Rodney has some magical aura in his voice that made me want to get everything perfect in this backbending class. Perhaps it's the way he's so precise in his instructions. Or maybe it's because I heard him gently correct other students (and his assistants), and I didn't want to be next. More likely, though, it was the chat he had with us about what our yoga practice should be doing for our lives.

"Yoga isn't about stretching," he says. "It's about eveness."

He talked about how he recently worked with the most amazing athletes, but even though they were at this superhuman level of fitness they weren't happy with their bodies. Sure, our practice should challenge us and keep us on our feet, but it should also make us love bodies and ourselves.

"Sometimes you need to take a step back and just ask yourself: Why am I pulling at my leg like this?" says Rodney.

Anyway, I was inspired and I can honestly say that I worked harder than I've ever worked in a yoga class. Even though this was a backbending class, I don't think my Downward-Facing Dog will ever be the same. I found strength and eveness.

When I returned to my room, I tried to do, Eka Pada Rajakapotasana (One-Legged King Pigeon Pose), a backbending pose I've been practicing on my own for weeks upon weeks, and I actually backbend far enough to touch my head to my foot!! And I didn't even collapse in the lower spine! This is what yoga conferences are all about, and I am SO grateful for this opportunity.

Aadil Palkhivala's class on Freeing the Heart in Standing Poses was one of the most inspiring classes of the conference for me. Other than editing his expert questions for My Yoga Mentor, this was my first experience of Aadil. The man is far more heart-centered and inspiring in person than I could have imagined from our email interactions.

A student of B.K.S. Iyengar for 30 years, Aadil started the school of Purna Yoga to address the bigger picture of yoga. Rather than practicing asana for the sake of perfecting asana, Aadil encourages his students to find their dharma, or life's purpose, through the study of asana, spirituality, philosophy, and lifestyle.

While asana is important, it is also insignificant, Aadil says. The purpose of asana is "to help the body be a better vehicle for the spirit's command. Why do we practice? We practice for the exploration, discovery and fulfillment of dharma."

After working on some standing poses, Aadil paused the class. We were all missing the point, trying to be perfect students. "The asana must serve your bigger picture; it's not a performance. What's your intention?," he asked. Rather than practcing to be the best in class, we should considering practicing for the enlightenment of all beings, he suggested. I could feel my classmates relaxing around me.

Some juicy nuggets and good reminders I took away from Aadil's class:

1. To learn if your practice is serving you, look at your life -- what is the state of your relationships? --That is, your relationship with family, with the earth, with food, etc.
2. To choose your teacher, don't look at the person's practice, look at the person's life.
3. Don't knit the ribs together during practice under any circumstances -- we want to expand the heart center, not contract it.
4. Never practice Uddiyana bandha while actively breathing -- it strains the heart. (During pranayama, it is done while holding the breath out.)
5. The best way to cultivate the rasa, or juice, in standing poses is by using the quadriceps. Bring the earth energy up into your legs using the quads, then into the pelvis, then knead that energy into your heart.
6. Don't send all of your prana, or lifeforce energy, out around you, tilt the pelvis up and send the prana into your heart.

Finally, some food for thought from Aadil: "It's a magnificent cosmic evolution which we are a part of, usually dragged kicking and screaming; but if we choose to participate, the suffering will end."

photos by Susan Slattery

Ana's style of yoga is a struggle for even the most athletic, seasoned yogi. On my third day of strenuous yoga, I knew it would be a struggle, even if the class description said it would help me free myself from "breathlessness, struggle, and panic." Just to make things more interesting, I think Ana "Abs" Forrest pulled out all of her most breathless, panic-inducing tricks to teach us to breath into poses and relax.

I like to practice Vinyasa yoga as much as possible. So I tend to be really fidgety when teachers invite me to hold poses for any amount of time. I don't enjoy the way it feels to stay in Warrior II, so without really thinking, I brush the hair out of my face or re-adjust my foot placement 16 times. I do whatever I have to to try to make the time that I'm uncomfortable pass so that I can move on to the next pose. I realize this is not one of my better habits so it's good that there are classes like this one to help me realize how important it is to be patient and breath when things get hard.

I got lots of practice being patient in this workshop. I tried to push myself when I felt like giving up, and I realized that when I stopped thinking about the discomfort and focused on the sound of my breath things got a lot easier and I could hold difficult poses for much longer. I really could let go of my struggle, stop fidgeting, and enjoy the sensations.

photo by Susan Slattery

photos by Susan Slattery

Lesson number one: knees come in different shapes and sizes, and you have to understand the structure of the knee before you can determine how to care for it. "It's like painting with gree paint on green paper," says Mary. "It's not going to look the same as it would on white or grey paper."

