Friday, February 5, 2010

Yoga Journal Conference: Day 2, Session 1: Ganesha's Seat with Angela Farmer and Victor van Kooten


Ganesha's Seat
Angela Farmer & Victor van Kooten
- Course ID: M1AFVV

Saturday, January 30 — 8:00am - 10:00am
Main Conference - Session 1
Mixed Levels

Muladhara, the root chakra, brings us back home to our place on this planet and opens us to the energy that both nourishes us and rises through our bodies to the sky. Understanding our roots and deep connection to the Earth, we'll explore the many different directions in which this energy can be guided to broaden and ease our practice.
Asana with discussion.

I sat right up front, and did not take many notes.
When there is a true connection, taking notes is almost silly.
Angela teaches through transmission.










Victor drew a Ganesha sitting on his lotus seat.
They pointed to the fact that the lotus he is sitting on points in both directions, down and up.

The focus of the class was connecting to the Perineum pointing down as the beginning of the "tail".
We played with opening the perineum in all directions to help root, lift and open.
"The base chakra is about coming home"

The first suggestion was to rustle in like a dog, or hen into the seat.
Honor the earth.

"Open root and relax"
"Go down"
Angela put forth the imagery of standing on a bridge and looking down to get a sense of drawing attention down.  She used the analogy of boats passing by and to the side to draw attention right and left.  We used this to feel the "light of the perineum" or "tail" moving in the opposite rooting direction.

"Body responds more to imagery than anatomical instruction, because its organic"

"The light of the pelvis, the perineum."
"Nothing is straight in nature"

"Follow our path, but don't get carried away with the path"

"Notice the rigid back body and soft front body"

Partner
Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana




Rolling the perineum in different directions.

I played with applying it to a variety of standing poses.

Angela demonstrated her Tree Pose:



Applied to Tadasana, feel the perineum, or arch of the foot.

"Directing and shining"
"Relaxing down in to the pelvis"
"Grounding and feeling the support"

"Go down to come up"


"if you get carried away with what is happening, you will break it"
By this Angela showed how while the energy might be opening up through the heart to suddenly get seduced by that movement, one might lose the original current.
Then we applied it Dog.
I have a very intimate video of Victor pointing at Angela's mulabandha spot...not sure it is cool to load...Paused.



Their work is SO SUBTLE that I am not sure that these videos communicate very well.  Perhaps they mostly remind me of what we did.  You can learn more about Victor and Angela at: http://angela-victor.com/








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