where it all began

my first experiences with yoga...

as a very young child, maybe 3 years old, Lilias yoga came on the PBS station right after Sesame Street.  The longhaired lady in tights in front of a groovy 70s background, sadly meant the end of the puppet shows and naptime was coming.  My mom liked yoga, though, and I remember accompaning her to a class one time. I just watched and was scared by the women in leotards stretching in a neighbor's rec room.

later on, as a 6th grader, I had an eccentric teacher who was always dimming the overhead lights and delving into topics not a part of the standard public school ciriculuum, like reading us the entire Tarzan series, and deeply studying the Hawaiian islands, where she had an "adopted son", and of course, YOGA.  We did poses in the aisles, mainly tree, some warriors, and lots of eye exercises, which involved stretching your arms out wide and rolling your eyeballs back and forth to look at your thumbs.  This worried me, as I wore contacts and thought for sure they'd pop out.  Everybody dogged yoga but probably secretly liked it - and the highlight was when a boy split his pants wide open in forward bend, which was 6th-grade humor overload.

Fast forward to 1996, when I was living in New Hampshire desperately seeking diversions, and came across a Yoga Class at the YMCA.  I don't recall the teachers' name, but he was Kripalu trained and always wore white.  Class was held in a circle foundation in the preschool classroom - tiny chairs and tables were pushed aside and the walls were covered with construction paper masterpieces.  I think it was the second class where we held a shoulderstand for a reaaaaally long time, and then folded our legs over our heads in halasana/plough, and then sloooowly rolled out flat, when I felt a deep, awesome heat seep down my spine.  

It was luscious.  And I was hooked.  Now I think that was my Kundalini energy activating. Or else I had just been wicked tense for far too long.  

Anyway, I haven't had that blissful surge since, but I've had hundreds, maybe thousands, of fantastic yoga experiences, across the United States, from fabulous teachers, and have recently been passing on the light and teaching as well.