by Hilary Lindsay | Jun 7, 2017 | anatomy, Asana, Cooking, medical yoga, nashville yoga, therapeutic yoga, Yoga, yoga class, yoga teaching |
I love cooking shows even when they cook meat. Cooks have a description called resting the meat which stays with me because I’m horrified by the image of eating blood. You let the cooked meat sit before cutting into it so the juices rest back to the flesh. I don’t mind being horrified as much as I enjoy the delights of seasoning, menus and presentation. I recalled the latest cooking demo as I lead a group of students into a rest between poses one day. I marked a vigorous floor sequence and lay on the floor with them to visualize their rest. I pictured one meat image and then another. I recalled the description falling off the bone to describe tender meat and then the phrase “rest the meat”. I asked forgiveness for sharing those images but getting real, we are flesh and bone and so…..It was not hard to feel the blood settle in resting flesh that had been squeezed and stretched. With time the bones were liberated toward the floor. Shocking images wake us up. It’s a bit excessive to relate a subtle inquiry to the body of a butchered and cooked animal but it worked. Hope this works for...
by Hilary Lindsay | Jul 18, 2014 | Yoga, yoga community |
I’m subbing and don’t know the clientele. I ask the standard questions: Is anyone new to yoga? Is anyone injured? Are there any requests? They smile at me but nothing else. I ask; why are you here today? To my surprise the first answer is “love”. Love? I’ve never met her before. It does not seem logical that I can provide what she wants. Look up the word love and see that there is no absolute definition. What is love? It can be a multitude of things. As stated on Wikipedia: This diversity of uses and meanings combined with the complexity of the feelings involved makes love unusually difficult to consistently define, compared to other emotional states. And within this discussion of love, an interesting premise for the yoga class is written: Love may be understood as a function to keep human beings together against menaces and to facilitate the continuation of the species We are empowered by the comfort of community. It’s primal. I used to work on film sets. The experience was not unlike the commonality of the group who spends a couple of days together at a yoga retreat (except for the liquor, x-rated banter and sleepless nights:)). You are an impermanent collective with one purpose. Yoga studios promote community which requires a consistent group of participants. In this case there seemed to be a random section of the population who had not met previously, who did not gather before or after class. Could love then be described as a function of community? It did not feel that way to me. I have taken class with...
