Yoga Fight Club

Following up on my earlier post about yoga poses at work, check this site out (Go to Portfolio, Yoga). Martin Prihoda is a professional photographer based in Vancouver. His urban, gritty pics of yogis in different settings are a perfect antidote to the squeaky clean photos you find in YJ.

Oh, and if you don't need Edith playing on the speakers, be sure to turn it off.

Mr. Resistance Man

This morning's class was kick-ass but good.

It was a full house of more than 20 students. We had Megin subbing in for the Diver, who was away for the weekend teaching somewhere in Canada. We had a bit of a shaky, low-baritone opening chat that had people scraping their lungs down on the floor in order to reach the notes, but she did make it up to us by taking us through a hybrid vinyasa class of many asymmetrical poses and lots of lunging that were even more taxing than what the Diver does (Lax, you missed all the fun!). She focused on a lot of hip openers or the kind of poses that would benefited from having a crowbar or can-opener nearby. Some of the highlights:

1) A set of variations on the one-legged downward dog including one lifted leg straight in a 45 degree angle, bent lifted leg, side plank, vasistasana and a raja-type back bend ("look behind you and try to touch your head with your right toe" Mmm-kay).

2) Lunge-y warmups before going into the "crowd pleasing" hanumansana: virabadrasanas with variations, twisty prasarita padatonasanas. Then an eka pada rajakapotasana series that was capped off with a one-legged pigeon and other leg in bhekasana-foot bind and finished off with our free arm pointing at the sky in a lovely gyan mudra.

3) We even did a series of handstand variations with the wall that incorporated some backbending: "At the wall, do your headstand and sit your butt on the wall as your lower back extends and bends. Don't collapse into it. Also, don't forget to expand your chest outward."


Great stuff for my non-slutty guy hips. Some of the words from my old iyengar teacher were even echoing in my head: "This is where your body doesn't like to move." Fer sures.

Pi' ikea, who had her mat next to me, loved the class, even though she whispered, "this is hard" and Zen Rolling Ball commented afterwards that we did a lot of poses that we don't usually do in ashtanga. Laks was MIA. As was Carl.

In the crowd while we were doing handstands, I recognized an older student, Mr. Resistance Man, who used to practice with me at another studio. He wore his trademark grey headband. I know it's totally bitchy of me to say, but I remember him totally frustrating my teacher. He seemed never to absorb any suggestions from her and insisted on doing all of second even though she said that he wasn't ready. I mean, what do you get out of doing the 7 headstands at the wall? Anyway, she tried valiantly to give him notes in different ways before caving in and letting them do his whatevers.


P.S. The photo above is not of Mr. Resistance Man. It is from Mr. Speedcat Hollydale's blog page. Thanks. Rock on, sir!

Show-off yoga

Yikes, I regret doing it already.

But a number of people at work know that I go in and do yoga at the "ass-crack" of dawn (thank you, Boodi) most workdays. So one of them tells me that she's been doing yoga off and on for two years and wanted to show me her poses. She complains that her heels don't go down in downward dog and asks me why. I tell her to lay off the high heels and show her a calf stretch against the wall. She can barely do it, but I tell her that she should do this every day so that her calves will lengthen and she'll be able to rest her heels on the floor.

She shows me some of her other poses and before you know it though, we're both doing a yoga show-down in the office. She's in black pants and a sensible top, but I'm in a suit about to leave the office for an appointment. She encourages me further by saying that I should teach yoga. Cringe. I'm surprised I didn't rip my pants as I did garudasana and eka pada bakasana. Luckily, no one else walked by to see what the hell was going on.

Yoga is a contact sport

Today I received more than the usual set of adjustments from the Diver. He may deliberately done this so that it would reinforce the points he covered in his workshop last week. Indeed, it was very helpful to understand how and why he does what he does. Sometimes, there are as many as five points of contact. One of the things i love about his approach is that he talked about guiding or leading students through contact so that they can understand why they're being adjusted, as opposed to just being shaped into the way a pose should look.

He even showed a couple of "intimate" adjustments that he does only to students he knows really well and would not be freaked out that they didn't even have "dinner and a movie" beforehand. He's certainly not a lech, but as a yoga instructor sometimes you do what you have to do.

__________________________________________

Some final pics of the african safari: the movie set for "I Dreamed of Africa", the range rover we drove around in (minus the machete that's usually on the grille), and a shot of a kudo with horns (not as cute as the nyala, but equally yummy).

Nyala, it's "what's for dinner"

The nyala is one of the most adorable animals we saw on our safari. Like Bambi, its coat is a beautiful toffee color, but the nyala also has white vertical stripes that look like paint spots dripping down their bodies.

