LOCATION and DIRECTIONS

Iskander

I was that kid who went to his first yoga class in jeans and suffered the whole way through. Long before I would ever attempt yoga again, I became part of a physical theater company which openhandedly divulged to me some of the stage’s most celebrated teachings: Meyerhold’s bio-mechanics, Alexander’s skeletal alignment, Grotowski’s movement in relation to space and time. These corporal practices eventually prepared me to transform my spine from an inflexible stack of bones to an organic serpentine foundation of the body, and alter my breathing from a desperate huffing to a balloon-expanding fuel for every cell in my being. I now felt ready to attempt yoga again, this time in sweat pants. 

For my own part, yoga is a theater away from judgment, a church away from dogma, a community away from neediness. As an instructor I encourage you to invite your imagination into the practice. As yogis we have a magnificent chance to not just do cobra pose, do fish pose, do eagle pose, but BE a cobra, BE a fish, BE an eagle. Your body is already performing the asana – why shouldn’t you too? I respect that some come to yoga for a workout, some for meditation, some for a song, some for forgiveness. Yoga can be all the personal evolutions we seek.

I believe we can invest personal magic into our yoga to assist the body’s travels. We can be magicians of inhalation. We can be artists of exhalation. We can take a cosmic carpet ride on our mats to inner uncharted safaris. It’s quite an experience when bones, blood, breath and body play a jazz quartet. For me anyway. I encourage you to let yourself morph, sweat, and go to places once thought too frightening to visit or too joyous to feel. You have permission. And for goodness’ sake, folks – Laugh! We need not be such serious yogis. We are living creatures – We have the right to reach for the Sun and giggle the whole stretch of the way. 

“Don’t think,” said Bruce Lee at a time. “Feel: It is like a finger pointing away to the Moon. Don’t concentrate on the finger, or you will miss all that heavenly glory.”

yogiskander@gmail.com

Schedule:

Sat- 9-10 am- Earth Room