Crankworx Madness at Winter Park!

Kurt and I spent the weekend at Winter Park Resort watching the downhill mountain biking championships. One word. Awesome.

We drove over on Saturday night, got to spend a lovely evening with some friends, (bliss!) slept in (double bliss!), had breakfast on the deck and then, after a little Thai Massage all around, headed over to Winter Park.

I've never been there, and I was excited to go for a few reasons. First, my very first skiing mentor, Mike Hickey and his wife, Bonnie, are from Winter Park, so I was excited to get a first hand look at their old stomping ground. Also, Bob Barnes (the other one) is the director there, and he's just about as fun as they make em, so I was hoping to get to say hi.

Barney wasn't around on Sunday, so Kurt and I headed up the hill to watch the madness. Winter Park is amazing, they did a great job making it homey and fun. I couldn't BELIEVE how crowded it was, they definitely have their summer fun dialed.

There was mini golf and mini zip lines for the little kids, an awesome alpine slide, lots of tables, chairs and umbrellas and food stands all around so you could get a beverage easily and still watch your kids play.

People were pedaling around in their full armor on their gnarly full suspension bikes, and it was EVERYONE, not just the competitors. I saw kids as young as 7 all decked out with huge grins on their faces, I saw moms, I saw whole families. I had NO idea the sport of Down Hill Mountain Biking was so accessible!

My experience on a mountain bike thus far had been sketchy, scary and painful. (but fun). I had kind of come to the conclusion a year or so ago that I'd better buy a road bike and learn to love to suffer, because I was getting too old to fall off my bike. And when I did fall off my bike, it was scary and ridiculously painful. The consequences just seemed too high. I wished I had the talent to ride, but it just seemed like I should have learned when I was 18, not 35.

Enter purpose-built trails, bikes with huge squishy full suspension, full body armor, and a little bit of technique and instruction. Almost ANYONE can do it. Kurt had a family the other day in his lesson that had like 10 people in it. The youngest was 9. The oldest was 74!

But I'm getting ahead of myself. (because I want to tell you about what it feeeellls like to ride like this... but that's the next day. hold on to your britches. here we go.)

SO we hike up the trail and wander off under this huge bridge to watch the best guys in the nation get after it.

 While we were there, we ran into Chris Conrad (the guy with the chainsaw) and the Tater Patch crew. These guys had hiked up and brought shovels and huge nails to bang on them, cow bells, the chain saw, and they were creating a huge and AWESOME ruckus as the riders came ripping through the wood and launched off this huge rock before making a hard turn to the right.

The speeds these guys ride at and the amount of air they got were truly inspiring, and Kurt and I left feeling really REALLY psyched to ride the next day!

Stay tuned for more DH Mountain biking insanity... (and thanks for your patience, its high season here in Aspen, so we are all working our tails off. I finally folded my laundry and I can find my bed again... ahhh!!)

Metta (Loing Kindness) Meditation at 02!

At 02 Aspen:

We are having a donation based meditation on Wednesday July 27th with the Garden Shartse Tibetan Monks!

Every summer the monks come to Aspen on a tour of the United States to fulfill their mission of helping to spread peace, harmony, compassion, and tolerance through cultural exchange, interfaith dialog, and Buddhist teachings.

The mediation starts at 2pm and is an hour and a half long. It is a "Metta Meditation" which means loving kindness. a $20 donation is recommended.

Hope to see you there!

The day the flag got burried.

Bodhi and Ethan and their friends have a little campsite by Maroon Creek, which got destroyed the other day. I held Bodhi in my arms while he grieved, and he told me the story, with his sunburnt shoulders leaning hot against me. I've been doing a bunch of fiction writing for the last two months, and his experience inspired a little short story.

The tribe daring each other to jump in the cold snowmelt pond.

We walked over the hill a little, the bedraggled line of the three of us, my older brother, a little bit duck footed, skinny like a bean pole, knees bigger than his thighs, JT, our neighbor, and me.

I was in my flip-flops.  My hair had gotten long enough that I could feel it on my shoulders.  My shoulders were sunburned, no shirt, a pair of plaid shorts with a permanent dirt stain on the butt.  JT was trotting along, trying to keep up on his short five year old legs.  He'd helped us dig it out to begin with. 

We had brought some more stuff that we'd found.  I had an eagle feather.  I knew it was an eagle feather.  I went and asked the Dean if it was and he said yeah, and that it was sacred and special and that I should keep it, and that's what had started us heading over here today. 

Along the way J.T. had found a rock that he said was a crystal, but it was really just a rock, but he wanted it to be as special as my eagle feather, so I let him have it.  Ethan, always practical, had brought along a shovel and the little porcelain dish that he has swiped from mom's kitchen that had some of her special rocks in it, but mom was pretty cool that way, you know?  She let us play with her stuff, and sometimes she'd wonder where it was and it would mysteriously reappear. 

Anyway, we climbed up over the big, loose, dirt mound and when we got to the top, there was our flag,
almost just like we'd left it.  It was a long tree branch that we'd pulled out of the river the summer before and tied to the top was a piece of white T-shirt.  It was the best flag we'd had so far. We'd had it out on the raft last year when we'd lived up at the pond.  Now we'd moved across the ranch to another cabin that also had a pond, but this pond had a big fire hose that sprayed into it all day, so didn't have a raft, so the flag has been laying by our front door for most of the summer until we found this magic spot. 

I called it my peaceful place.  The other kids wanted to name it something else like, you know, rad, awesome, gastro launch mech tech site, but it wasn't.  It was my peaceful place and that's what we called it and they just had to deal with it or they couldn't come play there. We had set up rules for it.  They were very clear.  Each one of us had a treasure table.  Mine was made out of a stump.  Ethan and J.T. had big flat rocks that they had polished and swept off really carefully and on each treasure table we had put our most valued possessions.  I had a bone from an elk that I found, a big huge femur, heavy and bleached white. I had some soft, sort of oily-feeling yellow crystals that I had found that I thought were maybe salt, and some feathers.  The flag was planted right by the edge of the mossy minnow pond, marking our territory.

Ethan had a bird's nest at his treasure table.  He was really good at spotting birds. He even knew why kind of bird it was that the nest belonged to.  J.T. had little mounds of dirt.  He didn't really get it.  He was still kind of a baby, but we let him play.  He would put anything on his treasure table and we were constantly trying to tell him, it's not a treasure. It has to be something special.  You can't just pick something up off the ground and dump it on the table.  It needs to be something, you know, it needs to be a treasure, so maybe he treasured his dirt. 

