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Old 05-15-04, 06:46 PM  
Jane C
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The Yoga Workshop Reporter

Several of the VF yogis have given fascinating accounts of workshops or classes they're recently attended (Renee and Loretta at Northwest Yoga Fest, Chris at Shiva Rea, Tiffany at the Yoga Journal Conference in Boston, Aline at Ana Forrest in NYC, are among the most recent).

Several people have said this - and I agree - It seems a shame that these accounts - which often include great workshops/classes with lesser known stars of the yoga pantheon, aren't better organized and archived (the checkins get deleted), so, I hope, with this thread, people will begin to report on their yoga adventues.

I'll start...
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Old 05-15-04, 07:31 PM  
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Leslie Kaminoff in Rochester 5/15/04

Leslie Kaminoff is a teacher of Viniyoga. What I know about Viniyoga is not too much, though the knowledge base got a big assist today. (fyi, Erich Schiffman's wife is a Viniyoga teacher)

Viniyoga was founded by TKV Desikachar, who is the son of Krishnamacharya - whose students also included Pattabi Jois (Ashtanga) and son-in-law B.K.S. Iyengar. The emphasis of the school, as I saw it today though Leslie, is restorative and breath centered.

Leslie is the founder of The Breathing Project, located in Manhattan's Chelsea district.

Leslie is quite charming. As an NYC expat, I enjoyed his metropolitan ways. We're about the same age, so the references he made to "yoga in the 70s" rang familiar. He has a breezy-but-serious teaching style, completely with Steinfeld-esque kidding - the sidelong glance, the raised eyebrow.

I attended one day of his weekend workshop, which was 2 (out of 4) sessions - "The Warrior Series" and "Dymystifying the Bandhas". Tomorrow he'll teach a restorative class, and one about sacred sounds.

Leslie was anatomically oriented, but in very different way than Iyengar. He had an amazing slide show (Lianne would love it) with all kinds of interesting anotomical pictures - shown to explain the importance of breath in opening up the body

Leslie designed the Warrior Series to allow for increased grounding of the lower body and freedom of movement in the upper body. Accordingly, although this was a vinyasa, there wasn't much "hands on the floor" - the feet did the grounding. No downward dog! The movment was breath coordinated. His postures were quite different than Iyengar style - for instance, Warrior I was a shorter, wider stance with arms that had an almost ballet-like curve. He taught the series slowly, with alot of attention to detail, than we ran though it vinyasa style. He used some of his anatomical photos in a power point presentation to show how prana and apana were allowed to flow better when the lower body is grounded and the upper body is free.

I should mention that Leslie has a very powerful chanting voice and, to this ear, seems very good at pronouncing sanskrit. We ended with a few oms and savasana.

I had lunch with Toaster/Beth and her friend - which was great - at Alladin's Natural Eatery.

The afternoon began with more a discussion of anatomy as it is linked to the bandhas. There are three bandhas which, Leslie said, should always be engaged, when doing any of the active asanas - mula, uddiyana and jalandhara (pelvic floor, abdomen and neck) He helped clearly identify mula bhanda (it is *not* kegeling ), its relationship to uddiyana bhanda and how to use jalandhara bandha to correctly place the neck and head during asanas. He did some fairly simple movement patterns, again, integrating them with the breath, and some pranayama.

The thing that was most interesting was the connection with the interior of the body - the chest and abdominal cavities. I feel like I understand my anatomy much better, in a way that is helpful with movements.

He's a charming guy - uplifting and fun to be around. He knows alot. The approach is different. I don't feel drawn to Viniyoga as my main practice, but the breath-centered work adds a whole dimension (different than Ashtanga). Its an interesting yoga philosophy. If he's coming to your town you should check him out.
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come even though you have broken your vows a thousand times,
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Old 05-16-04, 07:04 AM  
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Thanks for the report Jane! Sounds like a fascinating workshop. I feel about viniyoga kind of like you do. The breath focus is, in my opinion, it's true strong point and that's what I got the most from in my classes with Leslie's studio partner -- seems so long ago now (well, it has been 2 years).

