Daily Archives: October 18, 2008

Yogasm

Yea, I wrote it.

It's possible and not in the way you are thinking.

I look forward to taking class with Govindas and Radha every week at 4:30 at Santa Monica Power Yoga. It's a recurring appointment on my blackberry. I get very disturbed when I can't go as its the one thing I really treat myself to and the one thing I know will transition me sweetly from a long week to a restful and recuperative weekend. Needless to say, in light of my schedule, good but very busy, I have not seen them in over a month.
In fact, MY yoga practice has been dormant for close to that length.
But, I went today.

Yes, there was some moaning involved but just because my muscles were all wound up and tense and, listen everyone, when things are goin' on, whatever it might be, it needs to be released.
Have you ever had a really annoying encounter or something fantastic happen and it makes you 'feel', physically, a certain way? I mean, you know, in your mind you 'feel' something, but in your body?
Well, those feelings need to go somewhere. They can go in a conversation with your mom or my mom, I can give you her phone number if you'd like. Or chatting with a friend, getting a massage or going for a run or to the gym to 'work it out'. There's a reason they call it a work out.
Work outs started to work things out. It did. You can google it. Then they figured out all the benefits physically. If you watch Madmen, you'll understand. Those people, back in that time, were all toxic- smoked and alcoholed up that they screwed themselves physically and took out all their frustration in negative ways. I know, its a TV show but it's based on a time period. Ask the people who were livin' and workin' in the 60's and 70's in NYC. Well, actually, you can ask anyone living in NYC now. Just kidding.
I love NY...it's my hometown. But they are all wound up, those crazy bananas!!

I digress...
I can release in yoga class and meditation. I can honestly say that in my yogic career, as a practitioner and teacher, I can't remember 'letting go' of so much at one time then in that class today and Radha (the most beautiful girl in the universe with her sweet, sweet voice, wasn't even there today).
And I was in child's pose 40% of the class.

It was like yogic surgery and Govindas was my trusty surgeon, telling me what I might expect and how I might feel. I scrubbed in as well! I slowly cut in, looked around and decided what needed to be removed, what needed immediate attention and what was doing really well inside.
I'm forever grateful that I can still find teachers that allow me to feel the way that class always does.
A combination of kirtan (devotional singing or chanting), slow movement, philosophy and quiet meditation, they allow us to explore the deepest parts of our practice and our lives.
I only hope that my interpretation of yoga and guiding others might, on a different level, inspire me the way they do.

They are so different from how I teach. There are some times I wish I could reflect what they do in my classes but that is why there are so many of us teachers in Los Angeles. We are all so different and give our gifts by the way we interpret the art. I know that the shared energy of the experience I have with all teachers and students inform what I do in my classes and my life.

I can't express enough how yoga is the absolute for me. Like writing, performing, running, fitness and Pilates, it is the way I can express myself fully in this crazy world.

So this, yogasm, is just that, the culmination of perfect and uncomfortable bliss.

I hope you can find yogasm in the classes I teach or the yoga you create in your life.

Be good to yourselves, find your y spot, drink lots of water and call your mother.

Divinely inspired,
Laurie