But here's what happened.  Today we walked up to the top of the hill that hid our peaceful place, and all of those things that we had carefully put there were under a huge pile of dirt with giant tractor marks pressed into it.  The top of our flag was showing out of it, but nothing else was there.  Someone had come and dumped truckload after truckload after truckload of dirt there.

Those huge, heavy machines had rolled over our most sacred spot, our campsite, our peaceful place, our treasure tables.  Every single thing was buried, my bone, my feathers, the stump, the rocks, they were turned and buried.  Even a little pond with minnows in it was filled in part way with ugly brown lose dirt.  The flag was sticking out barely, and Ethan looked at it, still, and then walked over, put down his little bowl, picked up the shovel that was still leaning against the tree just outside of the dirt, and began to dig.

"What are you doing?" I asked, anger flooding everything. It seemed pointless, hopeless.

"I'm digging up what we can recover. Its all under here."

"Its GONE, Ethan. Those assholes dumped dirt over everything everything that meant anything to me."

Ethan didn't even look. He had the flag halfway out. "You never know, Bodhi, we might find it all if we just start digging. It won't help us find the stuff to cry about it. If you want to have your stuff back, start digging."

"You sound like mom!" I yelled at him. It wasn't his fault, but I needed to be angry at someone. "I want our SPOT BACK! I want my HOME BACK!" I screamed. And then I sat down, suddenly tired. Tired from the job ahead, moving all that dirt to find a tiny feather, tired from the anger, which was draining out of my toes, being replaced with disbelief.

It had been the perfect place, and it was out of sight, but it was close enough to the house that we could hear mom ring the bell when it was time to come home.  It was across the road, so that we felt really like big kids, you know?  We had been allowed to cross the road to find our spot and those fuckers, man. 

I can't even believe it and I felt it coming up in me and it wasn't anger so much as just total disbelief.  I felt as though that huge machine had driven over my home; that I had come home one day and that my house was flat and that this embossed mark of this huge, metal monster had left its footprints all over what was most precious to me, my sanctuary, my space. 

I really didn't care whether I cried in front of the other kids or not, because I felt my heart breaking and being squeezed. It seemed impossible, it was shocking, surprising, unreal.  I felt sick.  I felt sad.  I felt  I felt robbed.  I felt like I couldn't trust anybody.  How could the Dean have let this happen?  He's the one that taught me to find a bow, to find a soft piece of willow and bend it and split it and tie a piece of grass between it and make a bow that really works.  He had taught me that I could eat the whole dandelion, including the flower.

How in the world had he let - I mean what had, had he been driving this monster?  Had he been driving this machine?  Tell me please that the Dean was not a part of this.  I couldn't believe it.  I decided not to believe it.  It must have been while he was gone.  His workers came and they didn't see our flag, which was clearly planted on top of this place that was very special to us.



They must not have seen (but how could they not) our careful place, the piece of the place that was mine, the log we sat in and pulled the moss off of, the place where you could cool your feet, how could they not have?

I sat down and cried.  The tears spilled out of my eyes, hot and wet and angry on my cheeks.  I grieved for the loss of this place that had meant so, so much to me, and was now wadded up like tissue paper.  It was the first time that I ever felt loss or death or grief, and I knew then, that it wouldn't be the last.

Free Meditation Classes all Summer!

All levels invited, first timers welcome!



DIRECTIONS:
Click Here!

SCHEDULE:
At the T Lazy 7 Ranch five minutes from Aspen
Sunday 8 - 9 am
Tuesday 8 - 9:30 am

At O2 Yoga Studio on Main St. in Aspen
Wed 5:30 - 6pm

Class schedule good through August 23, 2011

DETAILS:
Classes are donation based and open to everyone. There is no “fee”. Even so, please pre-register by clicking the button in the side bar so we have an idea of how many folks will be coming!

Classes will meet on the lawn by the massage studio (cabin 11) and will be in different locations all over the ranch every week, so please be timely and wear shoes appropriate for walking over uneven ground. Please dress in layers as it can range from quite chilly to very warm in the mountains in the morning.

In case of rain, we will meet inside Cabin #11 (my home and office) for meditation.

I look forward to sitting with you!

The Technique

Vipassana, which means to see things as they really are, is one of India's most ancient techniques of meditation. It was rediscovered by Gotama Buddha more than 2500 years ago and was taught by him as a universal remedy for universal ills, i.e., an Art Of Living.

This non-sectarian technique aims for the total eradication of mental impurities and the resultant highest happiness of full liberation. Healing, not merely the curing of diseases, but the essential healing of human suffering, is its purpose.

Vipassana is a way of self-transformation through self-observation. It focuses on the deep interconnection between mind and body, which can be experienced directly by disciplined attention to the physical sensations that form the life of the body, and that continuously interconnect and condition the life of the mind. It is this observation-based, self-exploratory journey to the common root of mind and body that dissolves mental impurity, resulting in a balanced mind full of love and compassion.
The scientific laws that operate one's thoughts, feelings, judgements and sensations become clear. Through direct experience, the nature of how one grows or regresses, how one produces suffering or frees oneself from suffering is understood. Life becomes characterized by increased awareness, non-delusion, self-control and peace.

Savasana in Bikram Yoga: Set Your Intention or Suffer

Its at least 105 degrees. You are sweating your brains out. You are tired, you are giving your all in this Bikram class. Whether its your first class or your 100th, when that first laying down savasana comes, we all tend to collapse in a heap on the floor, panting for breath.

What if, in your savasana, while you are "complete relax, complete relax, complete relax", your mind is also letting go of listening to how tired and hard working your body is.

What's going on in that mind of yours?

What if in those 20 seconds, you are laying there filling yourself with the positive energy you will need for the next posture?

I did an experiment in my last three classes. I noticed that at first I was collapsing on the floor and while I was completely relaxing, I was also completely experiencing how tired I was. I the complete relax was attached to how hard the work had been.

The next savasana, I asked myself if I could let go of my attachment to my "hard work" of the past and just be here now. Not here in the sense of indulging what my body was saying to me about the past, but could I return my breathing to normal in two breaths?

Could I then spend the savasana filling my body with energy, so that the next posture I'd be rejuvenated and ready?

The floor series has always been the hardest part for me. It feels relentless, and the savasana almost makes it worse.

