Semperviva

Kitsilano: Sun Centre, Broadway & Tralfagar
Teacher: Maggie
Drop-in: $9.00 first time
$18.00 regular drop-in fee

SUMMARY: "Open level hatha," Gentle guiding words and deliciously intense foot stretching in warm up, the class degenerated into physically demanding moves held for long periods of time. Lots of use of props. I think I left with as much of other people's sweat on me as my own.

SETTING: On a busy street, the studio itself sees a lot of traffic. You enter the large tiled room through a small shop where some ayurvedic and clothing sales, as well as registration is completed. The classroom (like most yoga classrooms) is quite plain. White walls with storage units for props and your stuff. At the front is a picture of wind swept curtains framing an ocean view, some candles and pampas grass. No windows, no mirrors and modest lighting.

SYTLE & PACE: I sweated profusely during this class from the humidity and intensity, which was not something I was anticipating. The bulk of the asanas (poses) involved holding lunges for long periods of time. An activity I personally find desperately strenuous and more work-out intensive than restorative. The teacher seemed a bit befuddled and unfocused, which can be very frustrating when you're holding an uncomfortable pose.

There is an old yoga adage that you have to know your boundaries, and observe them with care. This is often counter to our nature because we are cultivated in Western, Protestant self-pressure to do everything to the extreme if we can take it. If we leave a yoga class hurt it is because we did it to ourselves, we ignored the voice of our bodies asking to be treated more mindfully. But what's the point in being at a class if your bodie's telling you to quite on half the poses? Is it just a brutal reminder of how weak we are in comparison to the masses surrounding us? Is it a realization that of how far we have to go to physical well-being and health? Or is it a teacher telling us to do things we don't want to...

SCENE: As with all of the other classes I've blogged about so far this mid-morning yoga session was very crowded. At least 40 people in the room. A lot of the attendants appeared to be quite fit and very keen. There was a large number of men there of all ages, comprising 30-40% of the class.

MY EVALUATION: General consensus (from my new-to-yoga-co-attendants as well as myself) was the class was bad, which breaks my heart to say because I've love loved this teacher in the past (she was the first one to ever show me pigeon pose and she made it so wonderful). Maybe she was unfocused because she has a new baby and in a few months time will be all wonderful again. In general I've experienced a great inconsistency in quality with Semperviva yoga teachers. I know they run a large teacher training program but it's particular flavour doesn't seem to accord with my yoga practice preferences. The classes, I gather, are all supposed to be very slow, smooth, and soothing as well as toning. But as often as I've found a class at their studio helpful and explorative I've also had a class uncomfortable and strenuous- more phsyically challenging than opening and relaxing. As my swim coach always said "the slower you do it the harder it becomes."

Bhakti Yoga

Earth Day Festival
Topanga Canyon
Malibu, California
Govinda Goddess Radha Bakti yoga
$10 suggested donation for festival entry

Since it's 4th of July I'm doing a short post for my Americanos

My first time doing this type of yoga, Bhakti means devotion to god/goddess and generally indicates great passion. In the 90/32 degree heat chanting to the goddess feels dizzying. "Jai mah! Jai mah, Jai mah" we all sing along with the beautiful voice and drum beats of Radha. There was a lot of simultanous jumping, spinning in circles with your arms out and chanting. My legs were very weak after the class.

Our warm up was free form, moving and spiraling to our own rhythms. Gentle loosening of energy, sweat trickles. Our teacher tells us: twisting = healing, breathing = singing. Durga, Sri, Kali we sing great praise. I really enjoyed moving in poses that are often held stationary. Spinning our arms in lunges in great circles, mimicing "the cosmic spiral" - the shape of our DNA.

I now must seek some shade to recover and hydrate.

Bikram's Yoga

Kitsilano: Broadway/Trafalgar
Teacher: Rea
$21.00/drop-in
Unforseen Costs: $2.00/towel
+ $1.00/mat
+ $2.00/water

SUMMARY: Hot, wet and dangerous. General consensus on this yoga is largely contradicory. Listening to your teacher in class or Bikram himself, nothing in the universe could possibly be better for you, listening to teachers of different disciplines or peers nothing could be more forceful and contrary to listening to one's own body. Regardless, you do the exact same 28 poses & 2 breathing exercises every time, it can get very tedious, it can be a great way to learn a portable comprehensive yoga-routine (don't teach it under the table though it's copyrighted!) and get your body into a different shape ASAP.

