I wasn’t kidding when I said I was lucky. Obviously not! One huge part of my life in California that I miss terribly was my twice-a-week two-and-a-half hour one-on-one yoga lessons that I did for three years with a beautiful Javanese yogini named Sammie. She’s the sort of yogini who can wrap her feet around her head with no problem, as if her bones were made of rubber. It’s not that she doesn’t work at it: she gets up at 4 every morning and practices – hard – for two hours. That is the kind of dedication that, alas, I can only hope awaits me in a future life.

Sammie sent me an email recently suggesting we do a yoga class together in cyberspace. As always, Kevin got the technology in place, and then there I was doing sun salutations in our bedroom in front of our webcam. On my Mac, I could see Sammie in California scrutinizing my performance on her computer. Her voice came over the speaker phone instructing me to ‘get those hips higher’ in Downward Dog and ‘stretch those legs further’ in Warrior Two. I tried to execute the poses as gracefully as I knew how but it wasn’t easy. I haven’t worked that hard at yoga since I was last in Sammie’s beautiful home in the Oakland hills two and a half years ago. Try as I might, I just can’t push myself the way Sammie pushes me. Our cyber-session lasted two hours and left me exhausted but invigorated. It was a lovely gift she gave me. Imagine sitting in front of your computer for two hours watching someone do yoga! Let me just say, you wouldn’t be bored if it were Sammie you were watching.

I’m hoping I can get Sammie to be my Official Foreign Yoga Correspondent from time to time. I’ll write to her right now …

Ruth

Categories: Yoga
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