Wanderlust – the firsts
It’s the second day of the Wanderlust festival in Taupo and James participated in his first group session this morning whilst I was on Mum duties (bathing, feeding, wrangling and entertaining).
James has chosen to by pass any actual yoga involvement and has opted for the running/hiking options instead. This morning he did a 7k trail run with about 15 other individuals. When Issy asked “who won?” James replied that it was not a race. She continued “so who got back first?” and when it turned out to be her Dad she excitedly squeeled “so you would have won, if it was a race!” I laughed and said that James should only do running races against yogi’s – he’d be set.
I on the other hand have OBVIOUSLY decided to opt out of any running activities so my first class of the day was to be a yin session titled “Sweet Surrender” with Nianna Bray at lunchtime. I’ve never done a yin session with an actual teacher unless you count when I follow Yogi Nora’s instructions on her you tube channel so this was somewhat a first for me and I actually dropped an arm balance class to attend. I thought that I should try at least ONE different style of yoga whilst I’m here.
The packed out class started with some gentle movements and and my initial thought was “this is a bit hippy for me” (there were a lot of phrases such as “you are a marauding bear” or “be flowing water”) but once we settled into a long held pose it was more the yin yoga I am familiar.
I’ll be honest and say that most of the time I was lying there thinking, “argh I could be doing cool stuff right now”, but I loved listening to the teacher explaining things about the bones and tendons AND I felt great afterwards. I think I’ll always remember that Nina said, “you’ve had a great yin experience if you come out of a pose feeling like an 80 year old”. I certainly had a great yin experience then!
My next class was something I’m more familiar with “Zero Gravity” with Cameron Shayne. I could hear Cameron whopping and hollering yesterday afternoon when he took a session in the main tent and I hoped he wouldn’t be quite that loud in today’s class as our yoga space was about 1/10th the size of the main tent officially named, the Greatest Place.
He turned out to be barely dressed (but I wasn’t going to complain) and pretty full on in a somewhat confrontational way to those in the room who dared to say “I can’t”. I took an immediate like to him and not just because he looked good in barely any clothes and could do cool tricks. He described himself as a blue collar yogi and I fully related to that.
The class was a workshop that focused on floating and handstands. For those of you who are not yogi’s floating is when you transition from one pose to another by gliding through the air (as opposed to the heavy thud that I usually do). My highlights were (after many misses) finally nailing floating into crow, floating into a tuck handstand and floating back into chaturunga somewhat elegantly (although I couldn’t hold it in mid air like the uber yogis). My complete misses were floating into 8 angle pose and floating from handstand to peacock which is because I haven’t even got a peacock yet. You sure work up a sweat here at Wanderlust!
So that was my second day at Wanderlust. Two new teachers, one new style and a couple of new tricks to take away and play with. At this moment, the majority of Wanderlusters are out on the lawn listening to the music which will be going through to the wee small hours, I however am glad I have an excuse (or two in fact) to head to bed shortly .. for those of you who think yoga is a breeze, you’ve obviously never done over 3 hours a day of it. 😉
Till next time
