Hosting my first mini-retreat
Yesterday I hosted my first mini-retreat! We were seven women total - from France, Switzerland and the UK.
We used the GROW framework to workshop each person’s business challenges. Our goals: to create community and to encourage each other to make progress on our biggest job/career challenges.
Some reoccuring themes:
Being intentional about career and life choices
How to find/create work that aligns with personal values
Figuring out how to charge more while remaining accessible
I received some really positive and constructive feedback. With a few tweeks, I’d love to do something like this again in the future!
The start of summer
watching the sunset after dinner
breakfast in the sun
Lake Annecy, France
A Midsummer Night's Dream
at Shakespeare’s Globe, London
What a magical night! Emma Lim's production is utterly delightful. This is Shakespeare for people who think they don’t like Shakespeare. (Buy standing tickets and you might just end up on stage!)
London looking beautiful on a gorgeous summer night.
Is there anything more empowering than female friendship?
Fried Green Tomatoes
Sophia’s home, so it’s been a week of movies, plays and art projects. The above was a favourite.
On meeting Ruth Ozeki
I met Ruth Ozeki!!!!
She is hands down one of my favourite authors. Never mind the fact that no one I know has ever heard of her, and that I had four tickets to the event and could find NO one to go with me except my daughter, who went primarily because she felt sorry for me.
For the record, I would’ve been absolutely fine going alone - but in the end I'm glad she came, because she convinced me to get my book signed. When it was my turn, I COMPLETELY FROZE and Sophia had to jump in and say "This is my mom, she's a writer and she loves you so much."
And Ruth was so gracious and sweet and said nice things. At which point, encouraged, I said something like "I became a yoga teacher because you're a Zen Buddhist priest." (what?!?!) And she responded as if ours was the most natural conversation in the world. Bless her.
Some craft tidbits from her talk:
Her Zen practice helps her write from the brain and the body of her characters — she can drop into a meditative state and experience the scene from her character's perspective.
Her eye as a filmmaker helps her figure out from which perspective to tell the story.
Her experience as a film editor taught her how to move a story along quickly.
Assume you and your reader are on the same wavelength. You don't need to over-explain.
Thanks for visiting London, Ruth. xoxo
London’s Southbank on a summer night is magical. Food stalls, lights, music, dancing - it's such a great scene. And not just for young people! People my age were leaving the BFI and the Literary Festival and getting caught up in the energy. I didn't dance exactly, but I wiggled my hips.
Lake Annecy, April 2026
Sunset from balcony bedroom. xo
I stumbled into this cemetery while biking around the lake.
View of the lake from Les Cascades.
Just another sunset…. how many of these photos have I taken over the years?
Zermatt, Switzerland
Míša not appreciating the view.
Sophia on the train from Tasch to Zermatt.
The girls, in Zermatt.
Daniel and Soph - cocktails before dinner.
Reims, France
Hello from Reims! I left London this morning for the lake house in France. The trip takes about 12 hours, including Le Shuttle. I can make the drive in one day, and I usually do. But lately I’ve been re-learning the lesson that just because something is physically possible, does not mean that it needs to be done. So I stopped in Reims for the night.
Every time I’m in France, I feel guilty for letting my French decline to such an appalling level. Given how much time I spend here, it’s a disgrace. I managed to check in to the hotel (in French) without incident, but my oura ring pinged me and asked me why I was so stressed! One of these days, I’ll come down for a few months and register for a French Intensive. But first, I need to get through yoga teacher training. My aging brain can only take one intensive course at a time!
View from my apartment in London
Turnham Green, Chiswick, London
Turnham Green, Chiswick, London
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.
And Aunt Kelly too! :) xoxo
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!
Keats House, London.
Yoga and Writing Workshop at Keats House, London.
just a little journaling
A Yoga and Writing Workshop
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Gertrude Stein, Salons, and the Women in the Kitchen
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.
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?
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…
"Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife" by Francesca Wade, and "The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas" by Gertrude Stein and illustrated by Maira Kalman.
Agadir, Morocco: Notes from Yoga Teacher Training
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
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
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:
3 (new-to-me) yoga class observations
Learn the YTT sequence
Practice teaching the first few lines of the sequence
Stat chipping away at the Anatomy material
Read and do a book report on How Bad are Bananas?
Yoga Teacher Training, Weekend 1 - mind map