Leslie offers classes in anatomy at The Breathing Project which are, I'm sure, fascinating. Wish there was more time and money in my little corner of the world. (I'm going to have to start to worry when I find myself spending more time on my yoga than on my art .)
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Old 05-16-04, 12:50 PM  
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YJ Boston Conference 2004 write-up... very long!

<Cutting and pasting this from an old check-in... enjoy and archive!>

I owe you guys the big report so here it is - beware, it is long!

So, on Friday morning, I attended Donna Farhi's session on the sacroiliac joint and this was top-notch. Her understanding of anatomy and ability to communicate how it works and how to feel it working was pretty good given the size of the audience (>100 people). We did some fun stabilization exercises as evidence that when energy flows up and down the body, the pose is more stable, and if we feel destabilized, it's a sign energy flow is constricted, which tells you that your alignment is out of whack. For example, we did Warrior II and had a partner push against the front of the shin of the bent leg. Also, in tadasana, have a partner put their palms on your shoulders and push downwards. Solid as a rock = good.

What I did find refreshing was how she has the opinion that standing poses are so complex, that they involve a heck of a lot more movement than we'd gather from first glance. I was impressed too by how she told the audience to make their yoga practice their own, and that when an instructor tells you to do something/adjusts you and you don't like how it feels, just non-confrontationally ask "why?" If it doesn't feel right, it isn't right for you. And that parsvakonasana isn't about touching the floor with your fingers. Also, when she had talked some bit about how we pull the sacroiliac joint into all kinds of screwed up positions (which then cause overstretched ligaments and thus, lower back pain), she instructed us to do parsvottanasa while being conscious of keeping the sacroiliac area stable, and everyone was doing this forward bend with such care that I barely saw any severely rounded backs, and no attempts to touch head to knee! Fascinating.

After that, I attended a session on carpal tunnel syndrome with Timothy McCall, an MD who's spent a lot of time collaborating with Mary Dunn and Patricia Walden and really knows his stuff. Y'all know about my wrist problems so Timothy McCall's session was eye-opening, especially now that I'm finally getting more interested in anatomy. He covered a lot of good tips on isolating and understanding which muscles, nerves, joints and bones were at work in downward dog (and all other weight-baring on the wrists type
poses) and in standing and sitting. For downward dog, the goal is to engage the extensor muscles of the wrist, "claw" with the fingers, and focus on bearing more weight in the knuckles, fingers and distal carpal bones. Compression in the proximal carpal bones is what all of this works to prevent. Cool beans. We also looked at ergonomics and how to avoid "slumpasana," the condition that ails practically all of us because we are involved in a "forward-facing" society. The usual prescription was handed out - proper height for desk and chair, not leaning into the wrists when typing, more backbends and shoulder openers.

Next up: Patricia Walden's somewhat grating focus on doing dropbacks into
wheel. Okay, four hours of backbending ain't ever easy. We started with supta virasana, some twists, a slow vinyasa flow to warm up. Next ws the usual handstand and forearm stand practice for opening the shoulders. My kick-up attempts into handstand have improved - way more stable, and one foot always makes it, but I still have this fear of shifting my weight over my hips to get the other leg up. Sigh. And I was quite fearless (while more haphazardly kicking up) three months ago and getting up there and staying there. Why oh why do I still have an inversion aversion? We moved on to a couple of backbends-on-chairs poses and variations of ustrasana. I did standing ustrasana and Patricia's assistant commented on the great opening in my thoracic and ribs A yoga compliment! Okay, I do like backbends so I wasn't too scared of this workshop until the last segment came up. Next, we did lots and lots of wheels from the ground up.

