Tammy,

I thought I’d let you know which are my favorite yoga poses, even though I am not an expert at any of them.

First there is the rarely done frog pose.  With legs out wide you feel helpless and get the feeling you taste like chicken.

Pigeon pose produces a pain like no other in the it bands.  That fits with me as some say I am happy being miserable.

How about flipping the dog?  I can’t visually figure it out, don’t know the Sanskrit name for it, nor have I ever seen a real canine behave like this.   Well,  there’s go yoga getting hypocritical.

What are your favorite poses to teach and for you to practice?

Gary Kahn

Tammy,

While waiting for yoga class the other day, I did a little yogic thinking.  I guess these emails suggest I might do that once in a while.  When yoga teachers say that it is my class, I figure that means I focus on me and do the best I can; stopping only if I have trouble with a pose.  On this day, I did something uncharacteristic and intentionally watched the others.  No, I’m not a perv, just curious.   I never knew how much other students disregard the professional yoga teacher’s instructions and do whatever they want.   What’s up with that?  I noticed a woman doing savasana the whole class.  Why get out of bed for an early morning yoga class to just lay on the ground when you could have been snoozing away in a comfy bed?  Then I saw the little duckling pose.  That’s where the mother brings two daughters below ten years old and they try to imitate their mom; in other words, a yoga class of three.  It was cute, especially when the girls couldn’t keep up with the flow and didn’t get totally frustrated.  With more yoga practice, one day all the ducks will be in a row and will be joining the rest of us.  How about the muscle dude in the front row?  When we flowed, instead of upward dog, he did a headstand.  I was shocked when I first saw it and thought maybe that was how advanced yogis do the pose.  Then I realized he was just trying to impress the hot woman next to him.

I know it’s their yoga, but how do you teach your yoga when so many people are freestyling?

Gary Kahn

Tammy,

Saturday morning I took an outdoor yoga class.  I placed my mat down before class and immediately went into my routine pre-class corpse, or savasana, pose.  I try to establish my goal of being non-judgmental for the class.  When I looked up to see if class was starting I noticed a little girl on a mat near mine.  She was wearing little turquoise blue shorts, a yellow t shirt, and her hair was pulled up.  She was sporting a nice Boca tan as was her mom who was on the other side of this little four year old.

When the class started I noticed the little yogi trying the poses.  Her torso touched the ground during downward dog thereby missing the v shape called for in the pose.  When we went from plank, to chaturanga, to upward dog, to downward dog, she did her own little jumping routine which she altered each time we went through the sequence.  She smiled and was full of energy despite the fact that she didn’t conform to everyone around her.  Eventually she left the area and ran around the rest of the park with her mom in tow; somebody was in the moment and somebody else was in the running fear pose.  I tried to refrain myself but couldn’t help laughing.

Not being judgmental here but I think the kid deserves an A for the class.  After all, she walked away without a worry about what she looked like and was thrilled to see the sights.  I’m not big on the all-about-me attitude but it may have its place.

Gary Kahn

Tammy,

Saturday I went to a rock & roll yoga class.

At the beginning of class I heard Tom Petty’s Free Fallin’ over the speaker system, except something was different.  Usually my mind thinks exclusively of the hot, skateboarding woman in the video.  This time I was actually listening to the lyrics and for the first time I figured out what the song is about.  Thanks John Mayer.

Toward the end of the class the teacher told us to squat on the ground.  We then raised our bottoms, bent over, and tried to put our inner thighs on the back of our upper arms, crow style.  I had trouble getting into the pose, so the teacher said to look forward.  I took a leap of faith and for a brief second I was flying; that’s the word yogis use, right?  Well, then my body flew forward and my head went clunk against the ground.  Hmm, I was thinking, was I body checked?  No.  Was I punched?  No.  I’m doing yoga.  I was a little woozy when I heard the song playing at that moment, Pink Floyd’s Shine on You Crazy Diamond.  My brain rattled around and I couldn’t even figure out what symbolism was.

I guess when I heard Jack Johnson’s Upside Down early in class I should have realized that things were going to be mind altering.

Gary Kahn

PS  Something else happened in class.  At one point, the teacher told us to unclench our butts.  What was that all about?  All I could think of were the lines from Predator 2:  “Okay everybody, just take a deep breath.  Loosen your sphincters.”

Tammy,

I arrived ten minutes early for class Saturday.  As I approached, I saw a woman who smiled and said, “Hi.”  I was taken back a little as the “nobody talks to strangers rule” is usually in effect here in South Florida.

I smiled back and she said, “Where is everybody?”

“It’s a holiday weekend,” I said.

From her accent I could tell she was probably European.  “What holiday?”

“Memorial Day.”

We went our separate ways and rolled out our mats.

During class, I looked up to the sky and saw a bunch of clouds.  I then noticed the blue space area between the clouds.  It seemed to form the shape of something.  I started thinking as we were holding chair pose for an extended period.  The Euro woman must have influenced my thinking because I thought I saw a boot shape, kind of like Italy.  Here I was in a yoga class, doing the chair pose and thinking of some great tortellini, pinot grigio, and a cannoli.  I guess that’s what people mean when they say yoga can be relaxing.  After a year and a half of sweating at yoga I finally experienced a relaxing moment.  Ah, but then my chair pose crumbled and I fell.