I began my yoga career in Vancouver when a good friend oozed and oozed about and eventually took me to Bikram's yoga in Kitsilano. "You'll never be the same," she had said about the effect the class would have on me and in some ways I suppose Hannah was right. Yoga has been a part of my life ever since. I was fortunate enough to have the sweetest most inspiring woman as my first instructor and be accompanied by a very good friend. When I stood up after, outside of the classroom, my posture, my body, my feet on the ground and head in the sky felt as they never had before. Having recently quit the UBC water polo team and looking for some new athletic outlet I got hooked fast. I went to 5-10 yoga classes that first month and could not believe the visual changes in my body. Visibly loosing centimeters around my waist was an awe-inspiring phenomenon that I never thought I'd see the day of.

SETTING: 98 degree heat [whoops I'm american, excuse me] 37 degree heat. You'll see your skin cry. A wall of mirrors but surroundings don't matter much, you're only semi-concious.

PACE & STYLE: Pretty slow. The poses are held stationary for 30-60 seconds and the structure of the class is rigid. Disciplined. Perhaps Bikram philosophy operates on the premise that we don't know what's best for us. The teacher proclaims "Every yoga class you do lessens your pain, physical, emotional, mental, scientifically proven!"And I cannot deny my clarity and peace of mind now that I'm outta the hell hole. Nothing in your daily life could possibly be worse than facing yourself, sweating profusely, in tight, tiny, spandex clothing uncapable of obeying the simplest laws of gravity. But not much can out-do the high of getting out after. Sometimes you cannot listen to the commands because your mind is telling you, "3....2....toss your cookies & pass out [This is called heat stroke]," "get out while you still can". But I stay, I lie down despite the teacher's commands not too. She talks incessantly: pushing, encouraging "you can do anything for 30 seconds!"

But I'm not used to the heat. I haven't done this for 6 months, a year even. Luckily my mind is calm, and there is no vengence in my heart so the constant banter, presumptions and philosophic prophesies do little to jar my nerves. I let them pass through me like water.

"Calming your entire central nervous system," "the real yoga begins the second you walk out the door in the way you live your life," "You'll never need hormone supplements again if you do this right." Yes, there is the occasional ridiculous claim.

SCENE: Old, young, it takes all kinds. Usually 75% women but often a lot of men are present. Generally very crowded (although I remember years ago where you'd be in a 12:00 noon class with two people and your first class was free) expect to be intimidated by people's outfits (as in, they are minimal) but don't worry after the first five minutes you won't notice a thing about the people around you- you'll be struggling to survive. A lot of their classrooms now - well actually they're only currently operating 2 studios in Vancouver (West end & Kitsilano)- have antibacterial flooring.


MY EVALUATION:If it's so good for you than why does it feel like torture? Are our bodies that far gone they need a serious contortionist whooping? If this blog post and these questions turn you on, than I think Bikram's yoga might be right for you. It sure did me some good once upon a time. The instructors in Vancouver are particularly militant (I have practiced this same yoga series in Colorado & Los Angeles and the setting tends to me more gentle and flexible) so if you want someone to push you to the max go for it but if you like to talk back maybe let's find a different hot yoga setting.

*Caution: Can be addictive.

Open Door Yoga

15th & Main
Teacher: Vesna
Drop-in fee: $10.00/first time
$17.00/regular dop-in

SUMMARY: There was good chanting, lots of relaxing and a few of those rare moments where you find yourself wearing a stranger's ass as a helmet. Almost every yoga mat was occupied in the large, largely beige room.

SETTING: Something unique: bamboo trimmed kleenex boxes alternately between mats. A long twisting umbilical cord of a hall was the passage into the warm womb of the building and from its second story windows one could watch cherry trees blossoming and casting off their blossoms into the wind of Main street's traffic.

