Stretch by Neal Pollack

Author:Neal Pollack
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins

The Exhale Center for Sacred Movement in Venice was exactly the kind of place I didn’t practice yoga, all high ceilings and virgin-white walls. They served excellent tea and had a couch area that wouldn’t have been out of place at a high-end spa. Good lord, this place was nice. Everywhere I looked, there were large, glossy posters bearing the visages of some of the center’s most revered teachers. Every month, every weekend, every day, it seemed, they offered teacher training or special events that went far beyond what most other studios served up.

Part Two of Saul David Raye’s Ecstatic Embodiment Training in the Fire Module provided one hundred hours of instruction for just $1100. A Ritual Flow of Yoga Immersion workshop, with a guest Tantric-Vedic Priest, could be yours for only $250 plus a materials fee. Advanced Pranafication Teacher Training: Tending the Fire—The Art of Living Yoga Sadhana was another $1100. No wonder the studio looked so fancy! There was also The Art of Thai Massage, Yoga And Walking, From Drama to Dharma—Be in the Flow of Prosperity Without the Fear of Scarcity, Yoga For Hormones, a few record-release parties, a handful of workshops to help with breathing techniques and to heal back pain, and Heart on Fire: An Exploration in Mind-Body Yoga and Contemporary Spirituality. What was it with these people and “hearts” and “fire”? The only time my heart caught fire was after eating a Double-Double from In-N-Out Burger.

I arrived for class early, while the musicians were setting up their instruments, including something called a batajon, a West African instrument otherwise known as the “fat congas.” A guy in dreadlocks had brought a four-year-old boy. At one point early in the class, I looked up and saw him teaching the kid how to whack sticks together in rhythm, and I felt like a bad father. My son was at home watching a Ben 10: Alien Force marathon on Cartoon Network. But then later the kid started whining and the dad had to leave the jam early, so I felt better.

These guys were some of the members of Shaman’s Dream, Micheline Berry’s house yoga band. The group started, Berry told me later, when a musician named Craig Kohland attended a “zen dancing” class that she was giving in 1997. He loved it so much that he brought his drums the next time. They formed a band together, started leading “ecstatic dance journeys,” and, in 2000, began accompanying classes at YogaWorks. The idea, she said, was to work with top-flight musicians, experienced improvisers, with the goal of achieving a moment of transcendence where musician and yogi disappeared into a common ecstasy of breath and movement. Sometimes they placed Tibetan bowls on people’s bodies during savasana because the vibration creates an altered state of consciousness.

I put my mat close to the stage, so I could get an uninterrupted view of the musicians. The room filled up quickly. Just before class started, a guy slid into the space just in front of me.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.