This past weekend I went to a yoga workshop. It was not the experience that I was expecting. I figured we'd do a total of 10 hours (in a 48 hour period) of yoga but instead it was broken down into some yoga, some meditation (also not at all as I pictured it), some chanting (ummmm, okay), and some qi-gong (kind of like tai-chi).
The yoga was challenging but at no point painful which was a surprise. My experiences in the past with yoga have often involved holding poses so long that I lose circulation and have excrutiating pain. But at the workshop I didn't have any pain like that so YAY! Poses weren't held very long and the instructor fostered a very permissive environment where any modifications needed (due to injuries or whatever) were encouraged.
The qi-gong I found to be very similar to yoga so they went well together. All movements were very slow and controlled and required a surprising amount of strength. I'd recommend it for some variety in a workout routine.
The chanting was a little bizarre. I tried to get into it but I never really was able to. I'd do it again and it was a nice break from the yoga but it's not something that came naturally to me.
The meditation was my favorite part. It was very relaxing. We would lie down or sit in a specific position with our eyes closed while the instructor read to us a story or asked us to picture something in our minds. After a few minutes we would finish and talk about what we saw or experienced. Some people got nothing and some had specific images come to their minds.
During one meditation I saw some salmon jumping/swimming upstream, then a shipwreck, then a fire. I was very calm and peaceful while seeing these images which, to me, was odd given that each image involved a lot of activity. So afterwards I mentioned what I saw to the instructor and she said I was probably seeing images from past lives. I had no idea what to say to that as I have never given much thought to reincarnation and it was a bit of a shock to have someone tell me that I had past lives when I hadn't decided if I even believed in them. It was a bizarre and unique experience for sure but one that I am happy to have had.
3 comments:
What about the farting?
LOL I forgot about that. There was one lady who couldn't seem to control her farting during certain yoga poses. Luckily she wasn't near me and she was next to a window so the emissions were quick to escape :)
LOL to the farting comments. I'm glad you had a good time at the workshop. I took a meditation class once (weekly classes over about 10 weeks) and it was really good. Once in a relaxation exercise like you described, I saw three versions of myself. First there was just one, then #2 came up and tapped #1 on the shoulder, then #3 came and tapped #2 on the shoulder. It weirded me out a little and that was the end of my meditation career. :)
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