After a week of testing my hypothesis,  realized that the floor series was becoming easier, was less dreaded. And therefore, I could re prioritize my means of approach.

In the past, I'd thought, okay, I hate the floor series. I'm not good at it, its hard, and its hard to drink water. I'm tired and floor bow is the most brutal posture ever. So therefore, floor bow is now my favorite posture and I dedicate all my energy of excellence to that posture.

The problem was that by the time I got there, I was so tired, I had a really hard time giving my positive energy to the posture. I've never been able to give my all and see what I can do in that posture because I just don't have that much to give.

After shifting my intention in savasana from observing how hard it had been to energizing myself for what would be, without worry or projection, like a battery attached to a solar panel, I was soaking up my breath as my charge went up.

The ultimate expression of floor bow.

Suddenly, when we got to bow, I was surprised to already be there, and able to give it a little more. Camel doesn't make me feel like I'm going to pass out, and I'm not fighting lip service in Floor Bow, I'm actively participating, able to care if my knees are apart or my alignment is good.

I think about how this works in the rest of life. We know that suffering is wishing something was other than it is. I don't think I was laying in savasana suffering, I think I was observing, but also dwelling. I wonder if there isn't another step of freedom from suffering which is first acceptance, then letting go of the information that's informing your understanding so that other possibilities of this present moment can be observed as well.

Yes, I'm sweating, yes, my heart rate is up. Yes, I feel strong, alive, able, growing, and strengthening. Yes, my breath feels like water feeding my body. Yes, I am ready for the next posture.

Vipassana Meditation Classes begin!

Do you experience anxiety? Do you wonder, and worry? Come experience the tranquility and peace that a meditation practice can offer you! Right here in Aspen at the T Lazy 7 Ranch!

Classes begin this Sunday, July 3 from 8 to 9 am. Bring a yoga mat and a blanket if you have either, or a meditation cushion if you have one.

Can't sit on the ground? No worries, I have lawn chairs! Dress in layers as we will be outside, weather permitting. It may be chilly in the morning!

First class: Two fifteen minute sittings with a short break in between and tea after.

Classes are on a donation basis, so you are free to pay with a hug!  Sign up to attend by clicking on the "Schedule Now" button on the top right hand sidebar of the Skiing in the Shower Website!


Thanks for coming!


Kate

Solving the Puzzle of Bikram

So here's another reason why I'm a huge fan of Bikram yoga. Don't get me wrong, I love all the practices, I like a flow class, a strict Iyengar session, I think they all have their merits and produce great results.

Right now, I'm on the Bikram ball. I love it because its the same 26 postures over and over again. Ironically, I thought this would be something that I would hate about it. I longed for the unexpected creativity of the flow class.

But here is the genius behind the same 26 postures: the fear is removed. That whole entire, gee I wonder how far we are through the class, I wonder how much harder this is going to get, I wonder if I can do it when it gets even harder is removed completely.

Because you know exactly whats coming, you can commit everything you have to every posture every time you do it. It is completely clear how much time there is left, how hard it is going to get, and if you can rally later when its so hard right now.

Another brilliant piece is that you have a benchmark in every class. But because you are dealing with a body that changes daily, you have to accept and let go of the benchmark. Its an awesome opportunity to be present with the results you have in the now, and then let go of them. No judgement, whether its positive or negative. It just doesn't help.

Because the series is the same every time, your human mind is tempted to compare one set to the next, one class to the next.

But that is futile. You can look at the overall arching picture, but if you get lost in "This is my best posture! I'm going to impress my teacher SO MUCH right now!" guess what? You've popped right out of your body and right into your monkey mind, your focus is gone, and you are probably going to fall out of the posture anyway. That's what you get for going there in your head, congratulations.

For me, I can't help but compare, but its becoming a fun game to compare and then let the comparative results go into the ether and be wherever I am in the day.

I really thought that my hamstrings would never change. That I was just built this way. Inflexible. But that's not so. My body is changing so fast, I can't believe it.

And then, I went to my first 7am class. I've worked out a bunch early in the morning, even Yoga. But because of the magic of the Bikram series, how it is built, that I know it by heart now, I went in with expectations.

In that 7am class, suddenly, I felt like I was back at square one. I was out in the hallway after and one of the super flexi yogi girls smiled at me and said, "Don't worry, I couldn't touch my toes either when I first started." My egoic mind wanted to chase after her and say, "no no no! I can lock my legs out in standing head to knee! I'm working on pulling my elbows down! That was a hard place to get to! I've been working hard! Give me some CREDIT I DESERVE IT!"

But of course, the lesson in this moment was humility, there was no reason to need to validate my practice or prove my worth. She's right, I am still a beginner in this series and I will be for years to come. I couldn't touch my toes today, and it doesn't matter at all that I could yesterday.

I came back for 4:30 class and rocked it. Had my best class ever, and felt like I didn't deserve to be moving that well and working that hard and sweating that much because I'd been caught in the trap of my ego earlier. I was shamed, and relearned again, and then tried to look at the afternoon class as just what IS, not what has become and therefore something that points to how it WILL BE.

Yesterday, when I went to class, I was injured and my whole body had gotten tight. Even though I was trying to work hard for the rest of my body, it had tightened up SO MUCH guarding the injury that even the arches of my feet were tight.

I tried to be present with the fact that this was my body protecting itself. I tried to make space for the fear that my body had snapped like an elastic band back into place, and that I would not be able to put my head on my knee ever again. I felt a bit like I'd eaten a whole family size pack of Oreos and knew I'd need to take two weeks to hike them off and get back to where I had been JUST THAT MORNING.

Today, I went into class feeling like I'd surrendered into that lesson. I didn't care how my practice would be, I knew that I needed to be in the room, that I'd work as hard as was intelligent for my shoulder, and that I wouldn't know how hard I could go until each posture came up.

And guess what? I had my deepest class yet. For the first time ever I locked out both my legs and flexed my toes back and pulled my elbows down. I've never been there. And it wasn't a struggle, I picked up my foot, the stretch felt good in my shoulder and my leg locked out all by itself. I was shocked.

I got excited to see where my body was going to take me, but I was along for the ride, a patient observer. I felt so grateful to go internal, work hard, and experience the play of my body, tight yesterday, protecting, loose today, opening and healing.

