After going to a local wicker store looking for a papasan chair, seeing yoga asana cushions (which I bought) and discussing the meanings of the words on the pillows.
Wicker Lady: So do you teach yoga?
Me: No, I have been practicing for years and intend to teach when I do yoga teacher training.
Wicker Lady: Well please send me an email when you start teaching I’d love to do a class with you.
Me: Why thank you. I certainly will.
I’m still cooling from my most recent yoga class. I have been contemplating all day whether to take a class tonight or to forgo it and do another 2 hour session on thursday. I decided to go to the Detox Yoga class with Bobby. I’m so glad I did. For as much as I loved her Gentle Yoga class (and God knows that I needed it last week) I got so much more from tonights session.
I’m warm, I’m comfortable. I’m feeling a released from all of those things that life has given me stress about. At least for this evening. I plan on carrying this feeling through the evening. Holding onto myself. As I am Present.
I did find the detox yoga challenging but I was able to make my way into comfort with the poses and relaxing. Learning constantly to stay within the flow of my breath through the cycle. So much heat and warmth and wringing out through my inner body.
I also learned lion breath and it’s almost as nice as humming bee breath. I will do this class again. I feel so much better about my own practice. But I have to mention that upon coming out of class I felt as though I should be much gentler on my body for the evening. Everything is loose and flexible and jarring movement may take me out of this pleasant mode.
Namaste.
This past Thursday evening I was getting my weeklong Jones fixed at Shakti Yoga Studio on Torbay Rd. I had been craving a good yoga session all week and I just hadn’t found the time to do a class yet. I had been planning since last week to go to the 7:00pm Thursday Hatha Flow 1 class and on the day I said what the heck and decided to take the 5:30pm Gentle Yoga class too.
Bobby taught the Gentle yoga class. As a teacher she was very warm and inviting. I really enjoyed that she connected with every single person in the room. That she sought to combine her voice with the experience of the practice. I valued that and as a future teacher I’d like to be able to take some of that experience with me to use later.
Upon walking into the class however, I got to see yogis from all walks of life come into the same space and practice together. Unify. That was my first clue that gentle yoga would be a wonderful experience for we were all different shapes, attitudes, and skill levels all coming together in practice.
For those of you who have never had the loving experience of gentle yoga there’s one thing I’d like you to know: Gentle Yoga is not just for beginners or old people. Instead, gentle yoga works the mental body more than the physical. Anyone can go to a Hatha Flow class, work up a sweat, and go home. Not everyone in the more physically demanding classes can take home the message of yoga. In gentle yoga, you have no choice other than taking the message.
It’s about staying in poses longer, learning to communicate with your body, and letting yourself release into the pose.
It’s also about breathe. I found that I connected very deeply with my body during this practice. I grounded. I stretched my boundaries. I learned to breathe with my whole body.
After taking this class, I waited and took Beth’s Hatha Flow 1 Class. Before we began practice Beth asked if there was anything in particular that we would like to focus on in the class. I valued this as I was running a little Pitta all week and could not possibly be happy if she’d decided to do a heat induced practice. I asked if we could work on cooling postures so I could go deeper into practice without becoming frustrated by heat.
I remember being stressed out by my slippery hands during downward facing dog but pushing through into positions that opened my hips and let all of the tension out of my body.
I went home that night and by the next morning I was sore. My body felt weird and loose: see Dangly. I took a break over the weekend and after my hooping class tonight I’d love to take advantage of the next practice.
Namaste.
Today’s home practice was brought to me by the emotion of stress.
Actually, all of this started earlier when I came home from work and just felt like crawling under the covers and staying there for the rest of life. Well maybe just for the rest of the day. Alas, I wanted to fight this feeling back with compassion, love, and serenity instead, I had a craving for an honest to goodness yoga nidra session. Now for those of you who like me are either noobs or have been away for awhile meditation can be very difficult. There are so many things going on at once. For one you have the focus on breath (pranayama), for two you have to focus on emptiness when you have all of the buzzing from the day running around in your head, and for three you have your own body bothering you to get up and keep tense.
I find my friends at Fragrant Heart Meditation to be very helpful to those newly learning to meditate or for oldies who are working it back into their daily routine. Meditation is a part of yogic life. It’s wonderful to be able to connect with yourself and disconnect from all of the noise (not literal) that occurs from day to day.
Half an hour later re-awakening with a new light and a fresh soul after drifting away from all of that stress I was ready for a light meal an the evening ahead. I enjoyed some mushroom couscous with a cup of edamame for my dinner and headed out to one of my new and favourite activities HULA HOOPING. I practiced an hour of hoopFIT with Cyndi Butt from Wild Lily Dance Centre at Harbour Side Park in Downtown St. John’s. What a beautiful night with a bunch of wonderful ladies, rocking music, and the gorgeous view of the narrows.
