February 4, 2009

Last night 10 students and I met in the Ceramics Studio to throw bowls for Empty Bowls and do Yoga For Potters.

I am going to consider this a Karma Yoga experience, and a raucous, crazy one at that!

As soon as I got to the Studio at 7pm, I could tell the energy was going to be really high and sugar fueled--we had lots of fruit punch, cookies, chips.

Before we started throwing, we gathered in a circle.  

We started by laughing--this sort of just happened, and I realized we really weren't going to get in any calming Pranayama.  At first I was a little disappointed, because I had envisioned the evening being calm and quiet.  But it wasn't meant to be, and I quickly dropped the expectation and just went with the energy everyone already had.

So we laughed!

I directed everyone in Tadasana, Shoulder Rolls, Neck Stretches, Hugs, Upward Salutes, interlaced hands behind back, Yoga Mudra, Standing Back Bend and Pranayama.

Then we did Partner Trees, which one of the students remembered from Yoga Day!  We "grew branches", had the "sun come out", had the "clouds roll in", then the "rain came down"--LOTS of laughter.

Then we did a Group Tree and got to work.

About a half hour later, someone yelled, "YOGE MINUTE!" and some of us stopped throwing and I showed everyone how to do partner Warrior ll and Partner Chair.

Somewhere in there one of the students got into Down Dog and I shimmied under like a snake, then went into Cobra.  Again, lots of laughter!  Of course.

Went back to throwing.

Finally, as I was getting ready to clean up (2 hours later!), I yelled, "YOGA MINUTE!"

We all washed our hands and got in line for Shoulder Massages.

This turned into a long activity, with my colleague lying over the table with 2 students working out the knots in her shoulders.  Another student lay on her back on the floor and gave me an "Airplane Ride", supported by her hands and legs!

Crazy!

I'm going into the Studio this morning to see how many bowls we actually made.

There was so much laughter and silliness, it was really fun.  I can't say were mellow and centered with our Yoga, but we certainly created esprit de corps and made bowls for a Project SHARE, a very good Karma Yoga evening!