7 Days to Go: The Ultimate Doorstep Ambush and Forearm Dreams
The 4:30 AM alarm went off with zero mercy.
A while back, I had actually tried to plan a surprise private yoga session for Daniel and his wife Allison, dedicated Five Parks practitioners who live on the other side of Denver, and through a comedy of logistical errors, I completely blew it and missed it.
I could not screw this up twice.
I was on edge all morning, checking in with Matt every few minutes like a drill sergeant to keep us moving. To make amends for the first mishap, I gave Daniel ridiculous overkill updates: I texted him Tuesday night, first thing Wednesday morning, the second we pulled out of our driveway, and the moment we parked around the corner from their street.
We arrived ten minutes early. At 8:00 AM sharp, their five-year-old daughter was off to school, and Daniel texted the green light.
Matt crept up behind me, phone camera raised, capturing the entire scene. I walked up to their front porch carrying an armful of props for forearm balance, set them down, and waited.
When the door swung open, Daniel was smiling, and Allison was half a step behind him. I peeked my head around the doorframe and gave a bright, exaggerated, “Hiiii….”
Her reaction was cinematic perfection. She was completely deadpan. Frozen. It was the face of someone whose brain is buffering, trying to process a glitch in the matrix. She has practiced with me on a screen for years, but she had never seen me in real life, and certainly never on her front porch at eight in the morning with a strange man holding a camera in her face.
She just stared, completely bewildered: “Wait, what? What is happening? I am so confused! What is going on?”
Daniel and I both started laughing, chiming in at once: “I’m here to teach you! I’m here for a yoga class!”
Suddenly, the puzzle pieces fell into place, and she burst out laughing, looking at Daniel: “I didn’t understand why you were being so ridiculously insistent that we had to practice at exactly 8:00 AM!”
The ice broke with giant hugs, and they welcomed us into their gorgeous home. In their living room, their mats were already rolled out, and right there on their massive television screen was my face, a Five Parks Yoga video on the screen, up and waiting.
When I told Allison that Daniel had tipped me off about her working on forearm balance (Pincha Mayurasana) and that I brought props to workshop tips and tricks, she waved her hand and laughed: “Oh yeah, whatever. That’s a lifelong dream.”
I smiled right back: “Me too. A lifelong dream that I will probably never do on my own. But I know how to teach it, and I have lots of tips and tricks.”
We kicked off our shoes and got to work. I started them grounded on their backs with an opening reading. Daniel put on a playlist of yoga tunes where every single track hit just right, each one my favorite. I took them through shoulder-stabilizing drills – scapular glides, dolphin push-ups, and core integration. Then we brought out the blocks and straps.
With alignment cues, hands-on adjustments, and the right mechanics, I got both of them up into full, beautiful forearm balances.
We wound down with deep, grounded hip openers and melted into a sweet Savasana. Afterward, we sat on their rug, shared hugs, talked about their lives, and soaked up the connection. From start to finish, it was an hour and a half of pure magic.
In a digital career where I spend thousands of hours talking to an uninterested camera lens, these real-world moments are the beating heart of my work. The retreats, the trainings, the workshops, and unexpected living-room practices, are what give this life and my chosen career, its richness. It was a massive push to squeeze that into our departure morning, but walking out their front door, my heart was full to bursting.
We jumped back in the truck, navigated the morning traffic home, threw the final gear into the camper, and pointed the rig toward the red dirt of Sand Gulch.
