Laurie Mucha 3/25/26 Laurie Mucha 3/25/26

View from my apartment in London

Turnham Green, Chiswick, London

Laurie Mucha 3/22/26 Laurie Mucha 3/22/26

A Grandpa Tour of Florida

Papaw Jack in Okeechobee, - Grandpa Frank in Naples.

*Not the image of Florida you might have been picturing!*

*Sasha and Papaw Jack at the Okeechobee County Fair.*

*A very windy day at the beach - Fort Pierce Inlet State Park.*

*Then we drove down to Naples to visit Grandpa Frank. xo*

*Imagine watching this sunset every night during dinner!*

Laurie Mucha 3/1/26 Laurie Mucha 3/1/26

Keats House, London.

Yoga and Writing Workshop at Keats House, London.

Laurie Mucha 2/23/26 Laurie Mucha 2/23/26

I have this thing with paper

Laurie Mucha 2/19/26 Laurie Mucha 2/19/26

Gertrude Stein, Salons, and the Women in the Kitchen

A packed evening event at the London Library, three speakers seated before a floor-to-ceiling wall of books as an audience listens. — *Art/Lit Salon at The London Library*

I went to a wonderful event at the London Library the other night — an Art/Lit salon devoted to the life and work of Gertrude Stein.

As you probably know, Stein was an American woman who went to Paris, declared herself an eccentric genius and then proceeded to act like one. Her salons were notoriously not for everyone. Even her closest friends (Picasso, Cezanne, Matisse) found her exceedingly difficult.

Recreation of Gertrude Stein's Paris salon at 27 rue de Fleurus, its walls covered floor-to-ceiling with modernist paintings including works by Picasso and Cézanne. — *Salon de Fleurus is an artwork, a contemporary reconstruction of Gertrude Stein’s Parisian salon that existed at 27 rue de Fleurus from 1904-34.*

Here’s the part of the story that always rubs me the wrong way. While Stein held court in the salon, her partner, Alice B Toklas entertained the wives in the kitchen.

Which is strange because Toklas was Stein’s editor, manager and literary advocate. She was absolutely essential to Stein’s intellectual life and social network.

So why did Toklas so readily “keep the wives occupied” while Stein conversed with the writers and artists in the other room?

I’d love to go back in time and pull those women out of the kitchen and sit them down. What did they think about all this?

Black and white photograph of Gertrude Stein in the foreground, hands behind her back, with Alice B. Toklas standing smaller in the background — the composition saying everything the post is about. — *The woman behind the woman. Cecil Beaton Archive / Condé Nast*

Meanwhile, in New York City….

A different movement was afoot. Female artists, writers and patrons were founding what would become some of the world’s most celebrated institutions. MoMA was founded by Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, the Whitney by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, and the Guggenheim by Hilla von Rebay.

And then there was Florine Stettheimer: An artist who hosted salons in her apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan - and encouraged creative exchange between artists of all genders.

*Florine Stettheimer - Studio Party (Soirée)*

Some women waited to be invited into the room. Others built the room.

P.S. For when I have time for a deep dive…

Two books on a wooden table: "Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife" by Francesca Wade, and "The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas" illustrated by Maira Kalman. — *"Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife" by Francesca Wade, and "The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas" by Gertrude Stein and illustrated by Maira Kalman.*

Laurie Mucha 2/8/26 Laurie Mucha 2/8/26

Agadir, Morocco: Notes from Yoga Teacher Training

Sunset on the beach in Agadir Morocco - yoga teacher training retreat — *I went to Agadir and all I got was food poisoning. I didn’t even take this picture. (Thanks Caroline Gautier.)*

Hello friends,

In my last post, I went on and on about how excited I was to go to Morocco for my Intensive Yoga Teacher Training. Well, I’m back!

And… it was a total disaster! I had three good days of yoga training - followed by four days of food poisoning.

It was beyond awful.

Still recovering.

xo, L

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Learning to Speak Yoga: Cueing, Transitions and Finding my Yoga Voice

I know what good yoga teaching sounds like—I just can’t do it yet. From cueing chaos to awkward transitions and the search for my own yoga voice, this post is about learning to teach while still very much learning.

