I set up my mat and blocks and waited until 10am rolled around. I was excited to be teaching my first, online, at home yoga class for the employees at Expedia. 10:15 passed and as it got to be 10:20 I realized no one was coming to my thirty minute online class. While preparing for my classes, I had been drawn to a meditation practice I often fall back on, the Maitri or Loving Kindness meditation. With my mat and space set up, I figured this was a great opportunity to take a stab at the online offerings I was hoping to post on my website.
I sat on my blanket, turned on video mode on my iPad and away we went. The sound and video quality are not great, but the idea is for it to be simple, simple for me to create and simple for others to watch and practice. The biggest mistake I made was that I told my viewers to get comfortable for a short five minute meditation. Rookie mistake. Since I had never done this on screen before, I wasn’t really paying attention to time, I figured it wouldn’t take long. As I came to a close, my video was a little over 12 minutes.
Ironically, when I viewed the video after, I was completely distracted by how orange my face looked. After a week in Palm Springs, my face was a few shades tanner than usual, but my neck and lower body did not get as much sun. I was automatically self conscious of my appearance, the exact opposite messaging I was trying to convey in my meditation.
In the end, my film making daughter helped me edit out my turning on and off the camera, we set it to a black and white filter to even out the tone of my skin and I apologized in the video and now in this message that while I said it was 5 minutes it was actually 12. It’s not perfect, but its okay. The messaging, the meditation and the moments of peace are worth all the challenges that came with getting it all set up. I am giving myself some compassion for my first time.
If you have 12 minutes (not 5) take a look at the video, you can find it here on my YouTube channel which I hope to add more videos to. Or you can access it via my yoga website: www.kathygorohoffyoga.com.
I would love any and all feedback, let me know what you liked, what you didn’t and what you like to see more of!
KathyGorohoff.com 