The balls are strangely okay this time around. I can’t figure out what is making this session of Yoga on the Ball different from the last time I taught it, when I vowed never to teach it again.
Yoga on the Ball never felt like “yoga” to me; it felt gimmicky, more “yogic” than “yoga.” Add to that the plastic-y smell of the balls, the rude noises they made as people rolled around on them–in short, the whole thing was disgusting.
Except of course for the back bending over them, which was sublime.
And the forward bending over them, which was so comforting.
And just the happy, buoyancy of the damn things, which makes yoga feel fun even when you are holding Bridge till every fibrous tissue in your legs are burning from the effort to keep your feet from rolling off.
It’s also kind of fun to hold the ball aloft in Warrior 1. And then even more fun to put the heavy, sand-filled thing DOWN.
I think maybe the first time I taught it I thought it was going to be “YOGA …on the ball,” rather than ” Yoga …on the BALL.” Maybe the reason it is so much fun this time is that I’ve shifted my paradigm.
But more than that, I think it’s the people. The people in this class are what’s making this so much fun. None of them are new to yoga. All of them have practiced the hard, serious, “deep end of the pool” yoga. These are people who do crazy amounts of kapalabhati, hold kumbaks forever, know how to listen inside, and tune me out most of the time.
So, to give this kind of student a big, loud, smelly physio ball and say, “Hey, you think you can sit on this and do Vira 2?” They are totally cool with it. It’s fun to see these “deep end swimmers,” splashing around in the kiddie pool.
I took my new Kodak Share camera to class tonight, but the light was too dim, so I just hacked the shit out of this photo in Snapseed. This is a few of my deep end swimmers in Child’s pose on the Ball:
Inspiration Location 