Tammy,<\/p>\n
I think I know why I go to your yoga class.<\/p>\n
Your classes remind me of being in preschool.<\/p>\n
We arrive with our own blankets, or in yoga terms, a mat. You greet us with a warm smile and some encouraging words.\u00a0\u00a0 We\u00a0know that\u00a0you will take care of us.<\/p>\n
You then ask us to get down onto our mats for child’s pose.
\nImmediately my mind harkens back to the warm blankets I had in preschool when I was 4 years old.\u00a0 I start to believe\u00a0my mat is actually a magic carpet and that it will take me away into dream land.\u00a0 In fact, you instruct us to do ujjayi breathing (some sort of back-of-the throat yoga breathing) and we are supposed to sound a little like Darth Vader.\u00a0 Wow, I am supposed to be a character in Star Wars.<\/p>\n
Actually I’m on an adult journey and I don’t know it.<\/p>\n
You then ask\u00a0us to put our bodies into\u00a0various postures or poses; downward dog, upward dog, cobra, cat tilt, triangle pose, warrior I, etc.\u00a0 You even come around to each one of us to make sure we are doing things right; in the parlance of yoga, you adjust us.<\/p>\n
As we are moving our bodies, you tell us not to judge ourselves and that everybody is okay, exactly as they are.\u00a0 We don’t need to look at our neighbors because everybody is different.\u00a0 This is what we learned at the wee young age.<\/p>\n
You gauge the class and see how well we are adapting to this new language; kind of like in preschool when we are being taught to tie shoes or beginning to read.\u00a0 Little do we know that besides the opening up of our hip joints, you are opening up our minds to patience, to forgiveness, and to be in the present.\u00a0 Of course you are teaching us lessons on how to be good people and succeed without us even knowing it.<\/p>\n
As we go into pigeon pose you tell us that the feeling in our hips\u00a0is good for us.\u00a0\u00a0In the most sweetest of ways you tell us that this feeling is just an unused body part saying hello.\u00a0 The more we visit again, the more friendly the feeling will be.\u00a0 You whisper to us that if we practice every day, the pigeon will be\u00a0a great friend and we will have lots of fun together.\u00a0\u00a0Sounds like practice makes things easier to me, and even a lesson from Sun Tzu (keep your friends close and your enemies closer).\u00a0 Also, if the pigeon is befriended, his\/her kind may never make droppings on our heads.<\/p>\n
After we’ve extended and contorted the body and stimulated the cortex, it is time for shavasana.\u00a0 You smoothly say we should take this time to float into space.\u00a0 Sounds to me like lay down on our mats, I\u00a0mean\u00a0carpets,\u00a0and go to sleep.\u00a0 You even come around and massage each one of our little heads.\u00a0 The only thing missing is the milk and cookies.<\/p>\n
We then hear a bell signaling the end.\u00a0 Our last remnants of\u00a0innocence is ending. You say Namaste, release us into the big bad world and tell us we’re on our own for life’s real problems.<\/p>\n
Gary Kahn<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tammy, I think I know why I go to your yoga class. Your classes remind me of being in preschool. We arrive with our own blankets, or in yoga terms, a mat. You greet us with a warm smile and some encouraging words.\u00a0\u00a0 We\u00a0know that\u00a0you will take care of us. You then ask us to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[13,15,12,10,8,14],"class_list":["post-4","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-what-is-yoga-3","tag-mat","tag-meditation-2","tag-what-is-yoga","tag-yoga-class","tag-yoga-pose","tag-yoga-yoga"],"yoast_head":"\n