“You’re a different person from when you walked in here,
your posture, the way you’re standing right now”
This was after 2 back-to-back 1-hour Hot Yoga Spot classes that I took w her.
The first class had the usual suspects. Well-tended Saratogans returned to their Porsche SUV’s
The second was only me on a beautiful Labor Day Friday.
Waiting between classes, I journal’d about an Army experience that came to mind during the 111*, 39% humidity hour.
When I saw no one else 1 minute before class, I asked
“Is it worth it to you to to teach just me?”
She laughed
“Of course”
Private class
👊
T took me & my pinned & plated body through poses that I haven’t seen in 22 years of yoga.
In the middle of Crow-Pose:
“Caw-Caw!”
<< I’ve never laughed in Crow before >>
“Now you have”
<< Goodbye, Serious Crow >>
Going into Child-Pose, the topic of belly came up:
<< I have to make much room for my belly >>
“Me, too”
“Do you do Shoulder-Stands?
<< I only ever do yoga here in Saratoga >>
I struggled in the ensuing Shoulder-Stand.
T appeared like a vision. She grabbed my inverted ankles and pressed her body against my legs. With this scaffolding, she hoisted my legs & just stood there, quietly. I felt a liberating elevation, a liberating elongation of my spine. She stepped aside so that I could test holding the elevation on my own.
I didn’t immediately collapse like a bad jenga-stack.
I can’t be sure, but I think that, like any jazz musician, T might have adapted her class to me, as she saw what scales I could and couldn’t run.
In 2019, a daring young man broke my leg bones, left-side Tib-Fib.
In 2021, being a stupid boy, I flew through the air, landed heavy like a 44-pound sack of potatoes, broke the left-side collarbone, snapped ribs, shattered a scapula, (re)-snapped the (plated) humerus.
Not known for my grace. Surgeon said
“Intimations of mortality”
I have slumpy shoulders that threaten to go kyphotic. I asked
<< Can you read things about injuries from the body? >>
“Yes, very much”
Although pressed for time, T showed me how to stand erect. T took my head in her hands. She lifted me out of myself. She showed me how it can feel to stand w 1-degree of grace.
I confess that my inner 7-year old totally has a crush on T. Her Hawaiian-Chinese-Spanish influences have produced a flower of radiance, sure to draw flies like me. In 4th Grade, Dallas, Texas, Miss Gordon was the flower. There have been few who sing to me w such kindness, joy and gestalt-y beauty. T’s presence is a nectar that showers the studio.
After class, with 1 leg out the door to minimize awkward-potential, I said
<<Yours is a belly of magnificence.
I had wondered ‘longboard’ or ‘shortboard’.>>
“Yes, it’s a real belly”
I’ll never look at the Crow-Pose the same way again