Posts In: ease

April passed us by too quickly but the Instructor Spotlight feature is back. You’ve already seen Angela posing in the Nook, now you can read about what really makes her yoga light shine. She teaches the Friday night Vinyasa Flow at 5:30pm so mark your calendar now for an awesome end-of-the-work-week yoga class! Click here to see the online schedule, no reservations required for class.

1. What is your favorite style of yoga?

I will borrow this answer from one of my teachers, because I truly believe it, “any yoga is good yoga.” As for my teaching, I gravitate towards the mindful breath/movement synergy found in Vinyasa Flow.

2. What first attracted you to yoga when you began your practice?

I was so inspired by my first teachers. There was something about the beauty in their practice (later, I would learn it came through balancing “stira and sukha” – ease and effort, respectively). I would leave feeling lighter, calmer, more open. I wanted to feel that way again and again.

3. What is your favorite yoga pose right now?

Urdhva dhanurasana or upward facing bow. Recently one of my teachers adjusted me in such a way that I finally felt the extreme heart opening possibilities found in this pose. It’s also totally energizing, so I like to incorporate it into my morning practice.

4. What pose is still the most challenging?

Adho mukha vrksasana (handstand) will always be challenging for me, because I naturally have an extreme “carrying angle” at my elbow joint. It illustrates how every single body is biologically different and certain poses can be more challenging because of body mechanics.

5. If you were an animal, you would be: 

I asked my partner this question, and he said a dolphin. I loved this answer because I imagine dolphins to be both strong and beautiful 🙂

6. Describe what yoga means in your life using just 6 words:

Breath, balance, community, love, commitment and growth. And CHALLENGE. I need 7 words.

7. What might your students be surprised to learn about you?

I have a crazy sweet tooth! I eat dessert at least once a day. Seriously.

8. Do you have any words of wisdom or advice for new students?

Do your best to approach your mat every time with an open mind and an open heart. Try not to compare yourself to anyone else and remember that wherever you are is EXACTLY WHERE YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE.

“What do you want to experience in your body today?”

Mara Harris opened her class on Wednesday afternoon with this simple, direct question that was both engaging and unexpected. Many instructors will ask their students if there’s a specific pose or a part of the body they want to focus on and practice that day. While there’s definitely a place for those questions, personally, I always feel overwhelmed by all the possible answers. This is usually what happens in my head when an instructor asks for requests:

How do I feel right now? Fine. But wait, I felt something yesterday, I was sore somewhere, I think it was my lower back. Oh! my glutes are sore… what did I do to my glutes? There was this one pose I learned last week that was really cool, what was it called? I think the instructor only said the Sanskrit name, something -asana, my feet were in some funky position but it felt so good in my hips and thighs…

By this time, a more decisive student will definitely have called out that they’d like to work on shoulders and I do my best to shut down my spiraling self-investigation. But Mara’s question managed to bypass that quagmire of reflecting on past experiences and brought my focus into the present: how I felt that moment and what I wanted to feel in the next moment.

Freedom. Freedom from pain and stiffness. Ease.

That was all that passed through my mind and even though I didn’t voice my thoughts to the rest of the room, they remained within me during my practice. True to the vinyasa style, Mara’s class flowed. It was dynamic. She led us through familiar poses in an unfamiliar way, moving and breathing within and between them. In low lunge we shifted from stretching down the heel of the back leg to coming onto the toes, back and forth, back and forth. Inhale, exhale.

It was like doing yoga in a river, it pushed you along. Even though I knew I could swim outside the current and rest in child’s pose, I let myself be borne away downstream, trusting that she would guide us over the falls and into slower, deeper waters when the time was right. And she did. At the end of class, we had all arrived, floating on the surface of the smooth lake of Savasana. Peaceful and at ease. I wish the same to all of you.

namaste,
Laura