Here’s the thing about standing on your head: it’s incredibly easy, once you get up there.
And that feeling, of looking upside down at the world while you hover, is like stepping into space. The first time I did it, I thought I was dying. It was three seconds away from being an out-of-body experience. Everything seemed [...]
The first time I saw the Skinny Russian Girl, I judged her in the exact way I dread others judging me. She tiptoed into yoga class late, and before I’d even seen her face, when all I knew of her was a vaguely narrow form in the periphery of my vision, I thought the damning [...]
I stepped my bare feet to the front of the mat for Mountain Pose, the way we begin every Ashtanga class. Ashtanga is the same, somewhat rapid series of poses every time, which means that the first time I was here I spent most of my time stumbling around and looking bewildered. But not this [...]
Ladies and gentlemen, for your consideration I present Exhibit A: “what we chant at the beginning of yoga class every week” (as translated from the Sanskrit), or, “further evidence of my growing insanity”:
I bow to the lotus feet of the guru
who awakens insight into the happiness of pure Being
who is the refuge, the jungle physician
who [...]