Galfromdownunder Yoga

John Churchill, founder and owner of Samadhi demonstrates Gomukasana (Cow Face pose) with a side bend. Why Cow Face? The stacked knees look like the lips of a cow, the feet like the ears.  Whenever I travel anywhere, I always try to seek out local yoga class. No only does it help me get unknotted from slouching about in bucket-seated motorized transport, I get to learn something new from a professional fellow teacher, in a fresh new place. (I also do this with haircuts - I got an excellent 'do for $2 in Tarma, Peru....). So while visiting Boston with my folding bike recently, I found a studio that was a perfectly civilized 3-mile bike ride from door to door - a lo-carbon emission way to arrive already warmed up to class! The studio:   Samadhi  in Newton, MA. The teacher: founder and master acupuncturist,  John Churchill . John's Open class contained quite a few interesting variations on basic poses that I hadn't come across before. I con...

One thing I love about going to different yoga classes around town (and especially when I travel), is that I always pick up at least one new and interesting tip to pass onto my students. No matter where I go, the teacher  invariably does or says something that makes me think, hey ... that's a great idea. It's not just experienced teachers that furnish these aha! moments either - newer teachers, being fresh from the textbooks and training, often remind earlier graduates about the correct way to do things.  So I must thank a teacher at the  Ypsi Studio in Ypsilante, Michigan, a small town near Ann Arbor. I was there for Christmas and persuaded my hosts to drive me through the thick of the snow to a class at this little fitness studio in Michigan Ave. My hosts had expressed enthusiastic interest in doing the class, but as the day wore on, bailed, one by one. There were only four of us in the class, taught by Ed Jackson, originally from LA. Ed showed us a brillia...