I've been curious about Anusara yoga ever since my friend in teacher training said she thought I'd like it because I "seem like the kind of person who likes a vigorous yoga practice." I didn't try it because I was just getting into Ashtanga and didn't see a reason to try another style.
Then I took an assisting/adjusting workshop with Charly Pivert, an Anusara teacher. He gave a crash course on Anusara basics where I learned about inner spiral, outer spiral, side body, and midline. I was more curious about Anusara, but not enough to attend a class. I was content with Ashtanga, with Ken's crazy vinyasa for some fun variety.
I'd been looking at Tia's Anusara-inspired intermediate/advanced class on the Yoga Shala schedule. A lot of people say she's awesome, so I finally showed up to her class last night, and it was great. It's pretty similar to Ken's classes in difficulty level, but because she's Anusara-based and he's Ashtanga based, the warmups were different and she didn't have vinyasas between the poses. A lot of my muscles are feeling a little sore right now in a very good way.
I feel like I'm supposed to focus on one style and stick with it, but I don't see anything wrong with doing some of every style and learning as much as I can from lots of teachers. I've learned so much from Emilie, who is an Iyengar teacher, but I have no interest in Iyengar yoga. It's all the same body parts doing the same poses, just with a different attitude and with different warmups and cool downs. We didn't even do shoulderstand last night, but we did a lot of handstands, pincha mayurasana, and a combination between the two that added a new balance challenge. That was an interesting change for me. I love the predictability of being in a primary series class, but I also love the variety of an Anusara class.
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I know what you mean about feeling like you're "supposed" to stick with a particular style - I often feel the same way but really think I'm constitutionally incapable of committing to just one. And more and more, I think that's ok. I saw an interview with Sean Corne recently in which talked about being a "Vinyasa flow" teacher - which she proudly described as an eclectic system, not bound to any particular teacher or dogma, but open to all sorts of learning. She was more eloquent about it than that, but you get the idea. I thought that was cool...
ReplyDeleteOh and by the way, Charly had a workshop this morning so my inner body's bright and my side body's long! ;-) He's doing another one at the end of August.
I thought about going to that workshop and wondered if you'd be there, but it was sooooo early.
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