Friday Seattle Yoga Studio Sampler

So, Fridays are my "free" day. With the goal (that I've been recently ignoring) of incorporating more gentle, restorative yoga into my routine, I've decided to go each free Friday to a new yoga studio in Seattle. Then I'll write about it here.

The leader of my yoga retreat in January, and one of the friends I made on the retreat, have both studied with the owners/teachers at Hatha Yoga Center in Seattle, Bob & Ki. They came highly recommended, so I made this my first official Friday Sample.

Hatha Yoga Center (est. 1977) is located in a converted church in the University District. The ceiling is painted blue, the floor is carpeted, and the place is decorated with shiny pillows, candles, mirrors, and Balinese angel puppets hanging from the ceiling. I walked in and there was no front desk, no teacher evident, no waiver/information form to fill out, but students were laying out their mats and warming up. So I did the same. As I usually do in my forays to non-heated studios, I forgot to wear a comfy long-sleeved warm-up layer, so I kept my zip-up sweatshirt on.

Right at 10:00, the class start time, Bob walked in. Ki was there taking class as well. We started with some sun salutations and then used a mini-basketball to do myofascial release on the spine (self-massage rolling your spine on the ball on the floor--it's awesome.) I'd done similar things at the January retreat, with smaller balls. Bob is an incredibly experienced teacher, very intuitive at adjustments and assessing students' bodies, just looking around the room and noting that there were lots of tight-hamstring people. I was able to trust him very quickly. He's very encouraging, constantly aware of students' poses. And like any teacher who's been teaching for more than 20 years, he knows the words to say to help you *get* things. I've tried Crow I don't know how many times and just feel so afraid and unstable and never get in the neighborhood of lifting my toes up off the ground with good balance. He said "back and out"--back with the hips, lengthening out with the chest, and I got very close and it felt really good!

After the warm-up, he asked students what they wanted to do in the rest of class, but for myself and two other new students, he just said "I'm not going to ask you, I know you [indicating me] need shoulders, you need lower back..." And he's right. My shoulders are friggin knots. We did some inversions. I overcame a lot of my fear around these on retreat and now I find them challenging and invigorating! There were some partner yoga poses, and we ended with partner massage around the shoulders for a minute and a half. (Yeah!) Then at the end he just had me walk into the kitchen, and wrote down my name and marked on a calendar that I'd attended class. They only take cash or check (which I have not) so I can just owe them for a class. Very kind!

I felt just *lovely* afterward. I was reminded of something Krista said lately--that a 75 or 90-minute class is great, but even a little yoga feels so good! Not that this was a little yoga, but in my experience I would add: All kinds of yoga feel so good!