Yoga and the Red Sand Beach, Maui
Yesterday was a fun day. We started at our first yoga class in Haiku, at The Yoga Studio. We took Skeeter's practice class. She is a striking, calm, strong presence. She reminds me of Sundari and Sianna. She was so happily surprised to see me and was so sweet. During the opening she did something that I've never seen done- she introduced me to the class and asked me to lead the chant. I was so moved that I had tears in my eyes. What a special way to welcome someone!
We then proceeded to have the most deceptively challenging class. I'll explain. We did almost no sun salutes. Maybe one. And I think we did one standing pose: Warrior one with the heel down. But we were sweating and working with the intention to listen to our bodies and to how the principles work. We did tons of press up handstands (she can do them on their own- so beautifully). We did tons of hip openers and really got into how the sacrum can help to open up the hamstrings. We did more hip openers and by the time we got to the backbends, our body was ready yet it was not exhausted from tons of vinyasas. It was truly remarkable and I hope to study more from this magnificent teacher.
We had lunch at our favorite town, Paia, and then headed towards Hana for the second day in a row. We decided to head all the way to the Red Sand Beach. It's not as frequented- it takes about two hours to get there and once you get there you have to hike through a ten minute treacherous trail. For reals. I actually fell flat on my face and my wrists hurt. But once you get there, I really feel that this might be the most spectacular beach I've ever been to. And that is high praise coming from someone from Puerto Rico. There are some beaches in Puerto Rico, especially in Vieques, that are pristine and serene. But this one is different. The Red Sand Beach is made of four different volcanic rocks and one of them is red. So you are walking on top of red and black tiny, polished stones. The way into the beach is through a climb so you actually enter it by climbing down from a hill and then the view opens and you see a landscape which looks more like Zion National Park in Utah than Hawaii. There's a red canyon that seems to have been scooped out of a mountain. There's a reef that breaks the ocean and created two little coves with an s-shape so that the beach looks like a spiral. It's hard to explain so I just sat there and took it in.
We drove back and I almost threw up from the windy road of Hana. Damn you Hana!
We'll be back again.
More later!
Aloha.
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