As usual, I’ve been very busy.   2 of the last 3 weekends, I participated in the Teacher Assisting Program (TAP) at Shakti Vinyasa Yoga.  This was about 24 hours of training, Friday night, Saturday and Sunday.   I supplemented both weekends with 8am Saturday practice, and the Sunday 9:30 practice.    Overall: awesome experience.

So, what exactly did I do?  We learned how to assist other people in Yoga poses.  Assisting always starts with safe alignment (the corrective assist).  Once you have someone in a safe position, all kinds of possibilities open up.   You can give support, spark awakening, help some one go deeper and expand their edge.   I had a great time, and learned a lot.

Since we all needed people to practice on, I ended up doing lots and lots of Yoga poses over the workshop, and holding some of them for a very long time (longer than I’m used to).   This turned out to be a very valuable experience.   I learned a lot of things to help deepen my own practice and to help others along their own path and learned how to analyze my own body in a pose and see where I can self adjust.

To top it all off – assisting is fun.  There are some standard templates to assists, but there is lots of room to be creative and really find the best way to help someone in this moment.  I had a chance on Sunday to assist someone for an entire class – and since some of the poses are taken several times, I already had a change to experiment a bit.

Next steps: I have already applied to enter the mentoring program at our studio.   I have an evaluation this weekend where I will assist one of our teachers during a class.   And we’ll see where it goes from there.

All of this experience should be a great help when we head to the Baptiste Level 1 teacher training.

Earlier this week we enjoyed the October cupcake of the month, Carmel Apple. It is fabulous, and it comes on a stick, what’s not to love?

We had a wonderful time in Disneyland last weekend.   The parks are very manageable (compared to the size of Disney World).   So, it was nice to be able to do everything we wanted to do in just two days (including riding a lot of rides twice: space mountain, big thunder mountain, the matterhorn, haunted mansion, and buzz lightyear).

The lines were ok.  Saturday early evening was a little crazy, but other than that it was ok.   We saw the Fireworks both nights (9:25, but the park was open until midnight).   And then Sunday morning, the park wasn’t supposed to open until 10am, but it was open early…  So we went in and knocked out a few rides early.

Also, on Saturday, we had 6 free Fastpasses (Disney’s system that lets you head to the front of the line).   This helped a lot!   We were able to avoid a lot of line waiting.

Fun time! great weather.   All pictures are here -> http://picasaweb.google.com/mike.helmick/Disneyland#

Not my brithday… Cortny’s birthday is coming up (Sunday)!  Happy Birthday!

We’ve got a very exciting and fun filled birthday weekend planned…. Disneyland!   We’ll be spending 2 short days in California with Mickey and the gang.

That’s all for now – I’m sure we’ll have more to say after we actually go.

Our Baptiste teacher training bootcamp is approaching pretty quickly (less than 2 months now).   We have been putting in the physical preparation (4 to 5 practices a week).   I start every week wanting to go 6 times, but that is a huge time commitment, and just is not always a possibility.

16 changes of Yoga clothes

Shortly after signing up for the bootcamp, I went through a rough spot in my Yoga practice.  This was, as one might imagine, mostly related to rough spots in my other obligations.  Work has been (and continues to be) extremely stressful and mentally draining.   I let this carry over way too much, into my non-work life and into my Yoga.  This resulted in lots of mental distractions, physical missteps, and a generally bad quality of life.  Kind of depressing, I know.

So, I’m happier now than I was two weeks ago.  I’m more focused than I was two weeks ago.   Quantifying how this happened is a little difficult.   Of course, Cortny has been a big help, because she is probably the most supportative wife out there.  Thanks   Getting back to the Yoga, she even supports my crazy Yoga schedule.   She joins me most of the time, but she does like to skip Saturday at 8am… I don’t really blame her.   This support extends all he way to Mexico, as Cortny is also going to the teacher training (even though she doesn’t want to teach Yoga right now).

Over the last two weeks or so, I’ve been trying to change things.   I can’t get rid of the stressful work environment (unless you need an assistant professor of computer science).   What can I do?  Let it go.   Don’t react.   Those are the tools that I have at my disposal.   This is one reason I find Yogic philosophy so appealing, helpful tools for everyday life.   I’m not leaving things up to someone else, I am in control.   I don’t have to wait, I can make changes now.   This is just a sampling of what we’re learning and what we will be learning.    What really helps me, is that the asana practice (the physical part, what most people say then they mean Yoga) really ties it all together.

When we first started Yoga (intro series a year and a half ago), one of our teachers said that your Yoga mat is like a mirror.   The mat is like a mirror in that how you are on your mat reflects how you are in the real world.   Do you quickly react to adverse conditions, can you work through a difficult spot, can you keep your mind clear and focused?  These are tough issues.   What happens each time I come to the mat changes.  Sometimes I can hold a tough pose for a long period of time and not notice, sometimes 3 or 4 seconds in and we can’t move on fast enough.   The point is, I’m trying to make changes to get towards the non-reactive side, both in my Yoga and in my life.

It has been a long journey, and at times I feel like I’m still at the beginning. But here we are.

I can say that I’m ready to go to teacher training now.   Not only because I have enough clothes for 16 practices (I get very sweaty…), but because I am mentally ready.   I know that I am ready to let the experience happen and now to have expectations about what will happen, not because I can do every yoga pose with perfect alignment.

