Saturday, February 9, 2008

Doga

I decided to practice at the other Ojai yoga studio, Sacred Space, today, because it's right next to the humane society, where I get my animal fix on Saturdays. This was the first time I've practiced at Sacred Space!

My favorite part was definitely the two dogs she had roaming around, a black cocker spaniel named Baby and a 20-year old beagle. Ingrid said they would "come around and check on your downward facing dog." The other unusual presence in the class was a little girl of maybe 9 or 10 years. Those three more innocent creatures helped me take the class a little lighter than I would when surrounded by a bunch of serious adult students. I got a surprise puppy kiss during bridge.

Ingrid is a graceful, calm, lovely birdlike person. She had us use the wall to push against during several poses (triangle, warrior II, bridge, handstand, and even savasana). One pose I LOVED was putting a block under my upper back, laying down on top of it and pressing my arms into the wall behind me. That gave me some feeling in a lot of new places. She has that miraculous yoga teacher ability to see when a pose feels good or bad because she commented that I had it right, which I knew by the way it felt.

That's the place, right behind my heart, that I don't feel I have full access to, physically or energetically/emotionally. If I'm able to practice yoga in such a way that I can physically loosen my upper back and relax my shoulders etc, like really change my anatomy a bit, will emotional awareness follow?

She ended with a quote I liked, "Happiness is not the path, it is the way."

4 comments:

Yogurt said...

Black cocker spaniels....awwww.... My little black cocker spaniel is scratching at the back door right now, begging to go out (for the 50th time in the past hour!). He is so annoying and cute and precious. He goes outside and frolicks in the snow, eats some birdseed, then jumps up on the window outside to let us know he's ready to come back in. 10 minutes later, he's ready to go out again. That had nothing to do with yoga.

FrenchToast said...

today at the yoga workshop, r.freeman had us do 'downward facing puppy' before we did dog. my heart melted onto my mat. and i felt like a giant cutie patootie. pookles.

Zen Muffin said...

aww. pookles. cosmles. buckles. pupples.

Blake Gilbert said...

i have that same block in meditation.