Restorative turned into two classes, back to back. What can I say... my fave teacher had a slow burn Vinyasa class right after restorative. I wanted to try the class anyway. I'm a sucker for a challenge even when I am cleansing.
Ok, so in Restorative today, we did some partner yoga. It was fun. First it was simple like touching hands while laying in a supported pose. Then we did back-to-back twists where one hand was on our own knee and the other was on our partner's knee. Then we did a forward seated bend twist thing where we held hands behind our backs.... That is not a good description. Ok. Let's try that again. So we were sitting cross legged in front of each other. We put our right hand behind our back and grabbed our partner's right hand with our left hand. Then we bent forward until our forehead was on our right knee. Then we switched to the other side. Then we did a partner Child's Pose. So one person went into Child's Pose and the other basically laid on top of them, back to back. Then switched. Talk about a deep hip opener... it actually felt pretty good. Then we just did legs up the wall and final Savasana. Fun fact... the Restorative teacher has a great accent but she currently lives about 30 minutes from where I grew up. We also sang Happy Birthday to someone in the class. That was awesome.
It was really awesome to do partner Restorative yoga. So often, it's all about one person, on their mat, by themselves. If another person gets too close to their bubble, they may get annoyed. One of the ironic things... or maybe people just need to practice yoga more. Actually, people need to practice LOVE more. I mean just real pure love. Not romantic love... that totally unconditional acceptance kind of love.
Class 2... Slow burn Vinyasa. What makes it slow burn? Well, you move a lot slower because your breathing is different than a typical Vinyasa class. And the room was lit by candles only. And the challenge was to keep your eyes closed the whole time. Very interesting. Mentally tough. I think going to restorative before helped me be in the right mind frame to keep my eyes closed with the exception of occasionally checking my own alignment. I wasn't tempted to watch what everyone else was doing. I was inwardly focused on what I was doing. I still need to work on my breathing though. I would like to be able to take those big deep breaths while moving through the poses. I feel like my body knows the movements and then my brain gets in the way of the breathing. Other than that, it was a typical Vinyasa class. I'm trying to remember what some of the things he said were... It was different than his typical guidance. There was a lot about feeling the poses, feeling the edge of the mat, feeling your way to Warrior 2 to Reverse Warrior. Feeling your way to Crow and floating back to Plank (yep, I felt like I nailed that). Going through the motions slowly, feeling them with passion. With purpose. Lots of feeling. Also, I can just imagine what we all looked like in the candlelight. I bet it was beautiful. I really think yoga is one of the most beautiful things we can do. To see everyone moving through the flow... I bet it was really spectacular. Anyway...
Oh! I had an amazing vision today! So I have this vision of helping people heal themselves physically and financially with my business. And today, I thought beyond just becoming a yoga teacher. I thought about opening my own studio but making it free. Or teaching underprivileged children yoga. Or I could talk to some women's shelters about providing a free class a couple times a week. Just continuing on the line of helping people heal themselves physically... I mean, I feel like I have greatly improved my own health by making this commitment to yoga this year. The possibilities are endless. I mean really endless.
Namaste, loves.
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