Update on Yoga in the Garden and Twists

I am so excited to start the Yoga in the Garden series at the Arboretum. While this session is full, we may do another one later in the year and we will definitely do one next year, so stay tuned.

This weekend is an immersion weekend and tonight I had the pleasure of participating in one of the sweetest asana classes I can remember. Joe Taft taught a low key class focusing on the principles of twisting that was exactly what I needed after a stressful week and starting my period today.

The mellow pacing of the class as well as the repetition of the same poses several times allowed me to get deep into subtle alignment in a way that felt so right. After class I finally for the first time felt the refreshing and detoxifying effects of twists. I have not been enjoying twists very much for the last several years. Now I realize that I have not been practicing them with the subtlety that is necessary for someone with an open body.

When your body is tight, you can just twist any way and it feels good (for most people). But once your body starts to open, you need to start creating the appropriate restrictions for yourself. Joe also had us dive our awareness deep within our bodies to the base of our spine and guide the twist slowly up from the inside out. Working all the principles of twisting at once was divine, but moving from the inside was the icing on the cake.