Upon return from my class I was still warm and ready to go. I was by no means ready to settle down for the evening. What could I possibly do to calm my system? YOGA! A few years ago I was a starving student and spent a few of my valuable dollars on some Yoga Zone DVD’s so that I could save some money by practicing at home. In that set was an Evening Stress Release Yoga Series. Now there are two 20-minute practices on the DVD and I was feeling uber chipper and decided that it would be best to do both of them. There were two key differences between the two practices.
The first session was about causing stress through strengthening poses to allow the tension release in your body. That’s not pushing yourself to the point of discomfort but rather breathing into a stressful posture to open yourself and relax into each pose. This practice opened me up to an idea about stress itself. That is, stress builds and builds unless we stop pushing ourselves against it. If we stop and let it stretch out a little the stress doesn’t seem nearly as monstrous as we first thought. Step back, take a second, and breathe.
The second practice was more about grounding out through your breath and focused on opening the chest through backbends and twists. Wringing the body out from the inside to the surface. This practice was slower and more cooling to the typical Pitta furnace that I am. (Note: Pitta is a dosha) I settled more in this series and it allowed me to wind down even more than the first. Savansana became very relaxed and open.
The title is from a comedy show that was aired on television before I was born but was re-runned on the old cable and I grew to love it. Anyway, I just got back from my first yoga class (with people in it) in over 3 years. I’m sipping on my water and I just cleaned down my new Manduka Prolite with a distilled water and green tea oil mix.
I’m blissed out.
I met the sub-instructor Kathy and she was very open and welcoming. After a few titters about the weather (as we all have in NL right now) we went in and I got all fixed up for my 10 session pass with Bobby, one of Shakti Yoga Centre’s owners.
The class opened with breathing exercises (called pranayama) then Kathy began to open the class by a chant of 3 ohms. Beautiful. From that very moment I felt at home. I was one with the moment and the voices of both the instructor and students rang out into the universe filled with compassion.
-side note: if you’ve never done yoga or meditation using ohms just open your mind and try it. I garuntee you’ll feel silly at first but if you allow yourself to experience the sound then you will get an idea of what I’m talking about.
We built upward to mountain pose, into a series of energy creating planks, dogs, and mountains. Then we simplified by stretching and lengthening outward into various forms of warrior. Upon cooling down, we revered back into a comforting series of planks and backward bends from the floor. Eventually, we made our way back to pigeon and the breath. Savansana (or Corpse pose) brought us back to pranayama techniques where Kathy walked gently around to everyone and stretched the shoulders. We then made our way up to siting position and closed the class with 3 ohms.
Sending gratitude is a big thing in yoga. In home practice, I’ve often forgotten about it. But now that I have just finished my first class in awhile. I realize that gratitude both before you begin your practice and after creates the right mind necessary to appreciate your practice.
So until next class…
Today is a big day for me. For my closest family and friends know who I am and they alone know that I’ve been a bit of a yoga-holic since my early teen years. The thing is that I’ve become a bit of a closet yogi. I trail around from place to place and I always take my beloved mat with me practicing alone when I am in times of trial or tribulation.
When you grow up in a community with about 3000 people there’s not a lot of choice in how you activate your body. You have a grand total of about 6 options. Walk. Run. Ball sports. Hockey. Curling. Figure Skating. So when I was about 14 someone brought home one of those at-home yoga kits for me with the VHS included (DVD was newish then). I became hooked. I’d say I watched and did that yoga video about 200 times on the same old cheap, chemically infested, rag of a mat. Despite what I know now. I thought yoga spoke to me from that early point.
When I eventually got through the first disastrous semester in college I joined a class in the Humber Community YMCA. I practiced with Maureen Barry for two years in the group form. She was an amazing person who introduced me to the pranayama and meditation of the yoga life.
Since then I’ve finished two degrees and continued home practice although I did pretty much give up on practice for about a year while living in St. John’s Newfoundland. The reason was that my apartment (still my apartment) is very low ceilinged and I’m about 6ft tall so doing the standing poses can be challenging. But despite everything I’ve finally found enough balance to re-enter my full time practice in yoga.
Unfortunately, I’ve come to a realization. That I’m going to go into a Hatha Flow 1 class at a local studio and have very basic control over my body and breath. In short form, I suck. I keep telling myself that suckiness isn’t a factor with yoga. And I know it isn’t but I’m re-entering my practice by starting off in a group structure which can be very intimidating. I have to fight today to keep my affirmations positive throughout the day. Then when the time comes I get to enter a bright new space with a brand new (and not chemically noxious) mat and a brand new attitude towards my life.
It’s important to remember that my goal is to be on a path again instead of waviering like I’ve done in the past year. For a point of interest, I’ve given my mat a name: Metis which means “wisedom, skill, or craft”. Metis is a goddess. So is my relationship with my mat.