Pain in Practice

Today, I was in Bikram yoga. I love yoga, I've had a practice on and off for a long time, and I've always disliked the issues that seem to go on between the schools of thought in yoga. Of course, I used to play a part in that myself.

I found Bikram yoga to be ridiculous. Yoga is already hard, why do it in a hot room? What is this competitive nature? What? A POWER HOUR? Screw it. That's not Yoga, I'm not goin'.

Sounds a bit closed minded for a girl who likes to think of herself as open hearted. (Knock, knock, Kate... what is the lesson you are meant to learn here? Hmmm.) So then, I meet this guy who I love to spend time with, and guess what? He's a Bikram instructor. Sigh.

I dug my prejudices out and looked at them. If you need me, I'll be over here at the "real" studio, practicing Hatha Flow with an Iyengar base. Thanks.

I always thought Bikram was for all the wannabes who followed Gweneth Paltrow into practice after her "Yoga Bodies!" photo came out in US Weekly in the 90s.

Can you hear it? I couldn't. I couldn't even see the prejudices that I had built right into my practice. Anyhow, this is a few years ago now, and of course, I had to suck it up and go, right? He was cute, I was in love with him, any yoga is better than no yoga. And I am a firm believer in experiencing the things that the one you love loves. That's how you share your heart.

So I walk into the studio and the first thing that takes me by surprise is the full on near nakedness. All five of the girls in the front row are HOT. Yes, I mean sweaty, but I also mean ripped, toned, tan, all their hair is to their butts at least. None of them have it tied up sensibly. They are wearing "shorts" that are smaller than my underwear and some of them have a little bandeaux top on. The others are wearing micro sports bras.

And, of course, they are all incredibly, intimidatingly flexible. And annoyingly nice, welcoming and whatever. I'm not going to like this. I've decided that before I even walked in the door, so we are good to go. As long as I keep looking around for ideas that match my prejudices and reinforce them, I should be safe in the knowledge that I am right. I'm here to show this boy that I've had a good Iyengar practice for years and I can DO this. (Even though I don't believe that yoga is competitive, for anyone else, or that you should every be in the practice with the thought of any other person or body or thought being a part of it... clearly I'm not letting my emotional, egoic self run insanely around the room, keeping me safe... oh wait.)

But I want to leave space for this beautiful boy to be right, as well. I'm here to experience something that helped change his life. Now, I'm in conflict. I decide that the girls in the front are an anomaly of Aspen, that Bikram people can't possibly dress like that, because that would make this a practice of narcissistic self indulgent show offs. (Was that in my out loud voice?) If you need me, I'll be in the back row in a pair of actual shorts and a sensible long waisted yoga top. Real yoga clothes. Sweating my brains out. Because its HOT. There's a REASON they are nearly naked! Helloo!!

He warned me, by the way, to bring water. I don't drink water during yoga, I drink after, so I brought some, but not much. I looked around. They all had the special hot yoga towel. More crap to buy, I think. Making your yoga soooo special, you need a towel on your mat. Whatever.

Lets skip the nausea, intense feeling that I was going to pass out, the immense amount of sweat, the hard work and dedication I saw all around me, in every single body in every single posture. Lets skip the fact that I had to check closely and look at the boy to see if he had rivers of sweat literally pouring off of him. I was sweaty for sure. It was raining all around me. I hadn't produced anything like that!

At the end of class, I was hooked, but intimidated, and financially crippled. I couldn't do it. I wanted to do it. But I didn't have an extra $20 a month, let alone $100, or $200 if I wanted to belong to 2 studios for "regular" yoga and Bikram as well. I had two kids to feed and clothe, and no financial help with them. I couldn't afford to "drop in" at $20 a class. So while I knew the minute we started breathing that I needed to be in this room, I couldn't do it. I spent the next two years craving it.

Fast forward two years later. The season ends. The summer starts. I get a little help from my friends, I'm not busted flat broke for the first time in years. I'm tired of waiting for company and friends to go to the studio with me, I just want to practice and I don't care any more. I don't have the clothes or the mat or the flexibility, and I've gained 12 pounds after ski season this year. (That's another blog post...) So I just go. I go and I sign up. And then I go to Bikram every single day. And by two weeks, I'm going twice a day.

I spent the last two years listening to the boy tell me that he feels "so good" after he goes to Bikram after a huge ride, when his back is tight, after a huge ski. Its not his work out. Its his re balance. Its his sanity. Its restoration, detoxification, balance.

And he was right.

Apparently, Bikram says "One beautiful day, your head will be on your knee" and two days ago, HEY, it was. I'm making my body. Its becoming strong, flexible, nimble and my balance is improving all the time.

Yesterday, I gave a massage in the morning and then sprinted out the door to class. While I was there, I reached up to get ready for half moon, and I felt that "bad" thing from the car accident I was in two years ago happen in my neck.

Now, let me precede that by saying that two solid months of daily or twice daily Bikram yoga has begun healing my spine in a way that I could never have predicted. Two months ago my "backbend" was me looking up about 30 degrees with a straight spine and pain everywhere. Now, my backbend lets me see my eyes in the mirror behind me. My body is feeling better every day.

The fibromyalgia from the neck injury in the accident is always present, but with a strong, flexible body, its much MUCH more tollerable.

Occasionally, however, the Injury comes back. I backed way off. I stayed in the hot room, I laid down on a yoga block as I felt my shoulder and neck begin to contract in a way that is all to familiar and very scary.

I got home and got Bodhi to walk on my back. I got my self massage tool out and began to dig. I laid on more heat. By the evening, it hurt so badly and I was so restricted in my movement that I wanted to do nothing other than cry and puke and go to the ER and beg for some big guns pain killers. I resisted. I resisted Tylenol. I resisted wallowing in the pain.

I walked around in circles, feeling crazy. It hurt so much I felt like I was near my limit. Bodhi woke up and wanted to tuck in with me, so I gave him the massage tool and he went to town on my back. Slow, deep, sustained pressure of the whole body weight of a 7 year old for about a half an hour. And then more heat. He helped enough that I could sleep.

This morning I got up and it hurt, but I could move. All I wanted to do was go to yoga. Get in that hot room. Get some healing going on.

And so I went. And it was interesting to step into the room where I've been working HARD. Backing off as needed, caring for myself, building a strong practice, and know that this was not going to be a workout, this was going to be me in a hot room wishing I wasn't hurt.

I set my intention for the practice to listen carefully to the neck and shoulder, but do everything else that I could and do it well. Not let the pain in the shoulder be a valid excuse to keep me from going strong on the left leg, for instance.

