I randomly met a Katonah yoga instructor in another class and as I had heard about it and that it was quite different from other forms of yoga and that there were quite few people who have practiced yoga for a long time who fall in love with this one and almost 'rediscover' themselves and their yoga through it. Since I'm still here for a few weeks and my Kundalini subscription sadly just expired, I decided to give this a try...
The studio is quite nice and when I first entered the class room, I knew I was in for a treat - the students were arranged in a square so everyone was facing someone else, a nice, communicative set-up and all had their legs up a chair, lying on at least three blocks - looked like this would be an interesting one...
Since I started in a supported wide legged child's pose (with blocks under both armpits and the forehead - gorgeous pose) , I started feeling like I was in a restorative class but I was soon going to learn that I wasn't... We took a long time setting up hands and knees pose with the correct alignment over shoulders and hips and looking at the exact 90 degree angles - so I realized this was quite a different approach from Kundalini where everything goes as long as you stay in the energy and then we started turning our wrists to the front, fingertips to the back - have done this as a stretch before but never for what felt like minutes, longer stretches of time and we also shouldn't be circling our wrists or shake them out after but rather just flip the wrists to regular position and backwards again.
The amazing thing was that it seems to work - when I got into the down dog (which coincidentally they only practice with bent knees, but really, really stretching the hips up and working the backbend), it felt different - although my wrists were quite strained already.
Another pose that we really worked on was pigeon - instead of going forward and melting into the floor, she wanted us to be upright and really work the hips and the alignment, again, we held the position with blocks underneath the armpits for long stretches of time and she kept stressing the backbend component of this pose and we stretched to both sides, keeping the hips in the same position. When I thought it was enough pigeon and I was glad we could get out of it - I learned there was more to come: we went into double pigeon and they really drilled down the alignment of the knee over the ankle - a pose that I struggle with quite a bit. With straps and other props, like sitting up on a blanket, I was able to do it though and probably in a better anatomical alignment than ever. It's got to be said that this class has so many and very strong adjustments - such as holding on to someone's arms in pigeon (standing over you so you are basically hanging onto them) that it is almost more of a work out for the teacher and their assistant - but the adjustments all felt pretty juicy and I wanted to write them down so I don't forget.
Something else I found interesting is that while it seemed like a fairly physical, less spiritual class to me (maybe after all that kundalini it just seemed like that though), there was the occasional remark such as look forward into your future and don't sit back into your past and the fact that our posture is just an expression of our being. Yet, I was curious to hear more about the taoist approach that this practice has - I guess I'll need to go back and learn more...
The teacher explained that katonah plays special attention to your joints and bone alignment and does not work too much on the muscles but already know I can really feel that some of my muscles will be sore tomorrow. I guess I can see how the aim is a true transformation as all of us were constantly encouraged to go deeper and challenge ourselves. We did some very deep twists with lots of adjustments and long holds - they don't cue the breath but breathing consciously certainly helps a lot in this. They finish up the class with a set of pranayama - in our case v-shaped arms and kapalabhati or skull shining breathing 100 times but there is no shavasana or resting pose at the end - something I missed a little bit but I'll definitely be back to explore this interesting, deep tissue almost therapeutic form of yoga again.
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| The beginning of class looked like this... |
Since I started in a supported wide legged child's pose (with blocks under both armpits and the forehead - gorgeous pose) , I started feeling like I was in a restorative class but I was soon going to learn that I wasn't... We took a long time setting up hands and knees pose with the correct alignment over shoulders and hips and looking at the exact 90 degree angles - so I realized this was quite a different approach from Kundalini where everything goes as long as you stay in the energy and then we started turning our wrists to the front, fingertips to the back - have done this as a stretch before but never for what felt like minutes, longer stretches of time and we also shouldn't be circling our wrists or shake them out after but rather just flip the wrists to regular position and backwards again.
The amazing thing was that it seems to work - when I got into the down dog (which coincidentally they only practice with bent knees, but really, really stretching the hips up and working the backbend), it felt different - although my wrists were quite strained already.
Another pose that we really worked on was pigeon - instead of going forward and melting into the floor, she wanted us to be upright and really work the hips and the alignment, again, we held the position with blocks underneath the armpits for long stretches of time and she kept stressing the backbend component of this pose and we stretched to both sides, keeping the hips in the same position. When I thought it was enough pigeon and I was glad we could get out of it - I learned there was more to come: we went into double pigeon and they really drilled down the alignment of the knee over the ankle - a pose that I struggle with quite a bit. With straps and other props, like sitting up on a blanket, I was able to do it though and probably in a better anatomical alignment than ever. It's got to be said that this class has so many and very strong adjustments - such as holding on to someone's arms in pigeon (standing over you so you are basically hanging onto them) that it is almost more of a work out for the teacher and their assistant - but the adjustments all felt pretty juicy and I wanted to write them down so I don't forget.
Something else I found interesting is that while it seemed like a fairly physical, less spiritual class to me (maybe after all that kundalini it just seemed like that though), there was the occasional remark such as look forward into your future and don't sit back into your past and the fact that our posture is just an expression of our being. Yet, I was curious to hear more about the taoist approach that this practice has - I guess I'll need to go back and learn more...
The teacher explained that katonah plays special attention to your joints and bone alignment and does not work too much on the muscles but already know I can really feel that some of my muscles will be sore tomorrow. I guess I can see how the aim is a true transformation as all of us were constantly encouraged to go deeper and challenge ourselves. We did some very deep twists with lots of adjustments and long holds - they don't cue the breath but breathing consciously certainly helps a lot in this. They finish up the class with a set of pranayama - in our case v-shaped arms and kapalabhati or skull shining breathing 100 times but there is no shavasana or resting pose at the end - something I missed a little bit but I'll definitely be back to explore this interesting, deep tissue almost therapeutic form of yoga again.
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