Hello my dear SìYoga followers,
I hope your summer is proceeding smoothly and good. I hope some of you made it to find a peaceful place, where you can spend some days of relaxation and immersion in the nature. I did it and for a pretty long time. I spent 6 weeks at the beach between Olmeto
and Propriano in Corse. I took my time to practice a lot of yoga, learning, reading, camping, spending time with my self, and the few free moments of Gaetan, my boyfriend, with him. We had some friends in visit, we saw wonderful places and did some fun excursions like trying out scuba diving for the first time.
Another highlight was the excursion to the Purcaraccia Waterfalls, a fantastic hidden gem of this amazing island. The walking road to arrive at the main pool was not easy and Gaetan, at the very end of the waterfall, made a wrong step and felt
down on a stone! Result: a lot of blood and a deep wound under the knee. Fortunately it was not so serious and, with the first aid kit of other tourists, we disinfected and forgot soon about the bad episode.
Bonifaccio, and the wonderful beaches around it, have been one of our main attraction in Corse. We came here my very first day and one more time few days ago with friends in visit.
It’s never boring having a walk in this cute old citadels and relaxing in the afternoon in one of the beautiful beaches around. The first time here, we went to the Palombaggia Beach, closer to Porto Vecchio, well known as one of the main attractions of the island. Fortunately we came at the beginning of the season, so it was not too crowded yet.
The second time in Bonifaccio, we stopped, on the way back, at La Tonnara, during a very windy day. It was full of Kyte and Wind Surfers. Really fascinating, but I guess it’s not the sport for me, as I am afraid only watching them running so fast between the waves and the rocks! The rocks on the beach were also my source of inspiration to practice some inversions, and especially the Sirsasana, showed in the picture on the right side. Like the stones, the human body can stay in vertical without falling down, it's just a matter of finding the right balance.
The last places visited worthy of note are Porto Vecchio, a cute old Italian style village and Sartène, the city of wine, where we had the best dinner ever.
The other „normal“ days I was very diligent, I absolved 2 modules of my advanced training in online marketing with optimal results, 1,3, German grade. Meanwhile I made some job interviews for Berliner companies, and I kept my constancy with the yoga teaching. Every Tuesday and Thursday of the week I connected to Zoom first, and to Skype later, to see my students and practice yoga together, on the screen, from the beach or from the field of the camping Gaetan and I were staying.
Last spring, during the lockdown, when I started to teach online from home, my classes were pretty full of well known or less known faces. Now, during my Itinerant Online Power Flow Yoga project, I saw much less class attendance. Only one or two students were continuing to keep track of the classes and that made me feel good and positive on one hand, motivating me to continue to teach, but, on the other hand, I was feeling a kind of sad, that my idea of Summer Special Edition Yoga Classes was not really a success as I hoped.
But at the very end, who does define success? What is being successful? Having at least 10 regular students joining the online classes, paying and being loyal to the teacher is a big success? Probably. But for me also having only one or two students who are really practicing yoga for their physical and mental health, who are happy and motivated to follow my live classes from the beach or camping, who are giving some donations, and want to improve their asanas with my teaching, is a big personal success as well.
The central 3 weeks of my Itinerant Online Power Flow classes from the beach I devoted to OM Thrive, whose mission is to provide healing yoga practice to survivors of domestic violence and under-served communities. 80% of all donations received for the classes between the 14th and the 30th of July were sent to OM Thrive. The amount achieved was not so high, but it means a lot to me, being able to help with the little I have.
Later on, I offered free yoga classes, in the camping I was staying with Gaetan. It was a bit challenging teaching in a new language, French, but I had a lot of fun and learnt fast. I wish I was a kind of „initiator“ for those people and I hope they will continue to practice yoga more and more in the future.
To sum up, it's been a very productive 6-weeks working holiday, and now I’ll stay home in Italy for the hottest August weeks, to see my friends and family and have a real break from work, with three sad facts in mind:
My car decided to bring me just back to the port of Bastia in time, after 4 hours of hot road across Corse, and then abandoning me suddenly, while I was queuing for the entrance on the boat. The clutch was broken. And that was not the only problem of the car unfortunately. Luckily one guy of the crew helped me and made it to bring it on board. Once I got to the Italian coast, I let the car be scrapped and then I came back home with my father. I was really sad to say bye bye to my old Peugeot 206.
I forgot my yoga mat back in Corse at Gaetan’s place. Not too bad, I already got another one from my mum, I can use during the upcoming 2 weeks in Italy and, at the end of August, I will have a perfect excuse to come back in Corse before getting back to Germany ;)
I still have no idea, if I will have a job in Berlin from mid of September, or not. I stopped applying, I’m waiting for two answers and I really hope they will arrive soon, so I can finally start to be less stressed and have some more certaincy in life,
If you made it to read until here, thank you, I wish you a great summer break and I invite you to stay tuned, to see what will be the "new next thing" of SìYoga from September on!
Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu
(May all beings everywhere be happy and free)
Namaste,
Silvia
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