Finally, we spent a good thirty minutes working on dropbacks. Yipes. Okay, so there were close to a hundred people in the room, and maybe ten people were already working on dropbacks and/or coming back up. The rest of us were playing with on-the-wall modifications and partner work. There's one variation I did like but even that was still to much for me. Instead of dropping back from standing, drop back from ustrasana, i.e. arms are in a wheel-like position, and the legs are in ustrasana position. What I found especially scary were people around me who didn't really know what they were doing but still walking (or more like dropping without control!) their hands down the wall, with practically zero supervision, and saying stuff like "my lower back feels funky." Geez. So, I can't say I was overly impressed with the level of instruction in this class. I spent a bit of time at home that night decompressing my spine just in case. I think I overdid it a bit myself. Sigh. And for all of that, I didn't even feel the level of opening in my spine that I usually do when I practice backbends on my own!

I attended Donna Farhi's 4-hour asana and meditation class on Sunday morning. I had left Saturday's session with a pretty positive impression of her. We did a wonderful slow vinyasa practice for 2 hours, where she strung together all sorts of poses, starting with the standard sun salutation and building on it, encouraging us to feel each pose as new and different each time we went into it, rather than thinking of it as repetition and chock-full of technical information, letting the body feel what is right and adjust as the practice proceeded. Super stuff. After a short, silent break, we did yoga nidra, and admittedly, this being my first time, I didn't fall asleep but I wasn't in touch with my consciousness either. Mostly, I could hear her through the whole hour of yoga nidra, but I couldn't digest most of what she was saying because my sub-conscious was taking over. So, I felt like I was in a dream-like state, and my body felt very heavy. I am rather fascinated by this yoga nidra practice though, and might give my Shiva Rea Drops of Nectar yoga
nidra track a spin this week... As expected, there was some snoring in the room and some folks complained about it when we had a post-practice group discussion.

As for me, I am guessing I didn't get the full experience mostly because I had a tough week. These sessions all start at 7 or 7:30 a.m. and I had to get up at 5:30 or 6 a.m. to eat breakfast and get on the subway, plus I had spent the night before working on my resume and professional options for three hours with an old friend.

After class ended, I was talking to another student named Ines because we recognized each other from having attended the Todd Norian workshop in Cambridge last Feb. She had really enjoyed the asana class with Donna and was contrasting it with her experience the day before at Shiva Rea's session. She described it as "hoppity hop... lots of jumping around... Shiva Rea is amazing to watch and has fantastic strength and agility but that's all I did, was watch, when she went up on stage with assistant and did amazing arm
balances... I didn't learn anything." She contrasted Shiva to Donna with the word "maturity." To Donna Farhi's credit, she described herself as a "highly functional cripple" (her chiropractor's words, actually) because she has many injuries. Indeed, she demonstrated baddha konasana once and described is
as "rather pathetic-looking for someone who's been doing yoga for 30 years" (she has ripped something in her right hip). She says most folks with "low function, perfect structure" don't feel as physically well as folks with "high function, messed up structure" and that yoga can make that difference.

Ines left the conference after the Shiva Rea morning session because she felt too discombulated to carry on with the afternoon sessions. Kinda unfortunate. Just me relating someone's tales verbatim... Don't shoot the messenger! I own Shiva Rea CDs myself.

I really enjoyed Mitchel Blair and Sianna Sherman's workshop... Mitchel and Sianna came across as really sincere and caring. Their session was blissfully small, just twenty people or so, including a woman who had special needs (epilepsy) and an older couple who needed more modifications. We worked on shoulder openers and backbends, and fortunately not too many of the latter. Sianna has a new agey, fairy air about her, but didn't come off as excessively "goddess-in-making" which is refreshing. Her teaching was way more skillful than Elena Brower's, for instance, with none of the I'm-too-hip-for-my-yoga-pants attitude. And Mitchel was funny and great at demonstrating what not to do in an asana. I would definitely attend one of their weekend workshops when I get a chance to.

