CHAIRS WITH DESIREE

Wisdom Warriors was yesterday (Wednesday). For those of you new to my blog, Wisdom Warriors is a practice group organized by Desiree Rumbaugh and Geri Portnoy. The age of attendees is 50+, women and men (tho, like most yoga classes, the women far outnumber the men -- too bad).  We gather each Wednesday from 1-3pm and do fun 'stuff', fun yoga 'stuff'.  And, this week, the first thing we did was get out one chair each.

Desiree began the practice with a brief chat -- this is a practice group, but our goal is to become a social group, as well.  Not like a sorority or fraternity, but a group of friends; friends who do yoga together and hang out together.  Our first social event was last weekend.  I was unable to attend, and eager to hear details.  Sounds like everyone - even husbands who don't 'do' yoga - had a great time.  The tone of the group this Wednesday was different, as a result -- more like a group of friends gathering again, this time to do yoga.  Mission being accomplished!  The next planned event is July 4; an e-vite will be sent to the WW mailing list.

After a brief re-cap of the first event, Des talked about the chairs and how much we can accomplish with them.  I have, truly, had students avoid my class if I bring out the chairs.  This sounded like my dream class -- to learn new ways to use the chairs to make students feel 'worked' (since I'm thinking that's why people left -- they worried they weren't going to get 'worked' enough).

So, a brief chant, back to the mats, but no chairs just yet, got to warm up.  Some salutations, mixing it up, keeping ribs knitted. That was fun; chairs? Not yet.  Now let's go to the wall - do some handstands (keeping ribs knitted), pincha mayurasana (also ribs knitted), headstand, no-head headstand.  That, too, was fun; now chairs? Not yet.  A few arm balances, and some twisting. Now chairs? Yes!  But, first a demo of a beautiful tripod headstand by Andrew's sister, Susan, who is visiting (Andrew is Des' husband). So, let's all do that.  Tripod is my least favorite, but I gave it a shot, getting into the shape, pressing my head strongly into the floor. Then, continuing the work with the neck, we partnered to do parvritta trichonasana -- also fun.  Now, we can go get our chairs.  (I must have missed something in describing all we did, but right now, this is good; and I'm ready to write about the chairs.)

Not chairs like I use in Gentle Yoga, however.  We did one twist on the chair (I do do that in the Gentle Class), then we crawled onto the chair in order to lay over it in a supported backbend (if you can't picture it, well just believe me -- it felt good, but it probably won't be on my Gentle Yoga 'playlist').  A few took the backbend further, as they slid forward, resting head and forearms on floor, and moving feet towards the hands (imagine a circle here).  Then, we crawled out of the chair, turned around, and with our backs against the front of the chair, we let the chair work it's magic on our backs (right around t11-12).

We finished the practice with a supported shoulderstand -- shoulders on 2-3 stacked blankets and sacrum on the chair seat.  We spent about 10 minutes here, working the legs, moving to halasana (plow), back to shoulderstand, etc.  Then we were instructed to slide off the chair, let our hips rest on the blankets, our calves on the chair --- ahhh, it was savasana time.

As I wrote this, I'm aware of a tendency to get a bit 'flip'.  In all seriousness, I feel stronger and more in control after these past 7-8 weeks, than I have in months.  I cannot express my gratitude enough to Geri and Des for coming up with this great idea, and putting it into action.  It has saved and re-ignited my practice.  Enough of the sappy stuff.

Today? Taking a day off.  Wish I could take some of this 'chair stuff' to my basics class, but -- next week.

Hope you have a great Thursday!