one on one

there's nothing like some one-on-one time with someone who knows what to do with your body.

wait... that didn't come out right... let me try that again...

there's nothing like spending some one-on-one time with someone who's been trained to align your body parts so you can get the most out of the experience.

oh god. i must be suffering from almost-on-vacation brain!

let's get this straight -- in order to protect the innocent, i should make it perfectly clear that nothing inappropriate happened during the class i took the other day. that being said, i'll continue...

because of a big anniversary celebration at the office last wednesday, we were allowed to leave work earlier than usual. naturally, i took advantage of the situation and checked out my yoga class options. i remembered having picked up a printed copy of the truyoga schedule earlier in the week, so i gave it a quick check and noted that kathryn (budig, i assumed) was teaching at 5:45pm that day. cool! it had been a while since i had last taken her class; it would be nice to see her again :)

when i got to the studio, i walked over to the class sign-in sheet and noticed that the teacher name listed at the top of the page was not kathryn's. instead, it said "yogadan".

what happened to kathryn?, i asked as i pointed towards the display of class schedules on the counter. she doesn't start until the 24th. oh...

yogadan? i'd heard that name before, and i remembered wanting to try his class. of course, i couldn't remember where he was teaching at the time, but it didn't matter; here was my chance.
when i walked into the classroom, there was one person stretched out on a yoga mat, reading a book. it turned out to be yogadan himself.

since it looked like i was going to be the only student (unless, of course, others showed up later), i took the time to talk about all the "stuff" that was going on with my body. the lower back pain. the sciatica that recently reared its ugly head and just wouldn't go away. he nodded understandingly and related his own stories of back and neck pain. he then suggested that we start with a legs-up-the-wall pose.

after i moved my yoga mat over to the wall and propped up my legs, he carefully corrected my alignment (yes, i know i'm off-kilter, which is probably why i have all these back issues) then placed a sandbag on top of my feet so that i'd get a nice stretch through the back of my legs. while i lay in that position, we chatted a bit more about our injuries. as well as his teacher training in arizona with ian lopatin and david romanelli (who's another great guy, so i knew i was in good hands).

after that gentle stretch, he had me stretch other muscles that were related to my aches and pains. my hips. my piriformis. my psoas. my lats. and so on. we even did an "acroyogic" high* flying whale (i think i got the name right, or did i, huck?) so that i could use gravity to get a nice backbend, followed by child pose to counter that bend. and with each move, he made sure that i was properly aligned -- arms were level, feet were parallel, body was square -- and that nothing hurt. all the while, he had some wonderful music from his ipod playing in the background; it ranged from chants by jai uttal to chillout music from bliss (a lot of it i also have loaded on my ipod, which is probably why i liked his music so much).

*and did i mention that dan's a REALLY tall guy? with him at 6'7", i was flying pretty high as i balanced on the soles of his feet once he stretched out his legs!

all in all, i thoroughly enjoyed dan's class. i'd love to take his class again if i ever get another chance to, but unfortunately, he doesn't have a set class schedule right now. he did say that he sometimes subs at both mark blanchard's studio and at liberation yoga, so i have to keep an eye out for that. in the meantime, he's picked up a few sub slots at truyoga later this week, so it might be my chance to take that next class. who knows -- it could even be a group one this time. which would be too bad, because i was beginning to enjoy being the center of attention :)