Here's Jordan and Clayton being held in the air by Edward Clark of Tripsichore Yoga!
Jordan and Clayton drove to Chapel Hill over the weekend for a wonderful workshop experience with Tripsichore. Tripsichore is known for innovative vinyasa techniques (mixing inversions into the sun salutations, transitioning between poses in different ways), but what we really took away from the workshop was how unimportant all of the yoga poses actually are in the grand scheme of things. As Edward Clark kept saying, "There are lots of trained monkeys in the west who can do all sorts of crazy yoga poses." That's not really the yoga and focusing too much on the poses misses the whole point. We really learned how important it is to keep energy moving in your body with your breath and attention as you practice, and when we came up against a wall it was usually a limitation in our focus and energy, not our tight hamstrings or shoulders.
We also were reminded how wonderful it is to be a beginner in yoga, because we really felt like one much of the time! There are so many possibilities and each little "a-ha" moment means so much. If you click this link you can see a promo video for a dance piece made up of yoga asanas that Tripsichore performed on the first night. Enjoy!
PS. Some students wanted to see how it was possible to float your feet off of the floor into a handstand. Here's some video I shot from the workshop showing a couple very brief demonstrations (note the speed of the video has not been altered...this shows a great deal of control in lifting off slowly).
