In 5 years time...

I maintained this blog during grad school and a consistent Ashtanga practice. I left off over 5 years ago having ended a significant relationship and with a monstrous dissertation to finish. After 'stagnating' in primary for 4 years, I was also gaining postures in the second series during my final year in Florida.

Since then:

I finished the PhD, got a postdoc in the Pacific Northwest (2014-2017), did extensive fieldwork, met my husband and got married (2017), started a tenure track professor position in a small midwestern town (2017), had a difficult miscarriage (2017), and am now 20 weeks pregnant with my first child (2018). 

My relationship to my practiced was significantly challenged without a yoga community. I turned to home practice, but it whittled down to primary series, or parts of it, when I had the time. Sometimes during fieldwork, I would go for several weeks without practicing. My life readjusted not to depend on it as much, the Ashtanga guilt lessened, but over time other habits crept back in, too. Struggles with anxiety and depression resurfaced-- granted, there were significant personal challenges, but I didn't have a grounding ritual to fall back on. 

Now:

Basically, I miss the practice as I had it. I miss the structure and support it gave my life. Several things came together to reawaken the spark. For one, I managed to plug into a local yoga scene here in South Dakota of all places, AND one of the instructors has an Ashtanga practice. She began by offering 2 led half primary classes per week and eventually opened one Mysore class per week. I've watched a small but curious group of practitioners become introduced to the practice, and I hope this is the humble beginnings of one of the first Mysore programs in this area. It is inspiring and exciting to witness.

Another major factor, of course, is working my way through a pregnancy. The intense anxiety of a pregnancy following a miscarriage should not be underestimated. This left me highly cautious of everything-- food, coffee, movement-- but I did have a strong desire to reconnect with my body through breath as a way of helping my mental state. I returned to a gentle modified primary series when the sickness and fatigue would allow and have now been practicing more vigorously, more regularly now that I'm feeling better. I find that I'm falling in love with it all over again! Predictably, this led to several searches on Ashtanga pregnancy resources and a reintroduction to internet-land.

So, hello again.