Europeans really know how to make their moments count.

Gary Kahn

Tammy,

Last night I went to a beach yoga class.

I guess beach yoga puts a lot of things in perspective.  Yoga is there for us to laugh at ourselves.  We go to a place of nature and try to act naturally.  We put our body into a pose to resemble a tree.  The wind comes along and we lose our balance and like leaves, part of us comes falling down.  Unlike normal life, we laugh at our little tree disintegration.  We look at the horizon for a point to focus on and see a cruise ship; we start dreaming about cocktails, midnight buffets, and candlelit dinners.  Then we laugh that the cruise is only in our head.  Or we try to make it into airplane pose, a variation of Warrior III pose, and we lose our balance and fall to a crash landing.  Fortunately we can laugh at this.

The teacher tells us to do the the isosceles triangle pose, or was that the rotating triangle pose?  My head is spinning.  When we miss the crow pose and end up on our head in tripod pose with sand in our hair, who really cares?  How about side plank pose which is also called vasisthasana?  Say vasisthasana three times and if you aren’t laughing, well, take two ujjayi breaths and try the xanax pose.

Gary Kahn

Tammy,

As you know, I normally keep my eyes closed in yoga class.  That way I won’t feel any pressure to compare myself to my classmates.  Okay, I admit it: the real reason is that I don’t want to see the scary looks other people have when they’re looking at my poses.

At an outdoor yoga class the other day, the instructor told us to be conscious of our surroundings and that we’re trying to get back to nature.  I believe we were in Warrior II pose and then we went into side angle pose.  My arm was resting on my quad and I looked up to see the palm trees and the sky.  The other arm was trying to reach over my head toward the front of the class.  When my gaze came downward I saw the woman next to me.  One of her arms was over her head, successfully reaching forward, and the other arm was resting on her thigh.  However, at the end of the thigh-resting arm I noticed something different.  The woman had the index finger touching touching her thumb, making a circle.   I think in yoga terms you call this a mudra.  The other three fingers were all pointing in the same direction.   My eyes then gazed a little beyond the woman and I saw her shadow.  The silhouette looked like her body was in perfect alignment and yet relaxed, at peace.  I had never seen a yoga shadow before and this reflection looked like a piece of art.  The woman was in a moment of bliss and I was struggling to keep my body in this position.  Adding insult to injury, the woman was giving herself the okay sign with her hand.

After class I was thinking that I should tell this woman how beautiful her shadow looked.  I thought twice about this as I remembered that we did the same side angle pose on the other side and she must have seen my attempt.

Gary Kahn

Tammy,

Today I arrived about ten minutes early for your class.  I was the fourth person there.  To my surprise the three other people were guys.  I set my mat up where I usually do; this is apparently now the “men’s” side.  More people started arriving; they were women.  In fact, four women showed up and placed their mats on the opposite side of the room which was apparently the “women’s” side.  I felt like I was at a middle school dance.

One of the guys then started doing push ups.

Then you arrived and went into your normal spot, front and center.  Were you holding a battle of the sexes yoga class?  I missed that text message.

I usually have my eyes closed during class, so did the women’s side of the room laugh when any of the guys couldn’t hold the chair pose or warrior II pose for extended periods of time?    Did any of the women make any non-verbal, yogic passes at the guys to throw off our focus?  Did the women’s side become jealous because you had to spend more time adjusting the men’s side?

I had to leave right after class so what was the winner supposed to get and/or what was the losing side required to do?  Guys will not wear capri or crop pants to a yoga class.  This is a deal breaker; sorry, guys already feel weird walking out of a class carrying a yoga mat.  No way will any of us guys be getting any of those yoga tattoos on our lower backs.

So, who won?

Tammy,

You will recall I was at your yin a/k/a “happy hips” yoga class three weeks in a row.

Last night I was part of a private yoga class with my girlfriend; there was no teacher.  There was a little mood music, though I don’t know if it was technically yoga music.  We were trying out the yoga pose where you touch hips together.  Out of the blue something happened to me that I had never experienced before.  I felt a different sensation and a popping noise.  It jarred me a little and I wondered if something was wrong.  I thought I had crossed all bridges if you know what I mean.  I figured out that my hip bone had cracked, like when you crack your knuckles.

Is this the goal of the happy hips yoga class and does this sensation occur only at happy times?  I think you gave out yoga homework in the last of these classes but was this what you were talking about?

Gary Kahn

Tammy,

In class yesterday, you asked us to get into the downward dog position with the soles of our feet up against the wall.  I’m trying to figure out why.  I know one reason is for the students to work with this sensation and feel what it is supposed to be like if there is something pushing against our soles.

Perhaps our feet against the wall is a metaphor for the pressure of life pushing against our souls.  In other words, how do we react to life?  Do we crumble over, splat, and become lame, lying face down on a mat like a drunk?  Do we just wait for someone to help us become rich in Farmville or the latest Facebook game?  Or, do we stand up and roar in lion’s pose, excited that we’re alive?  (Is there a lion’s pose?)

Does this in any way coincide with what you’re teaching or do I hallucinate from my own sweat?

Gary Kahn