In 3 weeks, I start the teacher assisting program at our studio here.  24 hours of training over 2 weekends.   I’m very excited about this for 2 reasons: it will give me 2 weekends to just let go and be present in the Yoga studio, and it should be a great preview to our week long teacher training experience.

Wow – longer entry than I intended, and it went a totally different direction.  But I think I’m happy with the way it turned out!  I’m sure that some people have wondered why I’m always going to Yoga, maybe this sheds some light on that.

We are grownups!   Cortny and I went to the Toy Story and Toy Story 2 double feature today, in 3D.

Yes, we’ve seen these movies a bunch of times, but it was really cool to seem them in the theatre again.  And 3D has gotten a lot better.  And, now we’re both even more excited to go to Disneyland in a few weeks.  There is even a Toy Story ride at California Adventure.   I am also excited to go to California for the first time.

Other than that – life is just busy.   Work has been going full blast for over 6 months straight.  At least I have some down time in sight (Disneyland and Yoga teacher training).  Not that teacher training will be downtime, but I will have zero time to think about anything but Yoga for 8 days.   That in itself should be well worth it and a cleansing experience.

I’ve also been doing lots of work on Cascade (www.cascadelms.org).   I’m trying to think about how to handle the next major area of expansion – making the whole system more social.   I think it is important to remember that I’m not trying to build the next facebook, but that getting students to interact with each other more is a good thing.

Finally! New TV shows are back! So here is the run down of what we’re watching this fall:

My favorite show now – How I Met Your Mother. I love this show because it is consistent every week, and being the same age as the characters I identify with a lot of them. Of course because of this, can I see that some of the time based stuff they’ve done in the show is a little off

We sort of stick to CBS for the rest of Monday. I’m not a fan of Two and a Half Men, but watch anyway. And the Big Bang Theory has been upgraded from “watch it if its on” to “season pass” on the Tivo.

Tuesday is an off night for TV I guess.

Wednesday, we are now watching Glee.   I don’t think it will last, but will enjoy it while it is on.

Thursday is the big night on NBC (hey, that’s tonight).   SNL is on (for now – until 30 Rock comes back), Parks and Recreation, The Office, and Community (which was OK last week, we’ll give it a chance).

Nothing else on the schedule until SNL on Saturday night.

Then Sunday rolls around.  We always watch “Sunday Morning” on CBS.   Then Sunday night, there is the one reality show that we watch, “The Amazing Race.”  And the week is rounded out with “Mad Men.”

Apparently, when you write it down… we watch a lot of TV.   Of course, I’m always doing something else while watching TV.   Typing the blog post, handling email, working on Cascade, learning to program the iPhone, etc…   Always busy, but I must admit, I work better with a little background noise (or background TV in this case).

We had a pretty full weekend.   Yesterday we went to The Puyallup Fair (thefair.com).   It seems like it is the state fair (at least for 4H), with dozens of rides, and dozens of dozens of food booths.

The real highlight of our weekend:

Mt. St. Helens from Johnston Ridge

We’ve been talking about it for a while, and finally set aside the day (possibly one of the last good days of the year for it).   We drove south on I-5, making the 3 1/2 trip to Mt. St. Helens.   There are many observation points along the way, but the highlight is the Johnston Ridge Observatory.

The site is just amazing.   In the picture above, we are about 5 miles from the peak of St. Helens.  You can clearly see the crater left from the 1980 eruption.   The volcanic memorial site is way bigger than I had expected.   There seems to be mile upon mile of hiking trails, even down into the valley.   Had we been properly prepared, we would have ventured on a little further.

I highly recommend the trip.   Just an amazing site.   Beautiful scenery on the way, and you get to witness the true power of the earth.

Speaking of which (another recommendation coming). Last night we watched “Galapagos” from the BBC. Wow. The documentary itself was beautifully shot (we watched the Blu-ray version). The subject mater, just amazing. I feel privileged just to have reservations to visit the Galapagos next year. To see the origin of “The Origin of Species” and to witness first hand how evolution has played out through adaptation, will be a once in a lifetime experience. I clearly have lots of studying to do before we go.

Yesterday we took another little road trip.   We drove out east (about 40 minutes) to Snoqualmie.   The highlight of the trip was the waterfall.

The falls are 268 ft high.  It is quite a drop.   They falls aren’t very wide (although we hear they are fuller at different times of the year).   Probably most impressively, the water seems to just hit the surface below and just scatter all over the place.    This creates a lot of mist, which was supplemented by rain yesterday.

There is a nice observation area at the top of the falls.  Then there is a 1/2 mile trail that goes down to the river.   The trail is pretty steep, but it was a fun walk.   At the bottom, there is another observation platform.  And then…. you have to walk 1/2 mile uphill gaining 268 feet of elevation.   It was a fun hike both ways, but the rain was really pouring down on the way back up.

We got into the car and headed back towards the town of Snoqualmie.   On the way we passed a cool old train, and thought – hey, can we ride that?  It turns out that you can.  So we went to the Northwest Railway Museum, bought tickets, and rode the train to North Bend and back.   The train also goes to the top of the falls, great view.

The train ride was followed up by a very yummy (and a little spendy) dinner at Woodman Lodge in Snoqualmie.   It is actually a really nice restaurant, and we’ll keep it in mind for a place that we can take future guests.

In other exciting news… Rocky and Bullwilnle and Friends is now on Hulu - http://www.hulu.com/rocky-and-bullwinkle-and-friends.   I know the show isn’t for everyone, but I like it.