Blog

A slow yet challenging and vigorous flow, this class encourages us to create a deep union with our breath, and to look within at what assumptions and beliefs may be limiting us from our highest potential. While Eddie leads us through a mostly gentle flow, his words challenge us to see what we’re holding onto that may limit us from flowing in life.

Spending the first few minutes of class on the knees, Eddie slowly guides us through activities that enable us to get in touch with varying parts of our body. By staying low to the ground for the large first portion of class, we’re able to root down and feel more grounded throughout the process. The class begins slowly so that awareness of every part of the body builds – ankles, kneecaps, elbows, eyebrows – the many intricate and integral pieces that so many times we neglect and appreciate.

Stretching hips, opening our hearts, and moving through a modified vinyasa, Eddie guides us towards introspective poses and mindsets.

The body is a free mechanism, and knowing that the body is not a bunch of separate parts but one connected entity allows us to appreciate every part of ourselves so much more. This class encourages us to notice what we’re defending, what we’re protecting. Slow, deliberate movement increases comfort within our own skin. Eddie guides us to stop trying without losing the vigor of our pose, creating a quality of constant presence.

We end practice holding a long corpse pose. Eddie reminds us to voluntarily invite death in, to encourage the movement of life. Corpse pose is a representation of death of the old, to enable ourselves to let go of those things that do not serve us anymore, and to release mindsets that limit us from our highest potential. Corpse pose is about the death of our ideas about who we are and the death of the things that we’re clinging onto that are holding us back. Eddie reminds us to honor and release the flimsiness of form, to celebrate and let go of it, and to let the relationship between breath and body be the teacher.

This class is a step outside of many of our typical vinyasa flows and presents us with the reminder that yoga is not only for a fit and lean body, but for a clear and balanced mind. That our mental state dictates our experience and as we flow in yoga through things that feel good and things that feel uncomfortable, so we flow in life the same way, in that we always have the power to practice presence and enjoyment in any situation.

By Olivia Janisch

Photo by David Marcu

Write Your Comment

Leave a comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.