Class: 4-5:45pm, "Cosmic Play", Dana.I read in an online article that Dana is sometimes referred to as "the Janis Joplin of yoga". This is not an inaccurate description.
I was shocked when Dana introduced herself to me in class (she didn't remember me, nor did I expect her to) at how beautiful her face is up close. It's tan and creased and her eyes look right at you in a way that feels dangerous and delicious and...breathtaking. As I watched her walk away to take her place at the front of the class I immediately decided that if I loved women (in that way) that I would be in love with her. She is hot, hot, hot.
Dana did not remember me, because I had only taken one of her classes prior to her and Jasmine's (the other co-founder of the Lotus) move to San Francisco. I only took one of her classes before that because I was pretty sure, halfway through that one class I took back then, that I was going to die, and that it would be Dana's fault if I did. Now, mind you, I was taking a super-advanced class back then when I had no business doing so, and if I had died it would have been no one's fault but my own. However, it did put a permanent terror in my heart when it came to taking Dana's classes.
Also, of the founding team of Laughing Lotus, Dana is definitely the Shakti to Jasmine's Shiva, if you know what I'm saying. To put it plainly, she's terrifying. Sooooo, when I heard she was coming back in town and that she'd be teaching the Tuesday afternoon Super-Crazy-Advanced-Class that I have now been regularly attending, I figured I'd bite my lips and go. Terrified or not. And I was. Terrified, that is.
Dana does not, like most of the teachers at the Lotus, spend a lot of time up front talking before class starts...she just opens up that harmonium and lets it rip, singing out Shri Ram Jai Ram, her voice cracking, just like Janis Joplin.
"Shri Ram, Jai Ram, Jai Jai Ram, Om" She says "No, not your friend Ramone!" We laugh. Yoga humor. You had to be there. Over and over we sang, and sang and sang. Halfway through she called out "Now, pretend you're in San Francisco and swaaaaay!" And we all did, and we all laughed, swaying and singing. I closed my eyes and let the sound wash over and through me. We sang and sang until she asked us to sing it one last time "Sweetly now..." and then we all finished and we sat and the aftermath of the sound buzzed around and she let out a deep thick chuckle and announced, "Well, I am just Vibrating. Are you?" And I was. We all were.
About the class itself: I am proud to say I did not die. Not only did I not die, I survived quite admirably. I kept up. I could not, no, wrap my legs around my head in lotus and then roll up into a seated position (if you can call it seated when your legs are wrapped around your head). I did get one leg around my head for a little bit. The left one. Thank you, left leg! And, yes, my arms were shaking by the time we got to the inversions and I definitely could not throw in the forearm and handstands between the vinyasas like some...but I held my own. And, at some point, about halfway through class, something spectacular happened. I do not know if it was what Dana was saying, which now I can barely remember, or if it was the music (which was great), or the excitement of her being there, or just mind-gripping fatigue, but at some point I had the following short exchange with myself:
Me: I would really like you to be free.
Myself: Really?
Me: Yes. I love you, and I would really like you to be free.
Myself: I would like that too.
And then, it happened. I was free. And it felt un-fucking-believable. And then, of course, it went away. I tried to hang on to it...tried to remember it the next morning when I woke...tried to repeat the words to myself "I want you to be free", but it just wasn't the same. And I have to say, I do not think it was her sequencing or her words or her music, but it was Dana herself that allowed me that moment of...grace. She was a sharp hot knife and I was cold butter, and I ain't afraid of her no mo'!
Thank you, Dana.
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