I'm so glad that I could be a part of that experience.

Some notes about the opening of the first workshop:

Noah:" Keep showing up- build upon every previous experience; keep showing up: grow it, evolve it internally and the express it."

Christina: "The pathway to love is varied. We'll do different pathways to building into poses. Love is an act of courage!"

Here are the first five pose of the workshop:

Child's Pose

AMS

Uttanasana

Prasarita Padottanasana

Sirsasana for 5 minutes.

So- I'm thinking to myself that this is a backbend workshop. So they're going to be doing tons of thigh stretches, shoulder openers, plus we'll be doing standing poses to build heat, right? But then right off the bat, a five minute headstand: Say what? 

And Christina says -in one of the many "aha" moments of the weekend- that headstand is a heating pose and if done for five minutes early in class, your arms won't be too fatigued from too many chaturangas and yet you will have a heated body. Plus, your mind will be calmer! How amazing and groundbreaking is that? I know for myself I tend to fall into ruts often as a teacher and I need workshops like these, that are going to take me out of my comfort zone. And so the workshop went like that; full of interesting poses that build upon each other. Filled with nuggets of wisdom and incredibly challenging asana.

More gems:

Christina: "The more advanced your practice is, the more subtle it gets."

We did tons of chair and Anjanea.

We did many handstands at the wall, emphasizing organic extension.

We did a pinca mayurasana "backbend" variation at the wall.

Many urdhva dhanurasana at the wall with the feet on the ground and the toes curled against the wall. This was incredibly powerful since it didn't permit your feet from splaying apart, which is of course, the tendency in backbends...

We did Dwi Pada Viparita Dandasana and Headstand drop overs.

At one point I was tired but I never felt depleted. Really interesting distinction: tired but not depleted.

Because I did two workshops today, they're starting to blend for me right now- so I'm going to go on to the next one...

Opening notes:

Christina: "I once heard Yoga defined as "the state in which you are missing nothing." It's not defined as something that you do, but something that we are. We can experience our fullness, our purna, our perfection. Yoga is the state of missing nothing. And since I'm already full, then how will I behave? May we all cultivate yoga as a state."

Noah started this session with tons of hip openers and forward folds. The alignment was impeccable and clear. We did a lot of different parivrrta poses including parivrrta janu sirsasana, parivrrta upavista konasana and parivrrta pachimottanasana.. Then we got back into lotus and Christina had us wrap our legs in lotus with a strap and that was incredibly helpful as we went into several lotus variations including in Sarvangasana.

We then did a five minute Headstand and a five minute Sarvangasana.