As I was packing up, they turned the room I was in into some kinda of press conference-like space so I stuck around (nosy me) to see what was happening. It turns out they were having an official closing ceremony for the women's conference, and this is the first time that they've ever had such a focus aside from holding the main conference. It was a star-studded event in the yoga world: Judith Lasater, Julie Gudmestad, Patricia Walden, Lilias Folan, Barbara Benagh (that's pronounced bay-nah, as I finally heard it said out loud)... Phew. There's the rundown!
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Old 05-16-04, 03:01 PM  
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Ana Forrest Workshop January 2004

(cut and pasted from old check-in posts)
Ana Forrest Workshop January 2004

Well, I'm back from the workshop. The only way I can describe it is intense. Before we started, while people were coming in and setting up their mats, Ana was at the front of the room doing all sorts of circus poses. She is amazing. During class, Ana, her partner Jonathan, and 2 senior teachers from NYC walked around the room helping and adjusting. She is very into working around people's injuries and safety. The class was similar to her CD, though we took twice as long and did only about half the stuff on the CD. We held poses for what seemed like forever, this was very challenging for me in a good way. The room was about 100 degrees and I don't do hot yoga, but it was OK. I'm glad they told us to bring water! It's going to take some time to process everything, but it was a very positive experience and I'm looking forward to going back for more tomorrow and Sunday.

OK, more details from last night -

There were boxes of tissues all over the room because Ana expected lots of crying (didn't happen that I'm aware of, maybe today). She said certain poses may bring up feelings that are painful for example from a past car accident or rape. She didn't want anyone to squash their feelings, but instead release them to help heal.

Instead of Dog pose we did Turbo Dog which was Dog pose with the elbows bent. This was tough and she said it builds strength.

When we did plank pose to chaturanga, she had us put our knees down (today we can keep them up) and really concentrate on pressing the fronts of the shoulders back. This is much safer for the shoulder joint.

In Warrior I, we had our hands on our hips pressing down and concentrated with each breath on lifting our rib cage higher.

We did a great neck stretch before savasana. In standing forward bend, clasp your hands behind your neck and press your elbows together with your forearms against your jaw. It felt great. Also in standing forward bend, she had us grab 2 large clumps of hair from the top of our head and pull down towards the floor.

She was big on neck placement, mostly letting the neck hang and never looking up at the ceiling.

She talked a lot about breathing into the front of the heart and into the back of the heart.

There were lots of upper back and shoulder stretches. She's really into wrapping the shoulders.

Ana was tough but gentle, very focused and intuitive. During a seated pose my mind had drifted off for a few seconds and she called me on it. She also had a beautiful pedicure, burgundy with silver tips.

To get us to feel what it's like to wrap our shoulders, Ana had us sit in cobblers pose and then raise our right arm to shoulder height, bend the elbow, hand open, fingers extended and palm facing in, lower your shoulder blade, then take your left hand and press on the side of your right biceps right above your elbow to engage your chest and then remove your left hand, put your left arm down and hold for many breaths. Repeat on opposite side. Also, before going up into turbo dog from all fours we had to really round our upper back and then lower our shoulders

Turbo dog is dog with bent elbows. We also did dolphin and I was lucky enough to get some personal instruction on that one, great pose!

One more thing I remembered was how we would always have to keep our feet active in every pose, for example in cobblers pose the toes would have to be bent back and in standing poses the toes needed to be lifted up.

I'm not sure how I feel about expressing emotions during the workshop. I do feel safe in the environment Ana created, so I guess if it happens it happens.

I'm back from Day 2 of Ana Forrest workshop. Today was even better than yesterday. I'm learning so much. Ana helped me get into dolphin with my feet up the wall, very fun! Savasana was nice and long today. Ana talked about each chakra and breathing into that chakra, very relaxing.

