Wednesday, November 07, 2001


rodney yee is famous for his clear and helpful yoga videos, but those of you who haven't had a chance to see him teach in person may not know that he's also tremendously inspiring, down-to-earth, and funny. . .

it's no secret that rodney yee's a great yoga teacher in an eclectic iyengar-based style. last evening i had the luck to take a 2-1/2 hour workshop with him at jivamukti yoga. the class, all 150+ of us, focussed on hip work, lotus preparation, and backbends, particularly full wheel. the workshop started very late, but people were relatively patient and seemed to endure the crowding well.

rodney began by speaking on the subject of ahmisa, and then moved into a quick sun salutation series before settling down on his areas of concentration. with 6 people to assist him, most people got some help during the workshop with their alignment.

before the workshop, i felt like i had a quarter-decent wheel, but i certainly could not approach lotus. after the workshop, i still had no insight into lotus and a good wheel seemed farther away than ever! this despite his very up-lifting and encouraging outlook.

rodney emphasized his view that you shouldn't have very much weight in your hands in full wheel. rather, he stressed the importance of the legs: moving the kneecaps towards the hips, the pelvis toward the feet, and placing most weight directly over the center of the back heel. he demonstrated how with this technique it was easy to come into a standing position from the pose! he also explained how this technique protected the wrists and lumbar spine from injury.

alas, those of us whose pelvises are frozen in place and won't move toward the feet could only look on in the hopes it would happen for them someday. the lotus series was different than i had ever seen before. after warming up in two sets of pigeon preparation poses, he then went into a repeated cycle of staff pose, boat pose, cobbler's pose, ankle-to-knee pose, and half lotus, all done double-time. i was down with it, except for tha half-lotus!

all in all, if you can enroll in a workshop with rodney yee, i highly recommend it!

posted by fortune | 11:17 AM | top | link to this | email this: | | | 0 comments