I wondered if I could make a practice that was strong for the whole body and caring and careful for the injury. My shoulder and neck hurt. A lot. I modified, I skipped postures, I worked harder than I think I ever have in class, and I barely broke a sweat. Which made me sad. I missed my detox, I missed my yoga bliss. I missed sweating out a gallon of water. I hated the pain I was in. I felt robbed of my practice.

I caught sight of my shoulder in the mirror, all around the injury, the skin was breaking out in big cystic bumps. Something is happening.

I went in to talk to Kate, the instructor, after class. She complimented me on my practice, and when she asked how the injury felt, I told her, "It hurts." and then I started crying. I wanted to sit down on the floor and bawl. Not out of anger, or fear or wishing, but just to acknowledge and honor how much it hurt, how hard it was to change my practice to support the injury, how present I was with the pain. It hurt.

Kate said that Bikram often said that humans are like onions (I think Shrek said that, too). And Kate's hypothesis is that while I'm healing my body in class, I'm peeling back layers of protection and getting closer and closer to the root. And I agree, this is how I feel. I feel like my old body is falling off to show the real me inside, healthier, taller, happier, present, with myself.

Kate said, "And now, you've come to the injury. And that's what's next. Work through this. Keep coming. Lets let your body heal you."

And so I grabbed a tissue or six, my special yoga mat and towel, rolled them into my beautiful yoga tote bag, and pulled on my skirt over my special teeny tiny Bikram shorts and walked all shaken and sad and happy to have gotten to the injury and have the next task before me, back to my car.

Work is Prayer: cultivating gratitude in everything

How do you live this, teach this, and even begin to understand this?

I just finished this painting, (which is painted after and inspired by one of my favorite albums to do massage to). Its in the kitchen over the sink, because we don't have a dishwasher, and I'm not a fan of doing dishes. Three or four or five times a day.

Ethan and Bodhi both asked me, what does "Work is Prayer" mean? Explaining this esoteric concept to myself was dificult enough. Wording it for adults was still a challenge. Eplaining it to a 7 and a 9 year old in a way that they could grasp made it come very clear to me.

I think on the simple level about the problem of the dishes. There are dishes. I don't want to wash them. But there is the fact that I am healthy, my kids are healthy. We have a home and a kitchen and food to cook. We have the means to buy food that is healthy for our bodies.

The dishes exist because of the bounty we live in. There are blessings all around, from the big sloping lawn outside my windows to the stream that flows down it from the trout pond where the kids like to swim.

When I look at the dishes, if I can cultivate gratitude for the task ahead of me, for whatever portion of it I can latch onto, maybe first just that they exist because I've fed my kids and I'm glad to have done that, maybe next that I'm healthy and able to stand and work, and then finally, to find peace, grace, and gratitude in the act of washing.

I think it comes down again to acceptance and wishing. If I wish the dishes did not need doing or did not exist, I'm adding to my suffering. I'm working reluctantly. If I accept that the dishes exist, my wishing isn't going to change that, and so accept the present moment as it is, with neither positives nor negatives, blessings or curses, it is just this moment with everything existing in the world in this moment as it does, I am suddenly free.

Free to call up gratitude for life, for growth, for work, and watch my hands make the dishes clean, taking pride in the thorough job, observing how my heart transforms when I do a task that I'm not fond of with willingness and without judgement.

Work becomes meditation, or prayer. It is a privilege, an opening, a growth, a place of gratitude unfolding.

It is a moment to practice for moments that "really" count. For those moments when you have to wash the dishes of your life, your love, your relationships. When you have to accept the present moment as it is when that present moment may include heart break, loss, love, pain, or joy.

Its a moment of gratitude. Now, if I can just get Ethan to understand that when he has to take the trash out...

It has been a month since my last...

In that time, the snow has melted, we've moved across the ranch, and spring has come full force. I've attended a Thai Massage training, and spent two weeks practicing out on the lawn by the stream. The boys have ended school and discovered their first summer of completely sleep in unstructured fun.

Bodhi enjoys our first day in the hammock.

Ive had time to get back into my Yoga practice, going twice a day to sweat, heal, and strengthen my body. I'm thinking a lot about skiing, what it means to me, what my future is in it, how I feel about tryouts, about PSIA, about what the team means to the organization, and how I can best be of service.

I'm grateful for how the summer has turned out, with some very timely help from my friends, I bridged the gap of the shoulder season, pre paid my rent, and now I have June, July and August before me to write, paint, hike, and practice.

Ethan (and mom!) attend a Live Foods "cooking" class with Rachel of Beyond Massage Aspen.

I'll be teaching meditation classes at O2 in Aspen, as well as holding meditation and yoga retreats here at the T Lazy 7.

I'll be working on some projects that needed time and space, and spending lots of time with my kids, and my love, cultivating those relationships and doing some deep examination of my path.

I feel so grateful for the time and the space to do this, I've missed my blog, but I needed the rest. Thanks for your patience, and feel free to check back here at least every Tuesday (and perhaps more often), when there will be a new blog post for your reading pleasure!

Much love!
Kate

WIN: "Now I'm Rearanging my Life for Yoga!"

This is not what my Rabbit pose looks like. But one day, it might.

I was just chatting with a friend of mine who is beginning a yoga practice. I took him to Bikram Yoga at Aspen's Arjuna Yoga studio for his first class, and, like most folks who come to Bikram for the first time, he was blown away by how hard it was, how incredibly hot it was in the room, how it could be so hard to stand so still.

Surviving the heat is the first part of it, after about four classes, your body adjusts, the heat is welcome, addicting, and you don't get dizzy. Then your practice begins to deepen, and rather than yoga being the workout, its what you do to recover from, balance for, or prepare for your day.

I'm finding that the more yoga I do, the more I like to use it after a big run, hike, ski or ride. (Although its DUMPING snow in Aspen right now, so lets say SKI!) There is something beautiful about surrendering to the practice so much that it becomes like eating or breathing, its an essential part of balancing your life, not the dreaded workout you are obligated to do.

So I just got a text from my friend, who is coming to the noon class, and he said, "Ive moved my appointment so I can make it to class. Now I'm rearranging my life for yoga! Ahhh!" 

Backbends in the heat is one of the best PT therapies for my injury I've found!

