I just got home from a marathon Trader Joe's shopping excursion, where I ended up chatting with my cashier and finding out she had just moved to New York to pursue media production and I gave her all sorts of advice and tried to pass on good karma. I also bought a ton of produce and healthy things that will hopefully last me through the week - I'm trying to be really good about groceries and eating out these days. Before I went to Costa Rica, I was eating out for practically every meal except breakfast (and sometimes that too!) and that wasn't great for my wallet or body - even though there are amazing vegan/vegetarian food options everywhere in NYC and I love to take advantage of them. I'm trying to teach myself that they are for special occasions only, and I think I've been doing pretty good so far... of course, there are social events, but I'm trying to make those few and far between.
Before TJ's, I went to a late afternoon class at Sankalpah, one of my favorite studios I've tried in the city. I had Cristy as a teacher, and she was absolutely great. The class ended up being just me and another student, which is always an amazing blessing in terms of yoga classes. I first began taking yoga seriously when I started going to a studio on Long Island where the classes were sometimes just me, and at most maybe 6 or 7 of us. Before that, I was turned off by the shoulder-to-shoulder practice at Yoga to the People (though I do love YTTP still for a great power yoga workout - if you wanna sweat it out for cheap, this is the place to go. Good to work on flexibility as well because of the heat) and never really felt comfortable in my poses. The one-on-one attention I got at Yen Jen Yoga, my first real yoga studio (I'd link to the site but it is now shut down! :( ) really inspired me and pushed me to my limit. I finally saw what my body could do, and I became kind of addicted. That was a really cool style of yoga, basically like Hot Vinyasa. We practiced in the heat, though I don't think it was as heated as a classic Bikram Studio, and we did flow sequences with a bit of Bikram mixed in (but not the parts I hate! I really am not a fan of typical Bikram for whatever reason).
Anyway, so I'm a huge fan of the small yoga class, and it is SO rare to find that here in NYC. Sankalpah is the only studio I have found where that's happened, and I love it. Cristy was a new teacher for me, and she was great. I spoke with her afterwards and she mentioned training at Jivamukti, Laughing Lotus, and the Omega Institute, the first two I've actually been to in the past. Just in passing conversation, I asked her about how she morphs her technique for the studio with all those different trainings in the past, and I was really surprise to hear that she essentially doesn't. She said she has never been to Isaac's class (he's the founder/main teacher at Sankalpah) and just does what works for her. I guess maybe she was hired because of a similar mentality, or maybe (because Isaac also began at Jivamukti, I think), it has to do with the foundation of the teachers. I was surprised because I've found that Sankalpah has great teachers and of course each class is unique, but there are some of same ideas seemingly flowing through the various classes. Maybe I am just fabricating that in my head....
In my mind, Sankalpah is a great vinyasa flow studio, without the basic vinyasa sequence. All the poses flow together, there are plenty of down dogs and up dogs and all that but there is always an element of surprise, always a couple of poses thrown in the class that challenge your flexibility and if you took a second to think about it, you might think you couldn't do it, but then you do it, and it is awesome! That's my favorite sort of pose in a yoga class, because it sort of plays to my strengths (flexibility) but kind of blows my mind at the same time. Also, most of the time, those sorts of poses feel awesome!
I think Sankalpah may be where I end up doing a teacher training course, but I haven't made any decisions and I don't know if I am ready to do a training in the fall or if I should wait until Spring. I have a ten class pack, so I'm gonna keep attending classes there and see how I feel. I'd also like to get over to the Integral Yoga Institute sometime this week, and eventually I'd love to check out Om Yoga and Sonic Yoga as well.
So many yoga studios, so little time!
I wanted to make this post about hip openers, but I got off on a bit of a tangent. So here are some quick thoughts on hips:
Apparently we hold a lot of emotions in our hips, and hip opening poses help stretch those and shake those out. The way your hips feel can change remarkably class to class, and in my opinion, the stretches hurt (in a good way) the most when emotions have been on the rise/heavy. But clearly, those are the best times for them. I love hip opening poses, mainly because I have very open hips and they come relatively easily to me, but I can't tell you how much it varies from practice to practice. Sometimes when I'm lying in pigeon I want to cry there's so much tension - sometimes I feel bored and ready to do double pigeon. I firmly believe that little tidbit that so many yoga teachers impart - we hold our emotions there.
I just did a google search and happened upon some really interesting info on this. Here's a paragraph from this site, that I find to be a really useful and inspirational explanation. I'll leave you with this:
Hip openers have the notorious reputation of evoking deep emotions. We store a lot of emotion in our hips, typically emotions like depression, anger, anxiety and fear. Physically, our hips are large joints that provide us with stability. They are surrounded by muscles on all sides. They are attached to the back, abdomen, hamstrings, quadriceps, abductors and adductors, and gluteal muscles. We are very protective of our hips because they guard our sexual organs. Our hips have a wide range of motion and can be affected by a number of different poses. When we practice specific hip opening asanas like Half Pigeon/Full Pigeon, or a Low Lunge, or better yet, Frog pose, we are bound to release tension (emotions) from those areas. Following a hip opening intensive class, you may find yourself to be sad and irritable. This is actually a sign that the yoga is working for you. The asanas do not create emotions, they help bring emotions to the surface. Once you are able to recognize and accept your emotions, you are one step closer to being able to deal with them. This can be a scary proposition for some people. When we are placed in a stressful situation, we tend to go into a ‘fight of flight’ mode. In yoga, it is possible to go into a ‘fight’ mode. But outside of coming out of the pose and walking out of the room, there is no real ‘flight’. Luckily for us, yoga is a safe place for us to deal with things. The emotions are all just part of the process. The empowering thing about yoga is that it you have it in yourself to be your own caregiver.
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