So, as I currently have tons of time to use my yoga pass, I have more or less determined just to do the 10 AM class every day. Which on Tuesdays is pranayama. It turns out that if I go to a pranayama class on purpose, instead of having it sprung upon me, I don't mind it nearly so much. I actually kind of enjoy it, the twice I've gone. (It is particularly nice the morning after I manage to reinjure myself. Sweeping. But...we did at least win the game...)
Having made my peace with pranayama, there is now yoga nidra that I think I don't like, although the time it happened I survived. (Although...I shouldn't have done it in virasana. And wouldn't have, had I known it was going to be half an hour! Ah, well, you can bet I felt that later.)
But, right, so in various classes we've been doing different visualizations, and...I have to say, some of them are so foreign to me they pop me right out of whatever we were doing. Like, mountains are problematic for me. Mountains to me are the Andes, from my time in South America; the platonic ideal of American consciousness seems to be somewhere in the Rockies, but...man, that's not what I think of. So if you have me envision a mountain, I see verdant greenery, and the description of barren rocks will pop my eyes open and make me go !!! Sometimes I can get back into it, but...I'm not a meditative girl, so, not usually.
The other week, in a regular class, we were visualizing hands pressing on our backs, with the intent of getting us to open our chests. Sure, okay. But, then the teacher had to embellish it. "These are hands of someone who loves and adores you completely." Which...was sufficient to break my spinster-self. I couldn't get back into it for most of class, until I managed to conjure up a nice Fantasy Boy. But...bah.
I suppose what I'm getting at is it would be nice if yoga were more inclusive...but given the price tag and way it's been marketed in the US, it's going to attract a fairly narrow demographic...and I'm probably one of the few who doesn't share the same postulates. :(
Nice posting. Do you know about these pranayama books?
http://www.YogaVidya.com/freepdfs.html
Posted by: sfauthor | 11/09/2009 at 06:23 PM