Icy Exhale

This is our maestro.  DJ HyFi, known also as Ian Hyman, hails from Philadelphia but he is known around the country in yoga studios for his mix of ambient sound conducted by an intuitive mind.  That’s right, I said intuitive, because this man not only had to anticipate the pace and flow of one yoga teacher’s style, he was commissioned to produce ethereal beats for three of us.

You can call us The Gorgeous Ladies of Yoga.

At least, that’s what we like to call ourselves.

Hailing from all over the world, Oxana, Megan and I graduated and certified together at the conclusion of The Dragonfly Yoga Studies teacher training session, 2011.  And now, we want to take over the world.

Or at least a little corner of it.  And give everyone great yoga therein.

This lady to the right is Oxana.  She is perhaps the most worldly of us all, coming all the way from Russia just to practice yoga with Megan and me.  Oxana is charged with opening the class.  This is perhaps the most difficult of any teaching segment.  It is the time in which the students choose, consciously or not, to be receptive.  Oxana opens the class with a brief meditation, for which her sing-song voice and soulful accent are perfect.

She proceeds to move students into a restorative sequence.  The minds are becoming receptive from that opening meditation; now all of those bodies recline on multicolored mats.  Notice how their chests expand in this variation of pond seal pose.  Oxana’s grace and gentle introduction make my merging into the flow of the class feel effortless.

Here I am.  You may notice I’m leading the class into one of several cobra poses.  We’re in the flow now and DJ HyFi is kind enough to move the soul of those jams up a notch.  Some might say my classes are vigorous, I like to think of them as spirited.

There are twenty-two people in this class, certainly the largest group of people I have ever taught.  When there are two or three people in a class, I feel like I’m almost in it with them.  I’ll instruct close to the mats and be hands on.  With this group, I can’t do anything but catch glimpses and glimmers of what’s happening on an individual basis.  With the larger scope of vision, there is only one thing to be done; stand in awe at the beauty of every single one of these people.

The music carries my teaching, much the way I hope my teaching carries these people into whatever it is they’re seeking in their practice.  We begin our movement into Virabhadrasana I, II and III, or the warrior series, which is sacred to Lord Shiva and is named after a hero from Hindu mythology, Virabhadra. Every person in Dragonfly Yoga Studies is most certainly heroic.

Now that everyone is receptive and warm, Megan perches in front of the studio altar to offer some refreshing twists.  Megan’s style glides between focusing on the importance of alignment and the gentle strength and grace yoga offers.  Her tone is unassuming and lilting so when students find themselves moving into cleansing and invigorating movements of twists and folds they wonder how they managed such a thing.

That’s the beauty of Megan’s teaching; she facilitates a sense of effortlessness students appreciate.  With her earthy approach and poetic explanations of movement, bodies revolve and continue to open under her tutelage.

Oxana returns to the teachers’ mat at the class conclusion.  DJ HyFi lowers the tempo if not the yoga mood as students recline for the final relaxation pose of the evening.

There’s nothing like being in a class with the strength of two other teachers to up-hold the space and assist students.  Combine this with a person who has perfected the science of offering the perfect accompaniment so it is no less than an art.  This class also brought the joy of being in a class setting with my own teacher, Laura Tyree, owner of Dragonfly Yoga Studies and facilitator of the teacher training that made my participation in this class as a teacher possible.  She is also responsible for the most excellent photography.

There is only one place to go from here.

Stay on the mat.

Let your body be the expression of life’s music.

Practice.