Well, I'm back from the last day of my Ana Forrest workshop. Today was the hardest. Friday was good, but a bit overwhelming with it being my first workshop and the heat. I enjoyed Saturday the most. Today, I was tired and she really pushed us. She talked a lot about getting in touch with your spirit inside. It's different for everyone, for example she says her spirit is like a bonfire or storm whereas her good friend Erich Schiffman's spirit is a placid lake. She said that makes sense for him since he's really mellow. I would love to meet Erich one day, from reading his book and doing his videos he just seems so interesting. OK, back to the workshop. I was really tired today and not sore, but I could feel things in places I don't usually feel. I did a handstand with an assist by the instructor and afterwards felt so energized. I think I need to do more inversions. We did half of our sun salutations with our eyes closed. I didn't like this at all when we did it yesterday because I felt so wobbly during low lunge, but today was a little better. For crow, Ana had us fold up our second mat and put it in front of us vertically for a crash pad for face plants. I will definitely be using that trick at home. We also worked on splits and that was very hard for me, too. My Kripalu teacher was there today. He took the morning advanced class and then was taking our beginner class. He said Ana was more commanding with the advanced class and gentler with us. Overall, it was a great experience for me. Right now I am physically and emotionally exhausted, but I would do it again in a heartbeat.

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Old 05-16-04, 03:21 PM  
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Thanks to Jane for starting this thread, and thanks to the others for saving their past posts and reposting them here!

I also attended the Kaminoff Warrior Series workshop with Jane and my friend Rebecca. I had a great time, and my thighs were definitely sore today from all that standing pose work! It was a nice change of pace to do a practice focused only on the lower body (Jane mentioned no down dogs--no chaturangas either!). During the first half of the workshop, Leslie taught us a specific sequence of Warrior poses--using the viniyoga alignment Jane mentioned--which we went through relatively slowly. Then, in the second part of the workshop, we went through the poses in a more vinyasa-like fashion. As Jane said, Leslie was very personable (some of his jokes were pretty goofy though), and I appreciated the main adjustments he offered throughout the workshop. He actually flipped my friend Rebecca and another student--a sort of party trick--and he helped me balance in Warrior III, which was tough because he had us do the pose after our legs were already pretty fatigued.

All in all, it was a great experience--I'm so glad Jane encouraged me to go!
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Old 05-17-04, 12:41 AM  
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Wonderful idea, Jane!

I have loved "experiencing" various yoga workshops through each of your eyes! Recently I've been devouring as much information as I can on yoga and have greatly enjoyed and appreciated this thread (as well as lurking in previous check-ins.) Look forward to more insights from others...

Much thanks!

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Old 05-17-04, 09:42 AM  
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Shiva Rea Workshop

Shiva Rea workshop 4-23-04

On Friday, I attended an all day intensive workshop with Shiva Rea. The Yoga Journal Conference was very expensive and also really intense (yoga from 7 AM to 5 PM at least on the weekends and not much shorter during the week – how could anyone physically do that?) so I made a compromise to attend this one workshop. It was still $150 at early-bird prices! This was my biggest gripe – considering there were 140 people or so in the room, Yoga Journal made a pretty penny on this (my bet is that Shiva Rea didn’t see even ¼ of this but what do I know – maybe it is super duper expensive to run these events).

OK – griping over! This was a terrific intensive. It was meant for teachers but was very well adapted for the individual practitioner, like myself. Shiva Rea is one of my favorite instructors on CD. My favorite yoga instructors are ones that let their own uniqueness come through in their teaching – like Eoin Finn, Eric Schiffman, and Shiva Rea. Shiva Rea’s work combines music and dance with yoga and she has a talent to teach it to people who have never danced (like me).

Shiva Rea’s voice is exactly like it is on the CDs. True to form, she has some terrific new music for the workshop but most of it was serenaded by a live sitar player which was truly moving. The workshop ran from 9-5 with a 2 hour break. We did yoga or mediation or breathing almost the whole time. Yes – it was an “intensive”.

