Yoga Party

Clare has been teaching yoga for almost a year now and I finally got to take her class. She has led mini yoga sessions when we get together for family things, but last night I got to see her in her element. It was perfect.

I went to her 8:00 candle lit Hot Power Fusion class at Core Power Yoga on S. Colorado Blvd (go if you are a Denverite!). We had gone to breweries in Fort Collins earlier in the day and despite trying to rehydrate throughout the evening, I was sluggish and lacking motivation to do anything that takes effort.

Flight of saisons at Funkwerks. Maybe not the best choice
before hot yoga, but there are only so many hours in the day!

In teaching, we often talk about meeting students where they are and then building from there, which is exactly what Clare did. It was a crazy, windy, Wednesday and people were coming from their busy workday. 45 people to be exact. The class was packed with people jonesing for their daily dose of Clare. She greeted the class, acknowledged that we were all feeling a little "on edge" and started a slow, methodical class. The beginning of the class is a familiar sequence of hot yoga poses, and the familiarity was a great way to start.

As the heat in the room built, so did the music and before long we were moving through a Warrior 2 sequence to La Roux. Everyone had officially ditched their day and was now in a fun, sweaty, almost dance party space. Needless to say, class wasn't your typical (boring) meditative class. It was a workout. It was hard. It was loud. And it was satisfying. It was a yoga party :) And the icing on the cake was the mini back massage I got while flopped on my stomach during the lotus series.

We ended in savasana with Radiohead's All I Need and relished the satisfaction of making it through a challenging class. People were all smiles, thanks and namaste as they went back out into the world. And that's really the point of a yoga class, isn't it?

Savasana

Savasana is the final resting pose in yoga. You just lay on your back on the floor and it is the most pristine few moments to soak in all of your hard work and treat yourself to doing nothing. It can be hard to just lay there and not think about the to do list or what to eat as soon as you leave class. One thing New York Sports Center yoga instructors were really good at was talking you through a meditation and helping you visualize a calm, wonderful place. I love taking imagination trips while in savasana and usually go to one of the following three places:

The end of the dock at Craftsbury Sculling Center (aka Family Rowing Camp) in the Northeast Kingdom in Vermont. There are three long, floating, wooden docks used for launching boats into Lake Hosmer. I would usually opt out of the afternoon row in lieu of basking in the sun on the dock, which absorbs the heat from being in the sun. As I laid on the dock, I could see pine trees in the periphery of my vision and bright blue above. Thats it. Quiet. Warmth. Nothingness. The best part was that I could dip my toes in the water, which was usually perfect for toe dipping- not too cold. This usually where I go while in savasana.

The front lawn at 26 Dunkirk road, my home in Baltimore for most of my life. As I lay on the floor, I imagine that I'm laying between our house and our next door neighbor's house in the long, borderline overgrown green grass. Above me I see the Japanese Maple (perfect for climbing) and the pine tree (bad for climbing) entering my line of sight from each side. This one smells like mulch and I probably have dirty feet.

The black sand beach in Waimanu Valley on the Big Island in Hawaii. Surprisingly, this one is not a hot place and the sun comes and goes. It's kept cool by the fog rolling off of the town of Waimea on the cliffs that create the valley. Laying on the beach, facing the ocean, I can see the fog descending from behind and disappearing into the vast ocean and sky beyond the mouth of the valley. The cliffs create a 2,000 foot tall cocoon of greens and browns on either side and the sand is cool and perfectly soft. It is completely silent except for the shuffle of trees against each other behind me and crash of the waves in front of me.

After spending 5 minutes imagining the quality of the quiet or the feeling of the sun, I'm usually ready to face the city with a renewed sense of calm (and find myself walking much slower on the way home).