Handstand dropovers

Intermediate Level backbending: Mommy!!

Minneapolis: The Rest of It, Pool Parties and All

(a shot of Mysore class at The Yoga House, from a previous workshop with Govindakai. Michelle, the owner, is third from the left and these other two women students have been at all the sessions we have attended)

Tomorrow is the last day of Mysore practice at The Yoga House. Some of the folks who have been learning the Moon Sequence since Monday will drop it to practice Ashtang-er, while others will stay will the Moon for one more day. Even just a few days of practicing the Moon Sequence has committed it to memory and it suddenly becomes much deeper. This is something remarkable about memorizing sequences and building a self-practice.

There have been no more than 15 at any of the Mysore classes, most of them regulars at The Yoga House, and it's unlikely anyone has been disappointed. Most are working on the

Primary Series and a little of the Intermediate Series. And, if you must know, there are plenty of water bottles and towels, but no cheat sheets.

We've watched a few people doing dropback and handstand work, along with most everyone receiving bits and pieces of advice about all kinds of things. Great adjustments as well. We'd be happy to pay for the classes just to come in and watch the adjustments.

All of the teachers we've studied with have particular strengths/tendencies. Sharath knows how to push you past psychological barriers. Richard Freeman weaves together philosophy and physical practice. Kino MacGregor brings reverence for tradition. Matthew (yeah, that's right, we're on a first name basis) has an uncanny talent for taking the really physically difficult aspects of intense vinyasa practice—jumping/floating, inversions (up to and through handstand), standing backbending—and breaking them down into steps and progressions with a detail and clarity that could NEVER be found in Mysore. It's odd, but another example of the West doing a better/different take on yoga practice.

Today was pool party day. Class is over by 745 AM, it's overcast and barely 75°, who WOULDN'T want to get in the pool, right? Oh, did I mention MATTHEW SWEENEY was there? It was pretty chill(y), some snacks, goofing around, not too many people. Everybody brought a kid or two just to make sure the pool was full. No, he did not wear some kind of Aussie Speedo.

Tomorrow: class, breakfast with Matthew and students at Michelle (studio owner)'s house, and then back on the road. It's been a blast.

So...we will be offering three workshops at the shala in August, Friday nights the 14th, 21st, and 28th. We will draw strongly from the information gleaned here, as well as the work of David Swenson, Richard Freeman, and other vinyasa teachers. We'll cover jumping/floating, backbending, and inversions. We also may try a lead Moon Series class. Specific schedule coming soon. Let's all learn to levitate!

PS Yes, we would LOVE to bring Matthew to teach at the shala...the more response we get to workshops we feature now, the bigger the instructors we can get in the future.

Minneapolis Day 3-4

What a wonderful weekend of workshops. Over the course of three days, we attended five "yog-er" (Australian for "yoga") workshops with Matthew Sweeney at Yoga House (wiping away the sweat and crashing into bed). Most of the information covered in the workshops can also be found in one of two books either Ashtanga Yoga As It Is, or his newest book Vinyasa Krama (hefty in price but valuable info). But the experience is much better in person if you have the chance, i.e. there are no diagrams of Matthew Sweeney flexing his psoas muscles in the books. You have to pay extra for that.

Two of the workshops were led classes working through Sweeney's Moon Series and Lion Series. Both, in their own way, interesting compliments to an Ashtanga practice, however, not riveting as workshop topics. The remaining three were a progressive looks at jumping, back bending and inversions. Now this was something. Each class included partner activities to feel the required actions for a super-yogi asana. Great for personal practice or Mysore style but difficult to work into a regular class setting.

Today was our first Mysore day. We have (somewhat painfully) opted to put aside the "Ashtang-er" (Australian for "Ashtanga") and learn in detail the Moon sequence. This is a published sequence, but when taught in person, slightly different. This way Matthew says, he knows who he has taught. Today the first half, tomorrow the second. It's difficult to keep your eyes on your own mat. At the same time you are moving and breathing slowing, Matthew is handing out helpful advise to those Primary/Intermediate Series folks.



Matthew's style is somewhat different compared to other teachers we have seen. Kino was extremely reverent, dedicated to a purely traditional practice. Matthew on the other hand is constantly goofing on Mysore, Richard Freeman and Sharath. High energy is an understatement especially in the afternoon, a bit "wild eyed." Though he regularly practices and enjoys traditional Ashtanger practice, he also seems to have a "keep it interesting" approach to practice, offering up some days to take it easy and variations in sequences.