She discussed and we did three different types of vinyasa yoga. Vira which is more like the solar practice on her CDs – heating, active; Shanti which is more like a lunar practice – less active, cooling; and sringara which is a combination of the two. The way she teaches vinyasa is unique. We did dancing warrior in the Vira practice in the morning but we added breath of fire to the movements. We also did lots of arm balances because the fire charka is in the belly, she explained, and arm balances use the fire of the belly – the muscles here are tightened in the belly to hold the poses. We did a beautiful vinyasa that consisted of side plan and then a variation into a hip stretch and then into a side arm balance with the legs off the floor and too the side.

In her own classes she said she does each of these types of practices depending on the time of day and the time of year. Monday morning practices are much different than Sunday evening. One is more Vira the other more Shakti. She showed how to do the same pose as Vira (expansive) and then as Shakti (inward).

The afternoon started with moon salutations and then backbends. We then held some forward bends for a long time. We had a nice long savasana to her Drops of Nectar soundtrack and then some pranayama practice similar to Drops of Nectar. For the last half hour she talked more to the teachers of how to create these types of progressions.

She really used the sitar music in the afternoon. Thomas the sitar player was extremely talented and she would have him do a certain piece of music 3x and then we could come down from a backbend, for example.
With all the home practice I do, it was a real treat for me to go to a live class like this – or should I say a retreat. I had to practically turn miracles to get there – between my husband complaints and taking off from work, and a sick son that morning. The first thing Shiva Rea said was “It is a victory for many of us to be here – I know a lot of you are parents!” and I certainly felt that.

For all of you considering a live class, if you get the right instructor, it can greatly enhance your home practice. We at VF are unique in that we mostly do home practices were I think the general population mostly does class practice.

Anyway – it was a delightful day – my body was all relaxed and the workshop will rejuvenate my home practice. Shiva Rea radiates creativity and the yogic principles. She is in an inspiration.
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Old 05-17-04, 11:46 AM  
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Quote:
Originally Posted by toaster
As Jane said, Leslie was very personable (some of his jokes were pretty goofy though), and I appreciated the main adjustments he offered throughout the workshop. He actually flipped my friend Rebecca and another student--a sort of party trick--and he helped me balance in Warrior III, which was tough because he had us do the pose after our legs were already pretty fatigued.

All in all, it was a great experience--I'm so glad Jane encouraged me to go!
Beth,

I"m glad you encouraged me as well, and all I can say is your friend Rebecca seemed happy as a clam after Leslie flipped her, and for sometime thereafter.

Something interesting Leslie said, that I didn't mention earlier, was about Iyengar, essentially "even if you don't think you've been doing Iyengar, you have. No one was talking about principles of alignment pre-iyengar - we certainly weren't in the seventies. all of the videos, etc., get their alignment from Iyengar, whether they know it or not."

Pam - you are lucky to live in Phoenix, where there is so much great yoga, including
Desiree Rumbaugh's AZYoga studio, for anusara style . I know several VF Yoginis, including myself, will be travelling hill and dale to work with Des this summer.
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Come, come, whoever you are.
Wanderer, idolator, worshipper of fire,
come even though you have broken your vows a thousand times,
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Ours is not a caravan of despair.

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Old 05-18-04, 02:14 AM  
Jane C
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Reporter fans will want to look at The disparate, desultory NYC Yoga get together thread, and I will cut and paste my main summary of my my small part in this ongoing movable feast, originally titled Wowie Zowie. Fade to flashback...

*******

where do i begin? at the beginning?

My four day NYC-VF yoga sojourn was transforming.

Its been a while since i've been to a live yoga class. i suggest to others, who, like me, have been relying on videos, to get out there. it makes a huge huge difference in my practice - baseline, it made it safer.

If you live near NYC - wow- a garden of earthly delights is waiting.

You meet such nice people! i very much enjoyed my time with Sharon and Meggie. They're both wonderful and, all other charming attributes aside, first rate yoga buddies.

