This coming Thursday is Full Moon Day. There will be no morning Mysore practice on Zoom. Sleep in and rest. But until then I will still see you tomorrow morning and I will watch you like a hawk but only after second coffee;-)
Friday Discussion: Minimizing Pain, Maximizing Joy
Here’s a podcast about Stoicism, a philosophy similar to yoga (hat tip Meghan):
https://www.happyscribe.com/public/hidden-brain/minimizing-pain-maximizing-joy
Yes this is the dichotomy of control, although in my own works, I broken it into a tri-chotomy of control. So things you have complete control over, those would be your values. Those would be the choices that you make. Things you have no control over at all are like whether the sun rises tomorrow. So the first bit of advice, stoic advice in this comes from you, Musonius’s student Epictetus, one of the four great Roman stoic philosophers.The advice is, don’t spend your time thinking about things you have no control over because you can’t control them. It’s a waste of time. You should instead spend that time thinking very carefully about things you do have control over, including your values. And then there’s this interesting middle category, and that’s the category of things you have some but not complete control over. So one analogy I use is preparing for a tennis match. You can’t control how hard your opponent practices.
You can’t control the weather conditions on the day of the match. But there are things you can’t control, like how hard you train, like the strategy you come up with for doing the match. And that’s what you should be focusing your attention on. Let me take a little bit of a side trip here. When a stoic is, has finished, when whatever he was preparing for is over, he won’t judge himself on the basis of whether he won or lost.
He’ll judge himself on whether he did the most with what he had available to him. And if he did that, that’s success, because that’s all he could do.
Re-Patterning Training: Integration Hips/Legs/Feet
Saturday, January 23 8:30am – 9:45am PT (Pacific time) Contact Mitchell (smitchellgold@yahoo.com) to Register
Integrate the lower body (hips, knees, legs, feet) by applying anatomical detail to how it all works together, and moving!
http://www.structuralbody.com/events

What is the right Yoga practice for an individual – Perspectives from ancient texts
Re-Patterning Training: Our Hip Imbalance
Saturday, January 16th, 8:30 am – 9:45 am (San Francisco)
Contact Mitchell (smitchellgold@yahoo.com) to Register
Let’s investigate how our hips move, where they’re stuck, and what we might do to make them more comfortable.
http://www.structuralbody.com/events

Moon Day – Tuesday the 12th
Just a quick reminder. Tomorrow is New Moon Day, no morning Zoom practice. Sleep in and enjoy a day of rest. Go outside, soak up some sun and make some vitamin D. And I will see you on Wednesday morning when I will start observing around 6:45.
Re-Patterning: Relieving Knee Pain
Saturday, January 2nd, 8:30 am – 9:45 am (San Francisco)
Contact Mitchell (smitchellgold@yahoo.com) to Register
In this class we want to know why we get pain in our knees, and what we can do about it. It begins with awareness in the feet …
http://www.structuralbody.com/events

Re-Patterning Training: Addressing Knee Pain
Saturday, January 2nd 8:30am – 9:45am PT (Pacific time)
Contact Mitchell (smitchellgold@yahoo.com) to Register
In this class we want to know why we get pain in our knees, and what we can do about it. We begin with an awareness of the relationship between our knees and our feet.
http://www.structuralbody.com/events

Moon Day – Tuesday Dec 28th
Tomorrow, Tuesday December 28th, is Moon Day. No morning Zoom self practice. Rest, sleep and recharge.
I will see you on Wednesday for Mysore practice. Turn on Zoom if you want my help. I will start observing sometime between 6:30 and 7am depending on when you all show up.
Led Primary and Pranayama Friday 25 Dec and Jan 1 one hour later than usual
For the next 2 Fridays, December 25 and January 1, we will start the led Primary class at 7:30am PT instead of the usual 6:30am.
Pranayama will also move to start at 9:00am PT instead of 8:00am.
Thanks for your continued support.