Shiva to the left, shiva to the right

I went to a new yoga studio last night to try it out as part of my sampling of the San Francisco Yoga Buffet*. I'm checking out all the studios within a 20 min bike ride of home to see which one I like the best.

The class I went to last night was at Laughing Lotus in the Mission. The teacher talked waaaaaay more than I want or need any yoga teacher to talk during class. However, what she did do effectively through the combo lecture/yoga class was create an overarching theme for the practice: we focused on Shiva, who symbolizes destruction, change and dance all wound together in a spinning way with a little bit of almost falling down thrown in as well.

After we got a little warmed up, the teacher stopped and declared that the class was taking a field trip: she instructed us all to crowd around a painting of Shiva on the wall. It looked like this:



"During class today," she said, "I'm going to call out 'Shiva!' and then you strike this pose." [She spread her arms and lifted one leg up, like Shiva in the painting.]

"I might say 'Shiva to the left!' and ha! [she strikes the pose] you go there."

"Or I might say 'Shiva to the right!' Ha! [pose again] You go there."

And so we Shiva'd our way through the practice, residing in the moment and the feeling of almost falling.

I give the class 7 out of 10, but then need to dock them an additional half point for going 20 min over the scheduled end time.



*Not an actual buffet.