Thursday 11 September 2014

Of Wooden Floors and High Ceilings

This is an ongoing blog about Marella's midlife odyssey through yoga life.

We arrive in what I think was Dun Laoghaire one of Dublin’s more affluent suburbs. It is situated on the scenic south end of Dublin bay,well  known for two reasons, the East Pier which is popular for walking on and also the utter impossibility for those not native born, of pronouncing much less spelling the name of the borough correctly! Anyway I diverse, we arrive into the hall where the yoga is to take place for the weekend. Its one of those old town halls, interesting architecturally speaking if you knew about such matters, high vaulted ceiling with long church like windows set in the walls, well above the height where you could get to a window if you needed some fresh air. This was going to be a relevant factor later on during the class. There were also four big radiant type heaters set into the ceiling which were belting out heat, it was a mild Autumn day and I thought “oh. thats nice they have put the heaters on to warm up the old hall a little…” There was also a polished well worn oak floor must have been laid circa 1900, it too would have a interesting and pernicious effect on my over all yoga performance that weekend.

I went and introduced ourselves, paid for the weekend and was directed where to lay our mats.There must have been about fifty to sixty people there, all looking terrifyingly fit, slender, flexible and bendy. We kinda hid on our mats in the middle of the crowd.

Our teacher arrived it was Betsy Downing tall, poised, elegant must have been in her late 60's, she sort of floated effortlessly up the length of the hall. A hush crept over the room without her saying anything, she had that kind of presence.


 I can't remember now, how she opened or what exactly she taught, but I do remember the following, that she addressed the group as fellow teachers and practitioners, that first word, teachers made me sit up, I felt an uncomfortable lurch deep in my guts. Was she implying that most folk here were teachers? I had a quick look around and yes the crowd in general seemed to have a certain air about them. Intimidated? me? nah, not me (not  much anyways! sure didn't I have four hours yoga experience?). This precise moment signified the start of something that would be an ongoing feature of my then unforeseen future yoga career, finding myself again and again  in situations where I was way out of my comfort zone, wondering why I was doing it to myself, it was to become a somewhat accelerated learning process and habit!



No comments:

Post a Comment