2 Years Old...and a week

Altho not exactly to the day, I can now celebrate the second anniversary of GTTSB! Two years of posting--almost--every week. I started the whole thing as sort of a bulletin board for my students--dissecting poses, listing practice sequences, a bit of observation. The early posts are extremely formal, as tried to find my blog "voice." I think I wanted to convery a sense of seriousness to the endeavor and not seem to casual and loosey-goosey. It mostly sounds stiff to me now (a bit of the "yoga is no laughing matter" ala YogaDawg).

Early on I set up a site meter with StatCounter and checked religiously to see if anyone was reading. I begged my sister and husband to post comments, even with pseudonyms, just so it would look like I had readers. But slowly, people started to find me--and I them. Also, the yoga blog community really started to take off in the early 2007s, so there was a lot more back-and-forth as more and more yogis began contributing to the discussion.

I love how the blog practice has affected my yoga practice. I find myself thinking actively about why a certain sequence works and how to explain it; reading the paper with an eye to subject matter that is worth commenting on; applying other bloggers' ideas to my own teaching to see how it helps students. My mind moves around the whole discipline of yoga for subject matter, rather than just concentrating on how do Trikonasana or ways to breathe.

Having an audience keeps a sense of obligation that motivates writing. I can blow off other stuff, but not my weekly post. Even if I won't get in trouble for missing a "deadline", the task weighs heavily until I can cross it off the to-do list. I encourage any friends who think about writing to start blogging; it's more public than a journal, but I think it feels more like a "real" writing gig. And certainly it has resulted in some real gigs, for me...specifically some Yoga Journal online assignments.

So, Happy Anniversary, Baby...got you on my mind!