One evening, it was also in our curry dish for dinner. Kinda sad, but delish, I have to say. Better him/her than me. Either you are the hunter or become the hunted.
______________________

Today was the last day of the Diver's adjustment workshop. I really wish I had the chance to attend the whole series. It was fantastic! He turns your perspective of these asanas outside in and inside out. Interestingly enough, most attendees were NOT astangis, but yoga teachers from various styles (vinyasa, power, that sort of thing). A few were regular students who come to his mysore or led classes.

Adjustments for the poses we covered were: pigeon, double pigeon, ustrasana, urdhva dhanurasana, and sarvangasana. There was a special request to cover the adjustment of reverse namaste hands in parsvottansana. Very carefully, as you can imagine, or not at all if the student is not quite there yet.

I wish I had the time to describe thoroughly the adjustments, but a picture tells a thousand words. Maybe we can get pics of Lax demo-ing pose and me trying the adjustments, if she trusts me. Heh.

My Little Zebra

Adorable, but not very useful. Apparently they can not be domesticated and you cannot ride them because their backs are so weak. Still, they are striking animals to look at.

Forgot to set up my alarm this morning and I missed practice. That hasn't happened in a long time, but I was glad to sleep in. I actually felt like I had a full night of sleep. I was able to make my 8:00 o'clock meeting and had enough energy to deal with the some of the pompous people in attendance. Hee. Oh well. I did have 3.5 hours of yoga yesterday and tomorrow I'll have practice and the Diver's last adjusting workshop to attend. Yippee!

Vacation Pics, Yoga Workshop

Here are a couple more safari pics, which took place on a 4,000 acre private game reserve near Richards Bay, located on the SE coast of S. Africa.

Twice a day, 8:30 am and 4:30 pm,we would jump into the Range Rover with our Ranger Host, Ken and drive around in search of any animals. Sometimes it felt like we were driving ourselves into harms way, not knowing what we would come across and feeling somewhat vulnerable in an open but covered jeep.

There were lots of animals to see, nyalas, kudu, hippos, wart hogs, zebras and elephants, but there were also some animals that were hard to find, such as the leopard and black rhino.

I'm not a big animal or zoo fan, but I did find it rather interesting to observe animals in a "natural habitat" interacting with each other and with the funny humans who would be sitting in this noisy and stinky vehicle.

In the giraffe picture, you'll notice that the one on the left, George, has dark spots compared to the shorter and younger one. George is 29 years old and about 18 feet tall. Because their spots darken as they age, George is a senior citizen in giraffe years. He seems to be doing well though. George and his buddies lumber through the park looking for leaves and water and when they spot you from a distance they track your movements closely since they can see from so high up. I should also mention that they often have these blank, somewhat dopey looking expressions on their faces as they're chewing away on their breakfast, similar to way I look when I get up in the morning.

In yoga news, I was able to slide into the final week of adjusting workshops that the Diver was teaching. It was fantastic! He's so knowledgeable and creative in his adjustments. I was particularly interested in seeing what the hell he was doing when he adjusts me in class. He started off by splitting the group of about 14 in two. Half of us would be "doing" the practice and the other half would be doing the adjustment. We would rotate adjusters while the practitioners stayed put. It was really helpful to try the same pose on different bodies and also be more confident in our adjustments. Feedback from adjusters and practitioners were encouraged after exercise so that we were forced to observe and feel how the students were responding without an exchange of words.

A few key points in my own words (some may sound obvious, but he expanded on them): Observe and listen. Start with the stance and look at their feet and work your way up. Adjust decisively and firmly while being sensitive and compassionate. Choose your battles and decide on the one thing you're going to focus on. Be aware of the student's edge. Get close to the student. Use your legs, arms, elbows, sternum before you adjust with your hands. In Vira 2, he showed us how to hook the elbow under the student's bent knee before placing the fleshy part of the thumb and "slicing" the crease of the hip and rolling it out. Your free hand can roll out the other thigh. (Ugh, it's probably easier to show you with pictures. I'll have to grab Laks from home confinement and get her to demo this.) Anyway, it all takes experience and intuition which I'm still developing. The two-hour class went very quickly. I'm looking forward to seeing what we do on the last class.

More later!

Back from Vacation

I missed all of you cyber-shalamates! Hope you've all been doing well.

I just got back from my safari in South Africa and week in Bali. I feel very relaxed and rejuvenated from the big adventure, but just a little tired at the moment from the 17+ hour flight home from Singapore.

I'm still organizing my digital pics and need to develop some film rolls, but here's a starter picture of some rhinos we bumped into on this game reserve.
One thought that occurred to me while on the hunt for rhinos and other wild animals...

Vegetarians can get just as piss-angry as meat eaters.

I'll post more photos and stories as I get settled. Take care!