GALFROMDOWNUNDER UPOVER

Camping geeks rejoice - boonies-quality Dark Chocolate Cheesecake.  There are generally 3 ways to live the New York Dream if you still have to work for a living: 1. Earn an astronomical salary on Wall Street or similar, and live in a loft and eat out several times a week 2. Get a steady and coveted city/government job with benefits that make you basically unfireable 3. Piece it all together - act, sing, sell, wait tables, volunteer, teach, sell your own product online, knit condoms for Etsy - and still manage to eat out once a week and pay your rent on time. Mostly. Having surrendered my 9 year Oregon-based career as a Customer Evangelist , I've entered the realm of option 3:  I volunteer teach yoga , make and sell my original schtick , do freelance copywriting and social media, and today, I entered the world of retail - working a casual shift at Eastern Mountain Sports , the northeast's version of REI. Now, if you're an outdoor gear freak, EMS is the place to be

Last Tuesday there were around 15 -18 people in my 6pm Chelsea Rec Center class - mostly newbies to yoga. One game young guy, an 80 year young woman, and the rest in their 20-40's. Great! So much for my inital idea of a Yoga for Boomers class - with a timeslot of 6pm, this is now simply called, Easy Yoga by the Galfromdownunder. It's listed as part of the ShapeUpNYC initiative - so it's free to all participants, regardless of whether they are members of the Rec Center. One thing about being a volunteer teacher:  I get to teach whatever I want. As a warmup for this group, I've developed what I call a Groundhog Salutation. It's basically a Sun Salutation but you never get up on your feet to worship the sun, you say down at woodchuck (ferret or Aussies) level.  It's a good limber up for the back before you totter to your feet. The drill: Inhale - hands and knees post cat/cow. Exhale - Down dog. Inhale - drop knees on the way to ... Exhale