Precious Impermanence

I've just done a yin yoga workshop called Precious Impermanence held by American yoga guru Sarah Powers. Sarah is a practicing Mahayana Buddhist and it reflects greatly in her practice. Her style of teaching compared to my other yin guru Paul Grilley's is like night to day. Where Paul takes a very pragmatical approach to yoga - he talks a lot about anatomy, compression and tension and physical benefits of the poses. With Sarah asanas are almost like an afterthought: she talks about the mind and meditation and buddhism. Because of this, this workshop was not for beginners - Sarah talked a lot about the mental side of yoga and very briefly about asanas, so previous experience was indeed useful.

On Saturday morning I woke up at eight because the wind was banging on the windows. Not rain, wind. BC was experiencing one of the strongest storms of recent years and the wind was just incredible. The weather and the past week's events reflected in my practice on that day - I wasn't really open to Sarah's teachings, neither the asanas (which were pretty much all very difficult poses for me and my least favorites like Gomukhaasana) or the meditation. My mind was restless and my body tight and afterwards I was wondering if I had done the right thing taking the workshop.

This morning I slept till nine (which I very rarely do) and woke up because sun was shining to my face. Sun! I haven't seen the sun in weeks! The pleasant wake-up was followed by a long breakfast with my best friend, talking about everything under the sun... I've missed that so. So by the time I got to Granville Island I was full of positive energy and happiness and most of all I was prepared and open for something different. And I loved today's practice. Meditation and asanas were peaceful and I was open enough to take whatever was coming. I came out rested and tranquil, just what I was hoping for.

So altogether: not like anything I was expecting, but proved to be a very quiet and thought-provoking practice. Sarah is a wonderful, deeply emotional and spiritual teacher.

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