I smiled when I read this, because I remember the first time that I told someone that I couldn't schedule a massage at a certain time because I had class. I wasn't turning down work, but honoring my practice as an important part of my health, my happiness, and my rehabilitation from my injury made this very sacred space for that practice in my life.

Suddenly, my schedule is balancing because I'm willing to schedule my life around yoga. Or, more accurately, to schedule my work and play along with yoga, so that it is integrated into my life just like food and time with my kids is.

I think this is one of the key breakthroughs as a person changes their lifestyle, especially the initial shift from more sedentary to more active, this honoring. Its not something that ever stops, as I continue on my journey of fitness, I find that my commitment deepens and my need to schedule hours of workout time into every day becomes more important.

And guess what? I have more time! By taking 3 or 6 or 8 hours to workout, in yoga, in hiking, in skinning up, whatever, my house is also clean! My laundry is done, the food I am making is healthier, my time with my kids is more active, they are happier, so am I. My body is getting stronger, my mind is getting calmer.

Trusting that the energy will come back to you when you are first starting is the next hard part, I think. When you first start working out you are so exhausted in the afternoon. But its not always like that. And, eventually, you get addicted to that exhausted feeling, and you learn to blanance those workouts, so that they are once or twice a week instead of every day. Your every day practice becomes an energizing one.

So yeah, WIN, my friend, you are scheduling your life around yoga! Welcome to the first step down the path to bliss!!

A quick update

I want to say thanks to my kind and supportive  readers who sent me a steady stream of comments and emails during those tough two weeks.

One of my readers told me that it was really hard for him to see me get that far "below the line", to have self doubt and questioning behavior. I think about that a lot before I post something personal, but I do have to say that my promise to my readers has always been that I will be as transparent as possible.

This blog was meant to be a real log of this journey, not just the good parts. Any journey has ups and downs, and this one is proving to be quite difficult. I would never have guessed that the hardest part would be the financial aspect, but its true, starting a new career, from scratch, with two kids to pay for and no savings is more difficult than one would think, even a perpetual optomist like me. :-)

I had a wonderful talk with my friend who was rattled by my being rattled, and what I told him was that its going to happen. I am a human, just like everyone else, and while I work hard to stay positive and move forward, I think that having these thoughts of doubt are part of using my paddle.

(YES, I will post both the paddle and flywheel concepts ASAP! I promise!)

If we don't examine the choices we are making, we run the risk of blindly charging toward our goal, without concept or care for how our choices are affecting other people. And while its important to stay committed and work hard, and while its more likely that you will "achieve" if you can put your head down and keep moving forward, the success you achieve may be a lonely one.

Don't get me wrong, it wasn't a fun place to be, and it was a very scary two weeks. And no, its not really over yet, although things are looking up (aren't they always?). But I think it was an important place to be.

Do I really want this? How important is it? Should I really go to New Zealand if I can? Is it too selfish? What is the cost? To me, to our future stability, to the boys, to my relationships?

In the end, I feel that I have found some balanced answers to those questions, which are serving as a path for me while I'm navigating all this uncertanty. Having a strong support group who came very gently to my aid was really helpful during this period, and I'm grateful!

Don't be scared of the scary times, they are teachers, too, and look to your friends for encouragement when it gets dark, lots of times, they'll sit right next to you while you figure it out.

Just Show Up.

I was talking with my dear sister (no, the other one. the one you are thinking of is in Spain!!) this morning, and she asked me... "How do you do it? How do you actually get started? And then how do you make a change in your life that lasts? And then, if you go back to your old habits, how do you start again?"

This is SUCH an important question.

She said, "I know Nike says "Just do it." But I don't know how."

We had a beautiful conversation about how to make the change in your life so that it stays, so that you are the change, so that you are growing and becoming. And then I thought I'd better write it down for the rest of us, too!

"Well, I don't have time today."  This is the excuse that keeps it from happening, and while it may be true you may actually not have time today, most likely the reason that you don't have time is because you're used to not having time.

You're doing the best you can to fit in everything.  You're lucky if you actually make it to the post office.  You know if you make it to the post office, the grocery store and you get the laundry folded and put away, then you've done three things that you don't have time for, let alone getting yourself to a 90-minute yoga class which actually takes about 2 hours and 15 minutes including
driving and getting in, getting out and showering, so really who has TWO hours extra? 

Nobody. Not one of us. Not even the people that are there, in Yoga. They don't have two extra hours.

This level of awesomeness is not required every time. But it might be the accidental result of showing up. You never know.

The point is is that if you want fitness in your life, if you want your blood pressure to go down, you want to not have insomnia and depression, you want to have extra energy, you want to have clarity and balance and a strong body, not even a super ripped body, just a body that has movement and is functioning well, then you have to make time for it.

And I know everybody says that you have to make time for it, but I mean it.  You have to make
time for it in the same way that you make time for the other things you've decided are indispensible in your life, so if you have decided that as you're making decisions during the day, spending time with your children trumps getting the laundry folded and your kids are there so you spend time with them,
that's decision making. 

That's building little pockets of time according to your priorities, and it's true that something has to
give.  You can't just stay up an extra 2 hours because sleep is an important part of fitness, so where does it come from? 

If you work a 10-hour day and your house is a mess and you have other obligations, where does it come from?  It comes from making it every morning to that 8:15 class right after you drop your kid off at school whether you're tired or not because it's a thing that you don't compromise on.

If you have a job that starts at 9, you make it to 4:30 class. If your job, like my sisters, is 7 am to 11 pm, you tell your boss you need a 2 hour lunch in order to stay healthy. You go to the one hour yoga at lunch, and you walk there. You eat your healthy lunch at your desk after.

Even if you don't feel like going to yoga, you go. Especially if you don't feel like going. "Ugh, I don't feel like going." RIGHT! That's the signal that its time to get your shit in your car and get going. And park like four blocks away so you get a walk in, too.

This might do just fine today. You showed up.

Because it's not a competitive sport; the point of yoga is to do the posture to the benefit of the body, so you go into the pose and you hold it as well as you can to the benefit of the body, and if this morning you've been crying for three days or you've got your period or whatever it is, or you didn't sleep last night or you just had a big fight or you have 18 million things to do later today, yes you still have to go to yoga. 



