First Performance

After the Garba high on Friday, and a lazy Saturday morning spent at home, I got an email from a friend for 'practice' on Saturday evening. We had skipped the Friday evening 'practice' due to Garba, and even though I was dog tired, I decided to go.

The 'practice' that I talk about here was for the daughter. She has started attending a yoga+meditation class at one of our good friend's house. The class is hosted once a month. She has been only going since the last two sessions. It's a very informal setting of mostly friends, and it's free to attend. The group of 7-8 kids (the daughter being the youngest) decided to perform what they had learnt so far at the Dharma and Yoga Festival in Sacramento. This festival has been celebrated in various US cities to mark the 150th birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda.

I had completely forgotten that the festival was on October 20th. I thought it was the week after. I had fully intended to skip this weekend's practice, but based on the email that I received, I got a feeling of urgency to finalize things, and decided to go. At the practice, everyone was making final plans, talking about last minute prep work, the poster for the group was done. And I kept saying "but we have more time". When my friend P told me "Please get your camera tomorrow, you have to click pictures of the group performing"  I realized something is fishy....and taking cue from the expressions on my face, she said "dear, the performance is tomorrow, I hope you know that" - Dang....kiddo's first performance and I totally goofed up on the dates!!!!

Anyway, I'm happy to report that inspite of being a goofball (my daughter LOVES to call me that - every single day), thanks to the rest of the group, the event was a grand success.

Our group, representing the Gayatri Pariwar, was called "The Sun Warriors" (we had another small group of Gayatri Pariwar kids from a neighboring town join us as well). The kids did a series of yoga poses, pranayama and meditation. They also chanted the Gayatri Mantra.

The daughter and her friend A (they are buddies from preschool) were the flower girls. At the beginning of their program, they offered flowers. Then, they went into a series of yoga poses - butterfly, cat-cow and cobra - these were the three they alternated between. When the rest of the group reached the warrior pose, they joined them to do that. After that, they did pranayama and meditation with the group.

For her first time being on stage, I think she did outstanding! I love this age....she did not care who was looking at her, and what they thought of her performance. She just did what she felt like. Somewhere in the middle of everything, both the girls giggled and did a little jumping. They got back on track on their own and started following the group. Many times, they turned their backs on the audience to observe the older kids perform. They did not want to miss out :). Overall, though, they exceeded my expectations.

Ours was the last performance, and I missed all the previous performances of the day. But the highlight of the day was the "Kirtaniyas" who left the entire audience mesmerized with their superb kirtan to end the event. They brought SO much energy into the room...it felt amazing!

Here are a few pictures from the event....

There could not have been a more auspicious event to mark the daughter's first performance! I will cherish it forever!!!!