The ankle connects to the lower spine—ah!—then the foot can move to lengthen the spine. The lower spine connects to the upper spine and now the shoulders can be free. Ah!
The first time I studied with Diane Long*** was in Toronto in 2011. It was April, and the trees were just beginning to open in bud, the children splashing in the puddles of melting snow and spring rains, and the sun shone down fiercely.
I had had a conversation about yoga with my teacher, Rudy Ballentine, not long before. I was feeling an enormous frustration with the aerobic-style of yoga I encountered in every class in every studio I visited. “IN BREATH; DOWN DOG! OUT BREATH: PLANK!” I wanted a yoga that moved in my body from the inside out. Yoga that emerged from the inherent wisdom of my body. Yoga that was tantric and rich and embodied. Yoga that prepared my body for meditation in a way that was not violent.
One day, I received an email from Rudy, full of excitement and exclamation marks (which is really not his style!). He told me of a yoga teacher he’d met in Oaxaca, whose teaching was the manifestation of my fantasy. He waxed poetic about his experience with her.
I checked out her website, and found that she travels all over the world from her home base in Italy. And so a few months later, I made the trek up to Canada for my first encounter with Diane Long. I was blown away. Her teaching is unlike anything I had ever encountered or even imagined possible. She sat on her yoga mat in the middle of the group and asked, “What do you want to work on?” And someone said something, and we were off.
Diane rolled her pant legs up, and as she moved, I could see how the ankle connects to the lower spine. And the lower spine connects back to the floor. There is no question that it happened. I could see it in her body, and then I tried it in mine. Diane came to my mat, and with pushing and prodding, and her words, suddenly I too experienced in my own body how my ankle connected to my spine. Then she left me to go to another student, and I re-created the sensation, letting her words echo in my tissues, my ankle, my spine. Then, my seated forward fold went right to the floor, and I rested there.
During that first class, I tried to take notes. I was afraid I would forget things. The next day, Diane talked our bodies into the exact same experiences through very different routes. And again I tried to take notes. On the third day, when she approached the same asana using yet another way to experience the connections, I put down my notebook. This was not a learning that could be duplicated, as in, “follow this instruction every time, and you will get to the floor in seated forward fold.” It was and is a living, breathing experiment in yoga. How does this part of my body connect with that part of my body? How does opening the ankle result in a deeper freedom in my lower spine? How do my shoulders create spaciousness in my cervical area? And how does all of this happen TODAY? How it happened yesterday is really not very important. And if today were the same as yesterday; if I were able to exactly replicate what I experienced yesterday, that wouldn’t be very interesting anyway.
Diane’s yoga classes are not based upon achieving an asana, but instead upon the freedom experienced when the body is connected. In that freedom, my body easily moves into what has been challenging spaces.
She will not tell me how to hold my pelvis, or in which direction to point my toes. Nor will she instruct in the 'proper' rotation of my shoulders. She teases, coaxes, and cajoles my body into finding it’s own freedom within the connections. The abandon of striving for a perfect shoulder stand reveals the complex simplicity of my own experience of connectedness of shoulder and spine, hips and ankles, ankles and spine. The whole grand experience of my body alive, vital, dynamic, and free.
And here I am again, for the third January in a row, in Oaxaca, staying in a little posada on the beach, drinking mango juice, and riding the colectivo to a yoga studio to work with my yoga teacher. I am aware of a deep appreciation and an intimacy with my own body.
This is Yoga from the inside out. Tantric yoga. As within, so without. Everything is an Experiment.
Om Śantih Om
***Diane studied with Vanda Scaravelli, author of Awakening the Spine (which I highly recommend), and a profound teacher in her own right. If this description of yoga appeals to you, you may wish to study with Diane or one of her students. More information is posted on Diane’s web page http://www.dianelongyoga.com/