No, it doesn't have tobe champion of the world workout.  You have to show up.  That's my point. Maybe this blog post should have been called that. Show up.  Just show up.  Get in the first pose.  Don't wish you weren't there.  Don't wish that the class could end.  Don't wish that your stomach didn't hurt.  Just let go of wishing everything.  Just show up and then be there.  Be there in the first posture.  Be there in the second posture.  Be there in the ninth posture.  Be there in shavasana.  Be grateful to yourself for the fact that you took the time to do it.  You don't have to hit it out of the park.  It doesn't have to be the best one ever. You can get there and be exhausted.  See if you can get there and
be exhausted and not have to show with your face or your body or your energy to everybody else that you're here but you're exhausted so you deserve something back.  Just show up.


And go to yoga. Namaste!!

Get back up. This racer did.

Thanks to Brian for sending me this incredible video... its just unreal. I sat here with my mouth open and tears running down my face. Get back up! Its not over till its OVER!

Not Confusing, Confucius.

I have a lovely friend who knows just what to say. (We all need those, don't we?) He sent me these, and for that, I'm really, really grateful. It was awesome timing. And these are good!

The gem cannot be polished without friction nor man without trials.  ~Confucius

There is in every true woman's heart a spark of heavenly fire, which lies dormant in the broad daylight of prosperity; but which kindles up, and beams and blazes in the dark hour of adversity.
-- Washington Irving

When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Fingers Crossed!

Things are looking up at 1:20 in the morning! I had a job interview via Skype today with Treble Cone Ski School in Wanaka, NZ. It seems like this might be a really wonderful match! The ski school is small, dedicated to training and very much about the guest experience and encouraging the guest to play all over the mountain. It sounds a lot like Bridger Bowl!

Fingers crossed while details are lined up, hopefully it all works out and I'll be heading to New Zealand in July. If not, its been a great experience getting to this point, I've learned a lot.

Thanks to my wonderful friends for hangin' with me during what proved to be a crazy week. I'm not out of the woods yet, but I feel so very much better!

Back to sleep and then off to Yoga in the morning, I have ten weeks to get in the best ski shape yet!

The most important thing is NEVER TO PANIC.

eventually, i'm sure i'll get there...

Total crisis today to things being clearer this afternoon. I try to stay out of crisis and just work toward the next bill getting paid. Today was really tough as I had a deadline that I knew I couldn't meet. I had to have a long, painful talk with a person I care about, and it did not feel good. And then I did not feel good.

I went to my friend's house and cried on his shoulder... "I'm Failing." I told him. Am I ridiculous to think I could actually do this? Quit my job and move to Aspen with my kids and live on a ski instructors salary with no savings to get us through?

Who am I to be giving people advice on following their dreams? Mine are held together by dental floss and an overly healthy optomistic streak.

In order to ski this summer, I have to be selfish. In order to make the ski cut, I have to ski this summer, or I don't have a chance in hell. I probably, honestly, don't have a chance to begin with, but if I'm going to give it all I have, like I promised I would, that means I have to ski this summer.

To what detriment? Can I come up with the $4000 I'll need (and that's with a donated plane ticket) to get there and live, and pay for my place here at the same time?  How can I think that will happen when I'm struggling to pay rent this month?

The worst part is, I don't want to ask for help. There needs to be a time when this is settled, solved. And while it gets better every year, I need it to be all better now. Which means I'm doing something that's not working. My costs are more than I make. But my costs are as low as I can get them without living in my car.

So I'm looking at all these things, after having had a fairly tough week, emotionally, although my massage business is picking up a LOT, its still not grown as big as I need it to.

I have an interview for a short haul in New Zealand tonight, which is promising, but that's not till the end of July, and I have to make money to get there.

I have several writing projects that I'm working on, but... but... what materializes now for car payment, groceries and rent for May and June? Should I go get an office job? If I do, I won't be free to work at 02 or privately giving massage, which is what my professional skill set is in. If I work hard developing my massage business, I will be able to have time to be with my kids and make a good living at the thing I love doing. I'll be walking down my path.

Then there is my job at the stables. I gave it up in hopes of getting the job at Portillo, was that wishful thinking? Was that foolish? Was that selfish? If I hadn't, and I'd gotten the job, I would have had to let my boss at the stables down at the last minute. That didn't feel like integrity.

Because I don't really have the luxury to make decisions like these, are they reckless when they don't work out? Does it mean that I shouldn't be doing this?

In the midst of these tears, I got a text from 02... my first massage from them, and I just got hired yesterday. It seemed like a sign, a reprieve. I know its silly, there's no signs. But I latched onto it just in case.

Working at 02 is wonderful, its the kind of business I'd open if I was going to open a spa. A yoga, pilates and meditation studio with a small quality spa upstairs. It feels homey, it feels wonderful.

So I'm going to do this interview, I'm going to keep doing massage at my place and at 02, I'm going to breathe, I'm going to clean houses to fill in the money and I'm going to work my ass off. That's my plan.

What are you doing with your summer?

My plan is to spend it frolicking! (Okay, probably not.)

Sorry for the formatting issue, I've re-posted this one several times, but for some reason it won't make space between the paragraphs...

 Okay, so the next question is: what are you going to do with your summer?  I started thinking about it and working on it in plenty of time, but I did kind of put all my eggs in one basket. I didn't want to apply for a job at another ski school and then have to turn someone down.

When I didn't get the job in Portillo, I was sad. I struggled a lot with what it meant. I'm not sure why I didn't get hired. I do respect the decision, of course, and I'm so excited for my friend Andrew and Cindy who will be there teaching this summer. I'd love to be with them, but I'm just as stoked for them as I would be to go with.

The repercussions of what it meant not to get the job hung around me a little longer than I expected. I struggled with what it meant, I worried about what it would mean in my future.

I resigned myself to ski locally and head to Portillo to train in August, and then, my back country partner got hurt. Yeah, there's lots of people to ski with, but this is the person I trust who is free to go get some quick training laps in and who doesn't mind if I'm slow. (Well, I'm sure he minds, but he tolerates it fairly well.)

So I started looking at working overseas again. But I have this wishy-washy feeling about it, and no time to feel that way. I looked at several of the schools and while I'd love to work for many of them, my goal for being on snow this summer was to get great training in, and I want to do a good job for whatever ski school I work for. I know that there are some situations that would challenge my ability to keep my morale high and work hard, and so I have chosen not to take the offer at that ski school, which I'm pretty sure I will regret.

And I may or may not have been pining for some time with my boys. In the sun. In the summer. What was I thinking, endless winter? Yeah, LOTS of people do it. But four months without Ethan and Bodhi and flip flops? Without a trip to the beach anywhere in there? Could I handle it? What if I committed to it and then I was really sad, and the boys were really sad, and...