Three days left, two of which are definitely Moon Sequence practice days. On a lighter note, Michelle (Yoga House owner) has invited everyone (via email) to a pool party on Wednesday (it's like 80 degrees here, brrrrrr) and then breakfast after practice on Thursday, both "with Matthew" (implied: "!!!!!"). It must be interesting trying to keep "someone" busy all day who was already on the computer, checking his email (or something) at the end of Mysore practice (which he is teaching) because he is "bored."


***This photo is really only interesting because we are being tickled.

Minneapolis Day 1: I-35 & Chandra Krama

Hey der!

Google Maps now has the terrific function of tracing out your route from A to B and allowing a drag function, so you can simply click and drag the route in any direction, choosing to use this or that main road. It's very convenient. Here is a request for Google: not so much with the click and drag; rather, make with the "avoid construction delays" functi

on. I-35 turned from an Interstate into a parking lot for a few hours on the way up. All mantras failed. We were steamed.

Even so, we strolled into the first session with Matthew Sweeney, on his Chandra Krama (roughly "Moon Sequence" or "Lunar Action"), no more than 15 minutes late. Original sequences are, in part, what he does. He is an extremely advanced Ashtanga practitioner, but has also constructed and published some of his own sequences. This one is intended to counter the hot, strengthening, yang (rhymes with "strong") as

pects of Ashtanga with a cooling, opening, yin sequence.

The Yoga House is on the second floor of a two-story building on a swanky, suburban stretch of Caribou Coffees, Sprong! shoe stores, and cafes. The practice space is very nice. Maybe a little bigger than the shala, with a boutique and a couple of changing rooms.

The Chandra Krama session was very straightforward. Matthew—high-energy, goofy, Aussie—led the class through it, step by step, usually doing the postures along with us. No Ashtanga-style counting. You can make out something of the sequence in this image. While it IS less demanding than any Ashtanga sequence, it's still not exactly easy. Michelle at The Yoga House keeps it nice a toasty in the studio and we were sweating buckets. Other than Matthew, E was the only man (*sigh*) out of about 20 students.

Inevitably, when leading an unfamiliar group, any sequence goes more slowly, so we did an abbreviated version, with some of the harder postures omitted. We have already been practicing this sequence 2-4x a month for about six months. We have arranged to practice it under Matthew's direction while here as the beginning of the process to receive his blessing to teach it. Neat-o.

We have since finished two more sessions (jumping back/through and backbending) and can say that the Chandra session was pretty mild and not all that interesting, relatively speaking. Far better were the three-plus hours each on jumping and backbending. We were asked not to take video and to minimize pictures, so there won't be much illustration in these posts. Oh well.

So, we weren't able to take any pics of Matthew. Instead, we tried a Google search, but came up with several "Matthew Sweeneys". Can you identify the yoga teacher out of this bunch?

Remember the 90s?

Let's see, there was Slick Willy, DJ Jazzy Jeff, flannel, and my glorious high school days. It was the 90s, and it was also the decade when yoga practice really broke in this country in a big way. There was Madonna doing a Sun Salutation on Oprah (couldn't find a clip - I tried!) and an overall explosion of yoga practice on the west coast. In particular, people discovered Ashtanga yoga (though a few Westerners had been doing it since the 70s). Check out this recently unearthed article (scanned, .pdf) from Yoga Journal in 1995 on the new craze of Ashtanga yoga. Note the baby-faced Sharath as well as the description of the first two American Ashtangis' time in Mysore: practicing both the first and second series twice each day (I think that qualifies as a Vinyasa IV class)!

Also mentioned in the article is Bryan Kest, who mostly invented Power Yoga (or at least invented the idea of peddling it to celebrities) and sold it during the 90's with the torn jeans, bandana-around-wild-hair, Color-Me-Badd-boy look. Below is what seems to be a public access show interview with him. Dazzling production value aside, note the surfer diction and the Bill-and-Ted wisdom: "I don't just want people to get into ME, but to get into YOGA." You've gotta love it, along with the brief clips of his Power Yoga video, featuring jean cutoffs over long johns and that gorgeous hair. Did I mention the hair? (note: Bryan has many yoga books and videos, one of which is called "Long, Slow, & Deep" - how many think he told THIS reporter ALL about it shortly after this interview? *rim shot*) Not to rip on Bryan, though: if you haven't tried one of his videos, you should (you can find them through the library system): they will whoop yo' ass, and usually feature a good number of very ripped models who seem to be extremely surprised at how difficult the class is.

Up next: Minneapolis!!