As the class was nearly full, I was obliged to take a mat front and centre, staring straight into the crystal blue eyes of the blonde, perhaps Eastern European, middle-aged yoga teacher.

It seems strange now, all the relazing, the stillness of mind. Does clarity come from such stillness? Is the voice of my intuition louder here? Here character, constant analysis and cliche jokes were faded out. Imagine a student present and ready to learn. But where is the lesson? Perhaps I have not opened my ears to my inner self enough. My nausea has calmed, my body is freer of tension and my mind is inspired but hazed by the doubt of my own [momentary?] desires. savasana: I envisoned myself on the altar. I thought of painting a scene: dark, cloistered, splendid gold, cherry wood, diverse, brightly dressed patrons sitting in pews and on the alter myself; on my back, limbs splayed wide in ecstacy. Religious figures of all kinds and sects surround, preforming rituals, holding religious and phallic symbols.

STYLE & PACE: The class was slow paced. Moving in and out of poses safely, with all caution, was a big component of the practice. I found myself anticipating the next pose of the series consistently. There was frequent mention of the benefits of doing this, the benefits of yoga.

Always, this talk of the benefits. Must we believe fully in the transformative power of our act to give it power to transform? Is it brainwashing force fed as we - the student - must observe in silence the wisdom of ages? We are not invited to contest.

There was also lots of singing. We were invited to chant in the beginning as well as the end. And the teacher enjoyed adding song to the sounds of "In-haaaAAAAaaaaaaaaale, Ex-haaaAAAAaaaaaaaaale."

SCENE: Olders, middle agers, my friend in attendance noted that many were shoppers at "Mainly Organics." I noticed some lotus tattoos on leathered skin. There were a few men but [as par yoga class usual] mostly women. There was only a small percentage of younger people.

MY EVALUATION: If your not too experienced in yoga or are looking for an intense work-out you might find this class tedious and get frustrated by distractions. If you like to take it easy and move through things slowly and conciously or have serious injuries/pains as a concern I bet it'd do the trick!

I think it's a bit expensive for a regular drop-in fee (especially if their classes are regularly that full!)

My Practice, my yoga

Since I'm going to be evaluating yoga classes I think it's important my reader's know where I'm coming from (all over the place?). If you read my bio, you saw that I am very active, creative and dynamic but maybe what you didn't gather is that as a college student and hyper, non-committal young adult coming from an upper-middle-class family I've had a lot of free time on my hands. Time that I like to think has been used very wisely to try and learn all manner of new things and see, in detail, various places. I think being from Los Angeles automatically makes you a transient, someone always on the move (or the go). I have traveled from Los Angeles to Vancouver uncountable times by plane and occasionally car and have stopped over at lots of awesome cities (San Francisco, Santa Barbara, Arcata, Tahoe, Portland, Seattle, Vegas, Burns etc.) sites and holes along the way. I also have traveled to Fort Collins, Colorado regularly throughout my life. And in all of these places over the last three years, I have at some point done or gone to yoga classes.

Yoga has seen me through the highs and the lows in the time it's been with me. It's given me a place to think, to let go and a place to let my body - my intuitive body - do the thinkin. Yoga's been a place to come home too. A place to feel like myself; to identify the comfortable, blissful, warm fuzzy feeling of being me. It's where I tune out the energy that's not mine and the energy which obstructs mine and return to "the path" (that's the translation of the word yoga for those of you who didn't know) and return to that feeling which belongs to each of us: being held in all the universe's love ...as the sky holds the sun and the clouds...

My yoga over the past year has been greatly self-directed. I do a little bit almost everyday, I do podcasts, I do 15 minutes before work, I especially practice right after doing sports I find hard on the body like biking, snowboarding, sleeping or having been in an uncomfortable position for too long. Stretching and deep breathing really helps work out lactic acid, which is an evil thing I learned to avoid at all costs as a swimmer. And it helps numerous other things as well. Can you name a few? I'll start, yoga helps______________

-me LIVE by tapping me into the energy pooling around me in the moment. Living is NOT being under the guise of dreams from the past or worthless expectations for the future.

-make my ass stop hurting from my poorly shaped bike seat