Meet Ms. B, our Yoga with Horse teacher for today.
Today our Yoga with Horses group moves into our Windhorse Warrior Vinyasa with a bit of a difference - moving only on the exhale. This should help us to moderate our internal heat, and we'll be playing with this more this summer. As we practice, we allow ourselves to enter into the gestalt of the herd, which horse or horses capture our attention, enters into our mind's eye?
Today it's the grey horses. Denali behind us, Bianca to the east, Zeus in front, Cherokee to the west. Bianca is one of the horses in our shared herd, so she'll be our teacher today.
Ms.B walks regally with me to the round pen, engaged and curious. I've worked with Bianca and her person before, so this isn't new, but this is the first time that she is taking on the teacher role in our yoga class. What comes up for us is her mare energy, and how different it is to work with this energy compared to the energy of 'the boys' who are our usual teachers. We are quickly drawn into those non-logical dimensions of the vjnanamaya and anandamaya, the deep mind and emotions, so words describing the difference in the energy come difficult for this articulate group.
Round. Maternal. Softer, yet edgier. Sharp, but round. Ms. B has a big, round, muscular and fluid set of hindquarters on her, and some of our pet names for her tend to involve 'big booty'.
Into the pen where we practice our 'beach grrl' walk with Bianca showing us how to really move those hips. Sacrum flows forward, hips open, sway, ground. It's a soft walk with determination underneath. We have places to go - inward.
Then we take a little up close time with Ms. B and that bountiful, beautiful booty. She stands quietly as we connect with that strength and softness with the palms of our hands. Ah ha! Sthira Sukha, that steady comfort that is the only goal of asana practice, right here, right now.
Her eyes soften as she graciously accepts our attentions. We finish with a short mandala meditation. We end, bowing to her with namaste. The White Queen is ready to back and munch some hay.
Namaste, Ms. B. Namaste.
