Feb 25, 2019
The group fitness and I came of age together and when I started paying attention to it again some twenty years later there was Nia and Zumba, mat Pilates, step-aerobics, Hip Hop and yoga. Rodney Yee appeared on Oprah, leading hundreds of live viewers through a simple Iyengar style class replete with breathing and shivasava and the gravitas of Oprah’s testimonial; her life enriched by what was still something a few people with armpit hair did in their living rooms.
When I first started teaching a small handful of students in 2005, I tried to figure out how to rotate Scott’s inner elbows outwards in downward facing dog because that was what I was I was taught in my teacher training: Legs at hip width, arms at shoulder width and inner elbows facing forward. Scott was a globally tensioned body type whose morphology and shoulder girdle mobility dictated that his elbows would neither straighten or rotate. I was remarkably ill-equipped to lead large groups of people in what was perceived to be safe therapeutic mindful exercise, but at least I knew to say don’t do it if it hurts.
Playlist:
Springfish: by Gillicuddy
Dirt 1: by Joachim Nilsson
Dusk til Dawn: by Henrik Andersson
Dual Controls: by Martin Klem
Get Into It: by Johan Hynyn
Crows: by Dust Follows
Runaway Deer: by Arc De Soleil
Teenage Color: by Niklas Ahlstrom
Tape Eater: by Pietnaska
Variation on a Theme by Rilke
by Denise Levertov
A certain day became a presence to
me;
there it was, confronting me--a sky, air, light:
a being. And before it started to descend
from the height of noon, it leaned over
and struck my shoulder as if with
the flat of a sword, granting me
honor and a task, The day's blow
rang out, metallic--or it was I, a bell awakened,
and what I heard was my whole self
saying and singing what it knew: I can.
Playlist:
Springfish: by Gillicuddy
Dirt 1: by Joachim Nilsson
Dusk til Dawn: by Henrik Andersson
Dual Controls: by Martin Klem
Get Into It: by Johan Hynyn
Crows: by Dust Follows
Runaway Deer: by Arc De Soleil
Teenage Color: by Niklas Ahlstrom
Tape Eater: by Pietnaska