Not everyone has the same skeletal structure at one of the body's most delicate joints. For example, I'm pretty sure my legs fall under a category Mary would call knobby kneed. That means my thigh comes in at an angle,then my shin bones extend out slightly. It's kind of an undesirable hour-glass effect, which, of course, is more dynamic in one leg than the other. I also have a bit of an overextension in my joint. So I lock my knees when I'm standing.

Another lady in the class was the perfect example of "bowlegged." Her knees were further away from her midline, making her legs curve outwardly.

As it turns out, the key to protecting the knees may not lie in the knee itself. (I'm assuming most people know about the whole lining-the-knee-over-the-ankle concept in poses like Warrior I and II.) According to Mary, we can train ourselves to take care of our knees through how we work our feet and hips.

"The feet are only the foundation of everything we do!" Marys says as she instructs the class to evenly distribute the weight on the feet.

It's a lot easier on the knee if we let our hips and ankle joints do some of the work, too, in poses like Utkatasana. To demonstrate this, we practiced Utkatasana with our heels up on a folded blanket so we'd have to use our ankles. She had each of us keep our feet three inches apart so bow-legged folks "can't complain that they can't get their feet together." Then we were instructed to press through the balls of our feet and pull our toes up so we weren't collapsing in at the arches of our feet. So that's how you lift your arches--I never knew!

Even though I haven't had a lot of knee issues yet (knock on wood) it really made me think about what I need to do to ensure that I don't develop knee issues in the future, and also gave me some things to look for as I continue on in my yoga teacher training.

photo by Susan Slattery

Barbara Benagh is my hero. In the past, teachers have rushed me through backbends, with little-to-no preparation for Wheel. But today's class was completely devoted to warming the spine and preparing it for more advanced backbends. After two hours of gentle Cobras and modified Locust and Bow to strengthen the thoracic spine, I was able to move into a full bridge with an ease I've never experienced. I only wish the photographer had captured my shining moment. After class, I heard one student with a compressed lower back say today was the first time she had tried Cobra and that she now felt ready to move on from her fear of backbends.

The more teachers you take from, the more frequent these revelations become. I haven't been keeping count, but I've been humbled so many times during this conference. None of these epiphanies have been as dynamic as what I experienced in Edward Clark's class.

After watching Edward Clark in the Tripsichore performance I wasn't really sure what to expect for his class on the Tripsichore technique--but I hoped I wouldn't be expected to stand on my forearms and put my leg behind my head.

Thank goodness he didn't expect us to be that advanced.

We talked about keeping the shoulders down and lenghthing the Uddyana to raise the chest both as we fold forward and as we come up from fold into Tadasana with the arms extended above the head. Not only is this far more beautiful, but it lengthens the back, front, and side body throughout the motion and feels a lot better than allowing the shoulders to rise up toward the ears.

From the top of that reach, we could begin to bend backwards through our height (without crunching the back). Since I've never really had much instruction on how to do a standing backbend, I was thrilled to begin to get a foundation. I have read many times that you have to bend from height, but I wasn't sure how to really achieve that height.

I was also really pleased when we used the same principle of lengthening the Uddyana to come into a handstand split, which is a pose that Tripsichore performs beautifully. I felt like we were really learning a little of the Tripsichore technique. I mean, I didn't actually get my feet off the ground, but I have something else to work toward now.

But the subject that prompted my major revelation was not part of the class topic.

Throughout my practice, I've noticed teachers make the same few adjustments on me. I tend to jut my rib cage out and collapse in my lower back, and sometimes my shoulders roll forward instead of down my back during Cobra and Upward-Facing Dog. So I'm very conscious of these things, especially if I'm in the first row like I was in this class. But I was surprised when Edward told me I over-extend my elbows. I've never had a teacher adjust my elbows--ever! So now I have a new thing to work on in my body, which is a really good thing.

So I'm not enlightened yet, but at this rate I might be someday!

Photos by Susan Slattery

photos by Susan Slattery

photos by Susan Slattery

Anyone who's practice yoga for a while knows that it's not all "butterflies and unicorns" as Seane Corn put it. But just in case you forget, one class with Seane Corn wil quicklyl put things into perspective for you.

"Things come up that you haven't thought about in 20 years--that you haven't wanted to think about," says Seane Corn.

In "The Body and Beyond," we touched on some pretty heavy subjects. Students were challenged phsycially as well as emotionally and spiritually.

Seane said believes that if all people are at peace within themselves, all the bad things that are going would eventually stop--all the wars, terrrorism, and violence would just cease to exist.

