Finding My Groove, and A Revelation

The only thing worse than being late or rushed for a yoga class is missing it all together. Today an hour before class I ran out to pick up some Japanese pastry to share with my co-workers. This should have been plenty of time as it is a relatively short mission - no more than 12 miles round trip. When I arrived at the pastry shop I was feeling pretty good and thinking to myself “I am making great time”. In typical fashion, I had jinxed myself because as I was getting ready to pay I realized that I didn’t have my wallet on me. To make matters worse, I wasn’t even sure where I had left it. Remembering that I had gone out to dinner the night before and didn’t have my wallet then either, I headed home assuming it must be there. Sure enough it was in my backpack from my Monday trip to the gym, so I headed back to pay for the pastry, get back to the office, change and then head out to my noon yoga class. I ended up arriving to class with only a couple of minutes to spare. And despite the fact that I wasn’t late, it was apparently enough to throw me off because I found it impossible to get into a rhythm. I literally felt as though it was my first ever yoga class, as every movement and pose felt foreign to my body. Read the rest of this entry »

Will and Grace

I recently had the opportunity to attend a class taught by an SEO friend’s mother, Myriam. A class, that I might add, I have been meaning to get to for ages and I couldn’t be happier that I finally did. Since attending her class a couple of weeks ago I have been back many times and vowed to add her to my ever-expanding list of regular must-see teachers (I’ve become a bit of studio hopper, pretty consistently attending about 3 different studios a week by my last count). As Myriam says, her favorite of all the Anusara principles is muscular energy and moments into the class you are reminded of it! Despite her sweet demeanor and small (yet muscular) physique she is a really tough teacher. In her class I am constantly being pushed to my limits, the best part is that thanks to her great sense of humor I have a smile on my face the whole time (ok, maybe not the whole time, but most of it anyway).

In that first 90-minute class we played with the idea of letting go of our desire to control our body and ourselves in the poses and, instead, simply allowing ourselves to ‘be’. Throughout class I was reminded of the difficulty I sometimes have establishing intentions before many of my yoga classes. I think this is a good example of how not all things can be both controlled and truly experienced. In the case of setting intentions it seems that the more I try to will an intention into my practice the more detached from my practice I become. If I hold on to the need to will that intention then the purpose is defeated. I find that in the end, that desire for control takes me away from the authentic experience I seek in my practice. Read the rest of this entry »

To Yoga or Not to Yoga

Its funny how some days its as if the yoga class was designed just for me. I randomly pulled a muscle in my upper back this morning and almost thought about skipping out on my Kundalini Yoga class. As it turned out, I couldn’t have attended a better class. Read the rest of this entry »