the past and future, but also when we compare ourselves to ourselves! The person I am today is the same, but also very different, from the person I was five years ago, the person I was yesterday, the one I will be tomorrow, and even the one I will be five years from now. Or consider the love that I feel for my brother and sisters, for example. Today it is different than the love that I experienced for them ten years ago… because, I mean, ten years ago, I thought they were really annoying and kinda didn’t want them around! Certainly it will be different ten years from now as well. It is a unique love today – and even if I feel the exact same love tomorrow, it will be yet another unique love, because it will be a new experience: tomorrow, the history of us will be different.

So it is with yoga. We can repeat the exact same sequence every morning for ten years, and yet each time, the teachings of yoga encourage us to face the “same” sequence as if it were new. As if we can learn something new. As if it is the first time we do yoga… In fact, it’s not even an “as if” – because it is the first time we have done yoga. It is the first time we do yoga that day, at the very least. We do not know how our body will respond to the asanas today, even if it is the exact same asanas as yesterday.

I have been putting off writing this first blog post for a really long time now… That first yoga class I taught was a little over two weeks ago; and the first time this website made its appearance on the internet was, wow, a little more than two months ago. I have been both procrastinating and percolating – letting ideas come and go; letting ideas steep and develop; and also letting feelings of fear, concern, and anxiety block the way of my thoughts traveling through my fingers to the keyboard to this screen. But I’ve finally made my first posting – hopefully the first of many! Don’t worry, friends; as most of you likely know, I usually have a lot to say. It will probably come tumbling out soon, now that the “first” is over.

Until then, I hope that all have a most excellent day – and maybe feel the sun (or the rain) as if it were the first time again. Cheers!

The Reflections blog is still under construction. Please come back soon!