I think I felt safe with the idea of Portillo because its small, a little tiny isolated community, and I like that idea. I like the idea of being somewhere insular and working hard and training hard. I don't know, I've been thinking about it so much that I had prepared myself for it. When I started thinking about what it would be like to live in Queenstown, I got scared, worried, unsure.

But that's my job, right? I need to get my butt on snow and get to work! Regardless of being scared. Geeze, Kate, for real?

So then I started thinking, what if there's another way to do this? I talked with my good friends who have really been lovely mentors for me, and we talked about other options... traveling just to train, if I can save the money. Or traveling with clients and staying to train. I have three clients who are interested in skiing with me in the South this year, and two more maybes, and the possibility of coaching for a camp. So should I do that?

Should I stay here and head south with those clients? What if they don't materialize? Then will I forfeit my training this summer?

Is all this hemming and hawing keeping me from having a job of ANY kind?

A few days ago, I made a DECISION. And then I got an email and had to rethink that decision. Its all so mutable.

I think because of that, and the injury of my friend, and the fact that I'm broke again, and we are moving out of the Ponds, this beautiful apartment that we can't afford, and back into the tiny cookhouse again, and and and...

The result is that I'm sad, frustrated, and not eating well. I went on a MASSIVE sugar binge (well, not massive like it used to be, I'm still off the Red Bull), but I went the opposite way I was heading. I had a hugely productive, positive three days and then I hit bottom for about three. And I've been climbing out ever since. I did manage, in the midst of all that, to take two long walks, play on the slack line, get some work done and book a bunch of massage, so it could be worse. I know things have shifted to some extent because even though I was feeling rock bottom, I was still productive and still able to make some positive choice.

My point is, it happens. While it was happening, I was watching, and I knew I had some control, but not the kind of control I wanted to have. (This is the subject of another blog post, called Fly Wheel, coming soon!).

And so, using those Flywheel techniques, which are still active, even when things are hard, I slowly started turning things around.

I knocked out another three projects that needed doing that I've been meaning to get done for two years again tonight, I'm getting closer to finishing up other lingering obligations and writing assignments from this year so that I can climb out of this hole and be living in the NOW.

I guess that when you live in a tiny boat, its easy to swamp it, and my financial boat is tiny, tippy and funky. Sometimes, I float along side it because its upside down. But its growing, and I'm getting faster at righting it.

The thing that keeps me sane in all of this is knowing that starting new, with nothing, in a new place takes time. I am kind of looking at myself like a business, it takes three years to break even. Last year, I had to borrow money from my mom. This year, I didn't.

This year, I have more ski clients and more massage clients, next year will be even better if I keep working hard and doing a good job for my clients. I know I can do it. I know I can. Meanwhile, I'm lucky to have picked up some cleaning work, so back to scrubbing floors we go, but hey, its a paycheck while everything else gets sorted out. 

Its Hard, Damnit!

Its really hard. I know people do it. I know that I'm “not supposed to write about financial hardship” but I don't think I'm the only one out there who is experiencing this. I want to write it down, because I know I'm going to make it through, but I don't ever want to forget surviving this. I don't want other people who think its too hard to give up.

So I'm going to talk about it. The shoulder seasons are still hard. I'm much better at managing cash flow, but when you are managing between $6 and $120 at any given time, its hard to accumulate enough to pay rent in the shoulder season. I had followed some sage advice and put a portion of my tips away.

That very small egg is gone, to the extra large phone bill that came from splitting my phone and being on my own plan, finally.

My massage business is growing, I just got hired at O2 in Aspen, which is wonderful, that's more massage work. I'm on call for them, so we will see how that goes, it depends on how much work they get, and how they split it with all the massage therapists that they have.

I'm making enough to pay for groceries, which is nice, we aren't living on Ramen right now. The kids are eating healthy, and for that, I'm grateful.

I know that I can get there, I know already that next year will be better than this one, with more clients to work with, rolling over from this year, as that grows, and more massage, as that grows, and possibly some opportunities to work as a trainer, filling in some hours in the tough months of November and February.

I have some articles coming out and some big projects cooking that are really exciting that should help. But all of that is coming, coming coming. Right now, May 9, is the issue. I keep booking massage, which is wonderful. But who knows how long it will last, who knows how much I'll make.

Our house is for sale in Bozeman, which is great, when it sells, I may walk away with enough to pay two months rent in advance. That's the economy! OW!

I don't mind. If we can hang in there, I can clean houses again, I can keep working hard to get more massage work, and hopefully, I'll make it to the southern hemisphere to teach skiing this summer for at least a month.

I'm just looking forward to the day, and its getting closer as I live here longer and get more established slowly, to having more than six bucks in my wallet in April, May, June, September, October and November.

Chris Davenport and Neil  Beidleman are climbing Mt. Everest right now, and they had the opportunity to ski the Lhotse face! Here is a great, detailed blog post from Chris about the climb and ski!

Mt Everest “Davenport Dispatch”

Posted on May 7, 2011 by Mountain Trip

“Skiing the Lhotse Face”
May 7, 2011
Everest Basecamp
Namaste and greetings everyone!
We are finally back down in Basecamp after our second rotation on the mountain. We spent six nights at Camp II, which is at 21,400′ and had excellent weather while we were up there acclimatizing. The great thing about Camp II is that you are right up under the Southwest Face and below the Lhotse Face as well, so the views are stunning and you really feel as if you are high on the mountain. While we were there Neal and I had some time to do some skiing, and we took full advantage. While both of us are here as guides for our great client Ephi, we of course brought along our skis “just in case”. Well the mountain gods smiled upon us up there, and we were able to make a descent of the Lhotse Face from just above camp III. This ski descent has only been accomplished a handful of times before, and the conditions that the mountain gave us were truly incredible. If I were to rank it in my lifetime resume of ski descents, it would definitely make the top three, joining perhaps the Messner Couloir on Denali and the East Face of the Matterhorn near the top of the list.
Here we go with the images:
This is what the Lhotse Face looked like during our first rotation up the mountain. The face was basically pure black ice and I never imagined that we would get to ski any part of it. Camp IV at the South Col is just to the left of the Everest- Lhotse Ridge in the image.


For the REST OF THE BLOG POST and LOTS MORE PHOTOS, click here!