Last weekend I attended a workshop with Patricia Sullivan at Smiling Dog Yoga. If you are a beginner or seasoned yogi, I highly recommend doing a weekend workshop if one comes up in your area. It’s like a mini vacation without having to travel. After a stressful couple weeks at work I really needed some down time and taking yoga is better than my typical alternative of watching tv all weekend.
I could tell she had spent a lot of time training & practicing Iyengar yoga, which is very focused on alignment using props. Vinyasa yoga usually uses minimal props and matches each movement with a breath. The slower pace, focus on alignment, and support of the props felt like a good change of pace. It is good to remember to do things which we aren’t exactly drawn to, that take us outside of our box of life. Even in yoga, I end up in my ass kicking, Vinyasa box time and time again. I was thankful for the chance to be nice to myself. I’m not really good at that sometimes.
I really enjoyed the mantra we sang each day, and I hope to post it here for future reference. I also really enjoyed doing shoulder stand on a chair. I’ve been in a bit of an inversion rut lately. Inversions are great yoga poses, taking your hips above your heart, getting your blood flowing the opposite way of gravity, moving your lymphatic fluid, regulating your endocrine system, getting your metabolism flowing and so much more. I like to teach an all encompasing class that challenges and stretches the whole body, head to toes, bones to skin. When it comes time for the inversion though, I feel like there are so few accessible choices. Viparitta Karani (Legs up the wall) doesn’t feel like enough to me. In Shoulderstand and Headstand it is so easy to hurt your neck. Handstand is a little too challenging for most yogis. I have been trying to teach Shoulderstand with support, but it is a challenging pose for me and my sore neck and I appreciated the relaxing feeling the chair brought to a difficult pose.
