Back at Thrive Yoga for a vinyasa flow 2 class with Christine Peterson. She has been assisting Ana Forrest, the widely respected West Coast yoga teacher, which says a lot about Christine's capabilities. (If you've never seen Ana Forest's peformance at Yoga Journal Conference in Boston in 2006, you owe it to yourself to see how far yoga can take you). As far as I know, this was her first class at Thrive, and there were more than a dozen students so the word had definitely gotten out.

In a few words, Christine gives a mean class (and this was a vinyasa class, not Forest Yoga): I took a small hand towel to mop up my sweat; I should have taken a beach towel. Aside from some work on inversions, which was really more prep work, there was nothing really beyond a 2-level class. But she hit a couple of areas in which I am really weak and tight, and then doubled back and hit them again. Shoulders, especially in Dolphin pose and other preps for getting into Feathered Peacock Pose (Pincha Mayurasana). Core, core, core. This blog entry isn't long enough to mention all the poses and sequences that hit my core muscles.

Oh, yeah, I almost forgot. My experience Monday with more open hips did not turn out to be a fluke. Today, I came very close to getting into Double Pigeon pose (Agnistambhasana). I didn't want to push it too hard because of the stress the pose puts on the knees, but I was closer than I ever dreamed I would be mid-way through my fourth year of yoga. I also went more deeply into One-Legged King Pigeon pose (Eka Pada Rajakapotasana). It's as if I stopped clenching my muscles and that loosening of tension allowed my hips to open up.

Labels: class, core, hips, shoulders, teachers