There's so much to say, and I'm busy at work, but briefly:

Elena Brower at Virayoga
this is a very trendy soho class in a beautiful room with all the trimmings. Elena is charismatic - she focused on the atmosphere in the room and the warmth theme. The "bent eight ways" pose was great because, well, because I could lift off.

Trendy or no, she's got alot to offer, and it was an interesting experience. I bought her CD, and will report.

Alison West at Yoga Union
at Mercer and Crosby (?)

I loved this class. Alison knows a great great deal. You feel the depth of her knowledge - the distilled wisdom of years of practice. If I lived in NYC, I would take with her and Sharon's Jackie regularly. My feeling after class was

1. There's so much to know
2. I so want to know it.

Alison infused a desire to know more about yoga and the sense it would benefit me in many ways. She conveyed a great deal of information - most of which flew by - but I'm grateful for what stuck.

She called the asanas in Sanskrit. this frequently left me in the lurch, but consider, upon analysis, that this is an important thing to know, and its good to be in a room where the importance of knowing the words is recognized - just one example - the whole experience was like that - she set a standard, and a tone.

Lianne, if you've been thinking you want to go, i only encourage you. Alison is on my short list of *musts* for every return trip to NYC.

The style was very precise. As Meggie described - it was advanced by any standard I have, but it didn't shut me down, it opened me up to the possibilities.

She's *very* beautiful. I hesitate to write this, because women often hurt themselves by comparing to others, but I want to convey that she's supple, strong, agile, centered, grounded and brainy, by the way. Beautiful from the inside out.

I was blown away.


Sonic Yoga - Jonathan Field's Level 2
- the next night I went by myself to Jonathan's class. It was FREEZING out. The room was packed and very very warm. Jonathan played eighties euro rock (think Peter Gabriel's Mercy Street). The vinyasas were fast - lots of standing work, lots of twists.

Jonathan's strong suit is his personality. He is a very sweet, extremely intelligent guy. He corrects and adjusts a great deal. He's got a nice vibe.

I got lower in half pigeon then I've been since my 20s. He pushed down on me and both hips reached the floor. It felt great. I would note, however, that after two nights of Anasura and Iyengar, I had the feeling that the flexibility that came from the physical heat in the room, and the fast pace, was a bit of a cheat. I'll take it though. It was fun, and I got a cute hoodie that says "Sonic Yoga/Hells Kitchen 10019")

Jackie Prete at Yoga Mandali This was a wonderful class, and the class that gave me the most concrete material for my home practice. The studio is lovely - there were only eight students in the class. Jackie gave exceptional individualized instruction that really helped me use my muscles, rather than stress my joints in all the poses. I got a clear understanding of the opposing spirals. My downward dog and standing postures are much more grounded.

She gave great corrections for joint protection, which - in my late 40s - is so important.

Jackie was very empowering. she laughs alot. I felt like there were certain understandable principles which, if regularly practiced, would lead me into the advanced asanas and, more to the point, a more integrated, flexibile, vibrant body.

And we know its true, BECAUSE

SharonNYC did a Handstand and

SharonNYC did a Forearm Stand


no fluke, no hapanstance - don't let her tell you otherwise!

the best part was Sharon's great big happy yoga grin upon completion of same.

Aline - I very much wanted to go to Dharma's class - but just couldn't fit it in the schedule - its on my short list for future visits.

I commend the VF desultory, episodic NYC Yoga tour to all interested parties. At the risk of repeating myself - SharonNYC and Meggie were wonderful, and the experience, as a whole, deepened my practice. My recent participation in the Yoga checkin, and the January sadhana, laid a foundation for my four days in NYC - I'm grateful.
__________________
Jane C.

Come, come, whoever you are.
Wanderer, idolator, worshipper of fire,
come even though you have broken your vows a thousand times,
Come, and come yet again.
Ours is not a caravan of despair.

Rumi
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