Masterclass with Leah Kim

I wake up at 6 am everyday thinking I'll make up for lost time in my weekend sleep. And that never happens. And quite frankly, I'm in bed by 10:30 pm, so 6 am is not bad at all. I've technically given my body and mind enough time to recover. But just the thought of waking up before sunrise is painful. So when I received an email from my studio about a masterclass with Leah Kim this Saturday at 8 AM, I was both hesitant and excited!Excited for obvious reasons, Leah Kim is a yogini who travels all over the globe teaching, practicing, living and breathing yoga. She is more famously known as Nike's yoga ambassador. She is in Singapore to lead the teacher training course at Hom Yoga and was conducting a vinyasa flow class today. I was hesitant because, dude! 8 am on a Saturday is brutal. It's just plain brutal. On weekends, I usually wake up at 8ish, but just because I CAN, I lay in my bed for 2 hours. Haha.  So you see? Giving up that luxury of choice to go sweat it out!  I almost backed out. But something in my gut asked me to go for it and hit 'Book this class!"

Fortunately it wasn't all that tough to get out of bed this morning. And at 7am, the sun is almost up, so it doesnt't feel like an unearthly hour! The class was full.  I love vinyasa flows at Hom, because it's a non-hot class and you can focus on your breath more. You can relax int the asana and not be uneasy and dying to get out of it! My usual spot in the Orchard studio is right next to the windows, so I can see Orchard road and the sky, and generally I like being next to natural light. The first thing I do when I wake up in the mornings on weekends is draw open my curtains and let the light flood in. I can NOT stand a dark room. There's just so much positive energy that enters my room with the Sun, it's just indescribable. Anyway, i digress. So I like being on the mat next to the windows. I was early and thankfully my favorite mat was unoccupied :) Stretched a bit and waited for Leah to enter. She walked in and put on low nice yoga music and we started with the usual Balasana and cat-cow stretching before we started flowing.

The sequence was a combination of usual poses but what was really nice was Leah's method of instruction. It was slow and calm, and when she is making you hold the difficult asanas, she explains the correct alignment and gives you specific cues on how to get into the right shape, whether, it's grounding your feet, or rotating you inner thighs, or lengthening your spine or stretching your downward dog. So when she is explaining, you are listening to her and trying to correct your alignment, and you don't realise that you've been in the asana for 10 breaths already. So it doesn't feel like a task. Her constant focus on inhalation and exhalation makes you calm down your breathing and that makes the asana SO much more easier to get into, stay in and get out of.

One thing, I'll take away from her class is the 'trick' to get into ardha chandrasana or the half moon pose (the last figure in the below sequence)

(Image from www.drfranlipman.com)

There are many ways to get into ardha chandrasana. I'll describe the one we did today. We started with a chaturanga vinyasa and got into adho mukho svanasana (downward dog). We transitioned to veerbhadrasana 1 and veerabhadrasana 2 and then viparaita veerabhadrasana (reverse warrior) and then into utthita parsvakonasana (extended side angle pose). From there we went into utthita trikonasa (extended triangle) and then we finally went into ardha chandrasana. 

So here, when your left leg & hand lifts up, your weight is supported on the right fingers and right leg, both of which have to be straight. I used to look down and stare at my right hand while shifting the weight and then after my left leg and hand slowly went up, I would slowly turn to look up at my left fingers. BUT today Leah, asked us to look up before our left leg and hand went up and judge from the space our body was occupying to get into the asana. It was a lot tougher, because you are not staring down and your don't know where your right hand should be positioned, and just generally  you feel so much more grounded when you are looking into the floor and not at the sky. But this definitely helped, because my ardha chandrasana was  lot stronger, I was balancing better. I wasn't collapsing on my right palm. Such a HUGE difference. I am now going to keep this in mind while getting into this asana next time onwards. 

Heres a step by step for how to get into Ardha Chandrasana from Trikonasana :

1. From uttihita trikonasana soften your right knee and bring you left hand on your left hip
2. Bring the right hand to the floor, about a foot in front of the right foot with the fingertips on the floor
3. Start straightening the right leg while raising the left leg
4. Open the hips, stacking the left hip on tip of the right hip.
5. Bring the left leg straight and parallel to the floor, always flexing the left foot, with toes facing forward
6. When you feel balanced on the right leg, start extending the left hand upwards, opening the chest and making a straight line with the right and left hand.
7. Bring the gaze towards the left fingertips [unless it's already up ;) ]

Repeat the same on the other side.

Two important notes  1) Always flex your foot, with the toes pointing forward. The flexing helps with your balance significantly! 2) never collapse onto the hand on that is on the ground, raise up on your fingertips, it'll give the much required opening and height to the asana.

So that's what I learnt from the class. The other beautiful thing about the class was the extended final sravasana. Leah guided us through the whole 5-6 minutes and it was awesomely relaxing. My mind wasn't drifting anywhere. I was in no hurry to go anywhere, so with closed eyes, I just lay on the mat enjoying and reaping the benefits of my practice from the last 60 minutes. 

When I walked out of the room, I felt alive! And ready to take on the day! And what's the best part? It was 9 am on a Saturday, and I had the whole day in front of me :)

To more beauty and peace this weekend, namaste.