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.
No comments:
Post a Comment