January 7, 2010

• Vacation Yoga

   On my first day of vacation in San Diego in late October, we awoke to a thick blanket of fog.  We grabbed some exceptionally good coffee and a bacon breakfast sandwich (it was vacation after all) and hopped into our rented PT Cruiser and headed North to La Jolla.  The fog in La Jolla was even worse, we pulled into a parking spot right on the beach and couldn’t see a thing.  The only reason we knew we were at the beach was that there was a sign indicating as much.

  It was about 8:30 am, and we had no idea what to do so Jonathan decided to go for a run.  I thought “wouldn’t it be perfect if I could find a yoga class!” so I started to do a GPS search on Jonathan’s phone to see if I could find a yoga studio.  No luck.  I’m not all that handy with GPS technology.  As I was hitting teeny tiny buttons and getting more and more frustrated by the fog and how much my vacation was sucking, I looked up to see two women with yoga mats walk right by me.  I was too stunned to speak, so luckily my husband flagged them down.  After they got over their fear that we were going to kidnap or mug them, they were nice enough to tell me that a free community class was going to start in the park at 9:00.  “Where is this park?” I asked, concerned I wouldn’t be able to find it with aforementioned GPS.  “Right there” they pointed.   It was about 15 feet away.

  I ran to the public bathroom and threw on my yoga clothes which I had luckily thrown into the back of the rent-a-car on a whim.  I wandered back to the park and was trying to come to peace with the idea of practicing in the dewy grass, when I noticed a big pile of free mats.  Next to the free mats, two men were setting up an amazing amount of percussion instruments.

  I spoke to the woman who appeared to be in charge and she informed me that this was a free class to celebrate the eight-year anniversary of the Prana Yoga studio in La Jolla (www.prana-yoga.com) and the one-year anniversary of the downtown La Jolla LuLu Lemon store. 

  The class was taught by Gerhard Gessner, E-RYT who owns Prana Yoga.  He explained that it would be a Power Flow class.  As I sat on the mat, smelling the ocean and people watching all these West Coast yogis I started to get really excited to experience a different kind of yoga class.  I’ve only ever practiced at Dover Yoga, so I was eager to experience something new.
  

  Gerhard was a great teacher.  He had a strong voice and I liked his pace as he led us through the flows.  I liked how he speckled the class with humor (in side plank “lift your left hand off your mat, ok now lift your right hand….haha just kidding”).  One thing he didn’t include was a lot of “fluff” as Carrie would call it.  His directions were all physical and anatomical.  However, he was struggling against the crashing waves and ambient park noise to probably about 50-75 people in a semi-circle around him.

  The class was pretty strenuous, but right up my alley.  I loved the challenges and the flows that Gerhard chose.  Tons of sun salutations (my favorite!) and he even joked “Keep going, keep going!  It’s working, the sun is coming out!”.  The thing that really surprised me was its similarity to Flow classes I’ve taken at Dover Yoga.  Halfway through the class it hit me, yoga is yoga.  It’s 5,000 years old – it’s not going to change from coast to coast.

  So as the sun broke through the clouds and burned off all the fog, I was forced to close my super sensitive eyes and go inward.  I was totally present in the moment – smelling the ocean, feeling the sun on my skin, smelling the grass, smiling at my good fortune of stumbling upon this class, listening to the soft sounds of the drums playing nearby, feeling the sweet release as my muscles stretched and worked and my body released the stress of a cross-country flight and jetlag.  I was on vacation.  In California.  Doing Yoga. Outside.  Breathing.  Life is Good.

  • 11:30 am
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