This weekend, about two dozen yogis descended upon Evergreen Yoga Center to share a workshop with the indomitable Kquvien Deweese.  I usually have a few anxiety demons circling my head before any major workshop.  Going into 10+ hours of yoga class with a new teacher is nerve-wracking.  Iyengar yoga teachers can take any form and I’m a sensitive person.  However, this is my second experience learning from Kquvien. 

I first met her in 2013.  Same deal, different workshop.  When I signed up, I mainly wanted to meet a yoga teacher with good body art.  What I got out of it was so much more.  Kquvien is an amazing person with an incisive teaching method.  In her instructions, I discovered a different way to see my body.  I accessed new back muscles and found a depth of strength I’d never known.  That’s when I decided I want to teach yoga.  In her, I can see a world where I teach yoga.  That weekend planted the seed.

This time, no real anxiety.  Just eagerness to learn something new.  In the summer, I seriously lost touch with my daily practice.  This weekend represents a chance to reset my perspective in a superbly healthy way.  I approached the yoga studio Friday with an exceptionally open heart and mind.  We began the workshop chanting the first sutra – “Now, yoga begins.”  Within an hour, I learned a completely new way to flex my leg.

It’s just that simple.  Using surgically precise instructions, Kquvien directs my attention to such specific actions I literally feel new muscles.  When she is teaching, I confront the long-term obstacles in my body.  Quick successions of poses linked together by one action hammered into chains of motions that connect everything.  I found a new hip muscle – the ABDuctor.  Singular, not plural.  After laying on my back for over an hour alternately turning my thighs, I felt my right side hip flex something new.  I tried to find the same thing on the left, but that’s my weaker side.  I have faith I’ll find it soon.  As long as I keep going to class.

Another nugget in the pan – I found a new way to talk about yoga.  Searching for my voice is a constant struggle.  Fortunately, yoga is an exceptionally flexible medium.  I’m ready to just do it.  I hope to find 3-4 willing students with free time on a specific night, TBA.

Until then I’m ready to relax for a while.  I have class again on Tuesday.  I need a spa pedicure, the longest epsom salt bath ever and good, oily back massage sometime before then.  Now taking applications.  😉