There’s something special about devotion to your yoga practice for a period of time. It takes a lot of energy. The past couple of days have been pretty awesome, full of practice, working, and learning. Getting geared up to really teach, but the best part is by far the other people that are involved. Being around so many great yoga teachers is inspiring, to say the least.
That is pretty much the reason that I came home. I wanted to be around people that had similar beliefs and I’ve never really met a culture like that of Northern California. Boston was cool, but it was cold, and the vast majority of the yoga was 5 years behind California (except for Goldie, who’s influenced by Les Levinthal) who is from San Diego. I practiced at Back Bay Yoga and Sweat and Soul in Allston, but its not quite the same quality of yoga that you get in California. Back Bay was promising with an Ashtanga class, but I wasn’t impressed with the teacher and it was $150 a month. The teacher wasn’t even that good and her sub was much worse, but she had practiced for 15 years and right when I got there she took a month long vacation. It wasn’t meant to happen. Anyways, most of the teachers there are soft, you don’t really hold poses, I would yawn like 30 times in a class, which I don’t feel bad about because I can’t really control it. And thank you for calming my nervous system down so much that I have to reheat my brain, but I just think you need a powerful hot class to counterbalance it and if I’m flowing I shouldn’t be thinking about anything but my breathing. And then I can relax and do some Yin on the side.
The best yoga teacher I’ve ever met had 6 people in her class. It was incredible, a variation of Ashtanga, single breathe movements and static postures all put together by sun salutations. Goes to show what people look for in a yoga class. Its become more of entertainment and originality now in the US, rather than its more silent and sacred roots in India.
Getting to practice multiple times a day is such a gift, I just love pushing the edge father away. The people at East Wind that practice with me are so awesome too, so awe inspiring. I mean the students now, who I find sometimes take their practice more seriously than teachers. And then there are just some teachers that put so much into what they teach that you can’t help but feel amazing after a class. Spending a morning there is a pretty fun privilege.
Anyways, it seemed like Hanumanasana was the pose of the day today. Internal rotation of the hips, pointing the back toes to the back of the room. Curling the toes of the opposite foot towards your knee, making a dorsi-flex in the knee. Create ascending traction in your lower back from moving your hips down and together. Can’t wait to get down there. Hopefully the next few days are just as fun.