Just a few sun salutations. xo

🙊 Cueing

Cueing is the language used to tell your students what to do. i.e. Step to the top of your mat. That sounds easy enough, right? Now try cueing a beginning level yoga student through a chaturanga sequence. You have one breath per movement - GO!

It’s so hard!!! If time stood still between poses, I could teach a halfway decent 90 minute class tomorrow. But to teach the postures at speed and with the breath? Let’s just say I’m on the struggle bus.

To make it even more overwhelming, there are also different types of cues:

Directional cues – where to move - “Step your right foot forward between your hands.”
Action cues – how the body organizes - “Press through the back heel.”
Breath cues – pacing and rhythm -“Inhale to lengthen the spine.”
Energetic cues – felt sense or imagery - “Imagine lifting up and out of the waist.”
Awareness cues – attention and presence -“Notice the weight of your feet on the mat.”

Obviously teachers can’t use all of these cues all of the time. We have to choose the one or two that matter most in the moment, depending on the student. This is what I’m working on:

Giving clear, simple directions (Less than 5 words)
NOT narrating every tiny action
NOT filling every second of silence with chatter.

🙈 Transitions

Transitions are how we get from one posture to another. In other words - good transitions are mostly good cueing.

As a beginning yoga teacher, this is especially hard because I’m still learning the sequence myself. But to keep the class moving, I need to anticipate what’s coming next, and speak it clearly without over-explaining.

⏰ Experience

I recognise that all this comes with time and experience. But it’s so frustrating because I know what good looks like, i just can’t do it yet. I did a classroom observation this weekend and noticed every single thing the teacher did “wrong” - but there is no way I could’ve done better.

It reminded me of Ira Glass talking about The Gap—that space where your taste is far more developed than your ability.

☺️ Finding my yoga voice

I don’t want to “sound like a yoga teacher.” I want to sound like myself, but slower, calmer and filtered for clarity.

Anne Lamott suggests that you find your writer voice by removing fear and limitation. I think the same must go for finding your yoga voice. You don’t find it or create it — so much as shed everything that isn’t it. That takes time, trial and error.

I don’t want to perform calm. I want to be present and relaxed. I don’t want to sound smart, I want to be comfortable in my skills and experience. Which I guess will only come with time and experience…

Do you want to be one of my first students? Email me for a free 30-minute session!

LaurieMucha@gmail.com

You might also like:

Starting Yoga Teacher Training in Midlife

Choosing My Yoga Teacher Training: London vs Bali

Laurie Mucha 1/19/26 Laurie Mucha 1/19/26

Notes from Yoga Teacher Training, Weekend 1

Exhilarated, exhausted, and learning fast—Weekend 1 of yoga teacher training covered posture, cueing, history, and a surprising amount of homework. Here’s a recap.

I just finished my first weekend at yoga teacher training! I’m equal parts exhilarated and exhausted. In some ways, the weekend was easier than I anticipated. My fellow students are super nice and I wasn’t nearly as intimidated as I thought I’d be.

But wow. Memorising a 90 minute sequence is one thing - but learning the cues, transitions, modifications and the adjustments… so hard! There’s just so much to remember and so little time to say it.

Here’s an overview of what we covered:

🧘🏼‍♀️Posture Clinic

This one of my favourite parts of the training, wherein you go through each and every pose and learn the fundamentals. Turns out I’ve been doing chaturanga wrong for a few decades and didn’t know it.

🗣️Teaching Practice

This is where the rubber hits the road! I’ve been doing yoga for decades, but verbalising the cures and transitions is an entirely different skill set. There’s just so much to communicate in such a short period of time. Our teacher got us teaching each other on day one, so hopefully by the end of the course, this will be comfortable.

📖 History of Yoga

We also spent some time diving into the History of Yoga, which was interesting, but mostly big pile of words that meant nothing to me until I went home, did the reading and then summarised the material in my journal. (That’s just how I learn.)

📝 Homework

Before I leave for the Morocco intensive (in two weeks time) I have a lot of homework: