"Inversions" workshop II

[flexagon]

I just got back from a long-awaited inversions workshop with Ana Forrest, who's a big name in the western yoga world.

This is the kind of thing Ana's famous for:



So one wonders where, in this workshop, the inversions went. In two and a half hours we did two forearm stand poses, one handstand and no headstands. We did do some evil, boot-campy ab work, some pranayama I wasn't familiar with, and some sequences leading up to koundinyasana, one-legged crow and an (admittedly very cool) shoulderstand variation called twisted cypress. Perhaps I should be more forgiving -- one-legged crow is almost an inversion if you get the free leg up really high -- but I just don't feel forgiving. For this I risked my hamstring, even though I quit my regular yoga studio for a month to avoid reinjuring it? Bah. I feel like I've barely been upside-down today.

Comments

[flexagon]

I would have thought she was okay if it had been the class I wanted to take, but the people she had helping her were really pushy and insistent with their instructions. It was a bit of a scene, and definitely a bit more boot camp than the yoga classes I usually go to. Also, there was some total weirdness about "turbo dog", which is about halfway between dog and dolphin, and a version of up dog where the elbows stay bent apparently just in order to make the pose harder, and a lot of poses we were supposed to relax the neck instead of extending the pose through the whole spine like I'm used to... and so maybe I'm just being sensitive since between the stylistic differences and my sticker saying "right hamstring hurt", I came in for a lot of fire adjustments.

As long as I am grouchy, though, can I mention the cute waffle-knit top they were selling outside the classroom? It stopped being cute when I saw they wanted $64. Grrr, the famous teacher markup. :P

I would take more classes with her if it was just her, but I don't know if that ever happens anymore if you're not in her teaching program.