Even if you're a skeptic of this optimism, you have to respect Seane for her passion in speaking about yoga. It quickly became clear to me why she is admired so much by the yoga community. She speaks with heart and authority.

That's such a huge, abstract idea it was hard for me to even imagine. So I was grateful when Seane said there are ways I can help facilitate that by working on myself.

All the those bad things happening on a global scale originate in people's individual thoughts and actions, so first we have to let go of all our hurt and negativity and find the joy and love in everything.

Vinyasa yoga, Seane's specialty, is a great way to release some of the tension in our lives so we can transform our bodies, and learn to be present so we can transform our minds. In this class we were invited to move quickly, let out our agressions, and leave behind bad feelings we might've been fostering.

"Those people who may've hurt us are our angels, our guides, our teachers," Seane says. "Use them to learn something and then move on."

I was really touched by how candidly Seane spoke about devoting our practice to God or other people in our lives who we'd like to lift up. She asked us to stop our vinyasa practice a couple of times, and think of someone who we love and devote the next vinyasa to them. It's amazing how much that intention changed my practice in that moment.

If something so small can have such a big effect on our individual thoughts and actions, maybe Seane Corn is right, and our intentions really will change the world someday.

Photo by Susan Slattery

Take three meals a day (no snacking)
And call me in the morning.
Oh, and don't stress.

Everyone knows that stress is not a favorable feeling in the body, but Douillard describes why :

Stress --> toxic hormones --> free radicals --> disease.

And why three meals?

When Douillard was diagnosed with high blood pressure at the age of 27, his Ayurvedic doc prescribed him a hot lunch, every day. It worked. It seems that all Douillard needed what a constant stream of energy reserve -- something he wasn't getting by skipping lunch or eating on the run.

Douillard described how most of us are caught in a rollercoaster pattern with the energy levels and eating patterns in our life. If we tend to snack constantly, rather than eating conscious meals, the body will produce cravings -- whether it be for coffee, sugar, or something else. By stretching the time between meals, you give your body time to digest, rest and use existing energy.

After getting the body to go through the entire day without cravings, we'll leave at the end of the day with the same energy we had at the beginning of the day, Douillard says. Therefore, we no longer live life in an emergency state all the time. Being more relaxed will help the lymphatic system cleanse the body of toxins.

Yoga also helps to move the waste out with subtle energy.

Focusing on depression, Douillard attributed the affliction in part to the cultural isolation in American society. In addition, we allow our state of being to be determined by what happened that day. Drop the drama, says Douillard.

"Live life in the eye of the hurricane, where you're not affected by the storm," he said. When this happens, "you're no longer glued to the rollercoaster ride."

photo by Susan Slattery

We wore a red dot on our shirts representing each our heart centers; we chanted mantras about how the heart is the source of happiness; and we pulsated our bodies to remind us of the physical and spritual heart present within us. If anyone who registered missed the essence of Shiva Rea's "Expanding our Heart's Field Within Yoga" class, it's because he or she overslept.

Shiva is a master at setting the tone for her classes. Everywhere in the room, were reminders of what we were hear to do: expand our heart centers.

When you put your heart and soul into anything you get a lot more enjoyment and fulfillment out of it. Of course, this is one of those things people sometimes say without really thinking about it, but Shiva made some pretty convincing arguments that scientific reasoning backs this up.

In our culture, we tend to be brain-oriented, Shiva said. (Perhaps, that's why we had to have a scientific based talk on the heart instead of philosophical.) But our brains are overworked and overwhelmed because we're designed to do some thinking with our hearts, too.

She said our hearts emit an electromagnetic field of energy, which can be measured by scientists. Interestingly enough, the heart's electromagnetic field measures much higher than the brain's. So maybe we really should allow our hearts to guide us more.

Our hearts' energies are constantly reaching out to evaluate people, "like dogs sniffing each other." So anytime we're not really meshing with someone else, it's usually because something doesn't feel right within your heart's energy field.

All of this was amazing and thought-provoking, but when we put it into action through asana I really began to feel my heart's energy radiating out. I think I could feel other people's energy, too, when we got moving. (The room was really warm, and Shiva joked that we'd be able to smell our neighbors' energy, too.)

When I started to get tired from Shiva's strenuous Vinyasa sequence, which obviously consisted of backbend after backbend, the sound of drums beating reminded me to ride my hearts energy wave and I was able to keep going. This was all it took to give me a new appreciation for my body's most vital organ.

Photo by Susan Slattery

Introduction | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

photo by Susan Slattery