I prepped my sunset yoga class on Sunday morning and wrote and scheduled some emails to go out to my subscribers. I kind of wished I could skip family dinner, since I was going to have to rush to get to sunset yoga, but there was no way Mom was going to let me get away with that. Plus, Julia and Hollis were coming to yoga and going to dinner, so I couldn’t really make the excuse reasonable.
The weather was supposed to be clear and warm, the perfect night for yoga on the beach. We’d been rained out a few times already for my morning class, which was always a risk you took with outdoor yoga.
Family dinner was chaotic as usual, and then Mom threatened to come to my yoga class.
“You don’t have to do that,” I mumbled. My parents had come to a few of my classes, but it was really distracting, so I’d asked them to stop.
“I know, I know, I have to deal with things here, but I’m coming to the morning class next week,” she said.
“As long as you don’t call me ‘honey’ in the middle of the class again,” I said.
Mom rolled her eyes. “Okay, okay.”
This time we had to make our goodbyes shorter and Hollis drove me and Julia to the beach, where the sun was starting to make its descent toward the horizon.
Most of the regular beachgoers had left hours ago, but there were still a few people taking their dogs on after dinner walks, and some kids running around.
We cleared out our usual spot, and I walked around to make sure there wasn’t any trash or seaweed that someone might put their mat on.
The tide was low, so we had more sand space to fit more yogis. It was always a challenge when the tide was high, and you ran the risk of a rogue wave sweeping through your class and causing everyone to run away so their mats and bags didn’t get wet.
Julia and Hollis laid out their mats next to each other and sat down to wait for the others. Natalie and Em were next, with Em looking at lot more perky tonight than she had at morning yoga. Paige and Esme were next, followed by several of my regulars that I saw in the mornings. I was surprised to see them, but they seemed excited about this new class. There were a few new people as well, and then Linley and Gray.
“Listen, you can just take it easy,” I said. “I can give you some prenatal yoga tips, but it’s more info than I can give you right now,” I said.
“Oh, that’s fine, I was going to put myself in the back and just sort of watch,” Linley said. “Moral support.”
“That sounds like a great idea. Let me know if you wanted to do some yoga, though, and I can share some videos with you.”
“You’re so sweet, thank you,” she said.
When it was time to start class, I was shocked at how many people had showed up, including many I had never seen before, so I did little bit longer of an introduction than I usually did.
I was just about to start with the first pose when one more person walked down the sand with a yoga mat over their shoulder in a bag.
Piper.
She rushed to set her mat up in the back, and I was surprised, one, to see her, and two, that she was late.
I had to shake myself a little and remember that I needed to teach a whole group of people, not just her.
“Let’s start with sitting on our mats with a little bit of breathing and movement.”
I took them through a nice little Cat and Cow sequence that paired with inhales and exhales and was great for stretching out the spine and calming the nervous system.
The light in the sky was spectacular as I led the group through a classic Sun A before speeding things up and switching to Sun B. I added lots of heart opening and twisting to this sequence, so the students could wring out from their weekend and reset for the week ahead with a good mindset.
As I walked around, I gave adjustments where I saw that students had put their “TOUCH OKAY” tiles at the tops of their mats. Piper didn’t have one since she’d missed the part where I passed them out, so I didn’t touch her.
I wanted to. Oh, how I wanted to. The setting sun was setting her hair on fire, and I just wanted to run my fingers through it. Doing that, however, would not help her lower her shoulders in her Warrior II Pose.
I moved away from her and onto another student whose back was all kinds of arched in the wrong way.
I’d timed the class to finish just at the peak of the sunset so people could open their eyes from Savasana and see the sky all lit up. I also figured it would make for beautiful social media pictures that might bring more students.
I ended the class to a round of applause and had a gaggle of people coming up to me saying how much they enjoyed it. A few asked if I taught private yoga classes, and I gave out my cards.
My friends waited for everyone else to come see me, so the light had faded quite a bit before most people had left. At last, it was just my friends and Piper. I didn’t know what she was doing hanging around, so I walked to where she was slowly packing up her mat.
“I didn’t know you were coming,” I said, and she looked up at me.
“I’m so sorry I was late. It was kind of a last-minute thing. The babysitter didn’t get to my house on time.” She’d gotten a babysitter to come take my class? Why had she done that when it was so much easier when I came to her house?
“Thank you for coming,” I said.
“I loved the class, it was really great,” she said, wiping her hands free of sand.
“I appreciate you coming,” I said. “It’s donation-based, but since you already pay me, there’s no need.”
Piper took out her phone and then mine dinged with a notification back where I’d left it.
“You should be paid for your time, but I did have one question. What are those little circles on people’s mats?” She meant the discs people used to tell me if they wanted hands-on or hands-off.
“Oh, I give people the option of hands-on or hands-off adjustments. Some people just want to do their thing, and some people really want more help to get deeper or correct alignment,” I said.
“But you don’t do that in your private classes?” she said after a few seconds.
I felt my face going red. “I forgot to ask you the first day and then you didn’t mention anything about it so… I’m sorry,” I said. I knew I’d messed up in not treating her like a regular client and now it was biting me in the ass.
“You can touch me,” Piper said, and I swallowed so loud I could hear it over the sound of the waves.
“Okay,” I said. “That’s good to know.”
Piper’s phone went off. “I should get going.”
“Of course. I’ll see you on Tuesday.”
“Have a good weekend,” Piper said, waving to me before walking back across the sand.
My friends attacked me and wouldn’t stop talking, but I couldn’t take my mind off of what Piper had said. I thought about it for the rest of the night.
Chapter Eight
I wanted to get ahead on my content, so I filmed three classes on Monday, making sure to change my outfit and hair and location so it looked like it wasn’t all batch filmed.
I loved being ahead on work, and it didn’t happen that often.
Once I was done with filming, I needed to decompress, so I sat in the bathtub with a book for a while and then went downstairs and got the juicer out from the cabinet.