Christmas Story

Hello all,

I heard from one of our students that so many students were coming to see Gladys, Axl, and Takei that Space was going to find a bigger room. We didn't know there was a bigger room. Well... Merry Christmas to you. We're spending the evening watching ballroom dancing and Doctor Who on the telly.

The last two weeks

Dearest Students,

Brrrrrrrr.. wow is it cold here. It's not helped by the fact that it gets dark at 3:30 in the afternoon. (pitch black by 5) And, finally the sun comes out at 8 AM! So, mostly we sleep a lot like little hamsters. I have to apologise for this late post, but will endeavor to post more regularly from here on.

We left Space Dec 2nd. That night we slept at the KDM and really didn't sleep as a party of Americans were watching football from 12 to 3. The next morning exhausted already we flew to HK. However our moods were uplifted by spending the day with a lovely woman Eng Eng who is a good friend of our student Annie. We had a wierd Lebanese fusion Italian health food meal with her coworker Andreas (They run the Mysore class at Pure Hong Kong-- I've known Andreas for a while) Spent two hours drinking coffee with him called Annie from HK and then we acccidently met Patrick from Pure on the street. He seemed chummy. Later that evening we flew to London and slept for the majority of the 13 hours.

In England we made our way to Oxford. This fellow Ian MacDonald runs a program there. He met Danny Paradise in 1983 and has been in love with Ashtanga ever since. His program is a visiting teacher community really. Once every two months a senior Ashtanga teacher comes through and all the students in the neighborhood come out of their Hobbit holes and attend. If it is someone famous, gregarious, and charming they get a big crowd. Someone like John Scott for example makes a big splash.

We were very pleased by the turnout: 30 people on average. The most Ian had ever had for a first time workshop. Needless to say we were invited back for next year. We then spent the following week running the Mysore program for a junior teacher who was looking for juice for her own practice. She was lovely. Yasmin was her name and she had a very deep, balanced practice and worked very hard. She was a very good listener as well, which many Westerners find very hard to do. In that they want to "do their own thing" or move "to their own ryhthm." This makes teaching very difficult.

We're down in Brighton now at Sally's sister's home. Emily is a very good host and we're doing our best to chip in around the house. We're running our old Mysore program in Brighton in the morning. I've included some photos and I will post in two days time.