I had so much fun last night – a friend of mine whom I haven’t seen in like a year and a half held a Yoga Trance Dance Workshop at Yoga Samadhi Studios.  It was sort of like Yoga meets a Widespread Concert.  It started off with traditional Yoga poses, but then you branch out and leave your “assigned” space – moving in any way you want.  For instance, if you were in the down dog position, you could sweep your leg across the floor creating “your” movement.  As Jennifer said, it was like making a Jackson Pollock painting with your body.  

Eventually, after about 40 minutes of quiet Yoga, Jen put on some awesome eclectic trance music from different parts of the world, and we were encouraged to just dance around.  All around.  Leaving your space completely.  Having Fun.  It was a blast!  If you like to dance, it is surely something to look into.  If you aren’t comfortable with that sort of dance, then you might feel a little uncomfortable at first, but after a few minutes, you will feel completely at home.  Every move you make is honored, and nobody is really paying attention to what you’re doing.  The idea of “looking dumb” just isn’t a possibility in this space.  It was pretty neat.  AND…I bet I burned a TON of calories between the Yoga and the dancing.  The end of the the evening is brought back to a calm Yoga and Meditation.  I’d definitely do it again!  I think there’s a time and a place for structured Yoga and a time and a place for “outside the box” Yoga, both of which I really appreciated.  This was something really new to me and I enjoyed the fun and openness of it very much so.  There was definitely a spiritual essence to this too.  

The funny thing is that Jen hasn’t seen me at all since I lost 80 pounds, so while we were dancing, she came up to me and danced around me and said, “It’s soooo good to see you!  Well.  At least half of you!”  Hahaha.  It was funny.  But while I was dancing and swaying and jumping around, I caught my attention thinking about how I was doing all of these movements with 80 less pounds on  me.  I felt so much lighter and happier, and it was a feeling I wouldn’t trade for the world.  I still got out of breath, but just the knowing at how much less weight I was carrying made me feel really awesome and so much healthier.  My body is my temple!  Oh, and I did a Yoga pose that I wasn’t able to do before!  So that was super exciting!

Here’s to trying very new things and letting yourself go.