Today my roommate Laura and I decided to try a new yoga class. The style was Kundalini, which I've read and studied about but never tried before. The class was an hour and a half long and we knew there would be more meditation than yoga classes we're used to attending and possibly some chanting with the meditation. We were ok with this--prepared. We were the only new people in the class.
     However, the warm up was vigorous, all breathing and sitting with one more that required us to stand up, down, up, down as fast as we could. My legs were so tired from running 11.5 miles this morning, I didn't think I'd survive! I was kind of panicked about what the rest of the practice would be. The rest was not like this. We spent the rest of the time sitting or lying down.
     We did three moves in the warm up (mostly sitting and breathing fast, opening energy sources through the body), taking around 20 minutes. We then laid down for meditation. Next the instructor called us to sit with him while he showed us our "tree" for the bulk of our practice. He had a whole book of poses open to a page with three poses. A sitting one, a lying down one (the person had zig-zaggy lines like the rays of a sun all around him), and another sitting. He told us the chant for the first sitting time and the last sitting time and explained the lying down pose. I assumed he'd flip the page and show us more things, there was at least another hour left of class, how could we only do three things!?
     But nope. That was it. Three things. Not even poses really. The whole time I was thinking this is one of the weirdest things I've ever done! But not really in a bad way. The lying down pose with the buzzy lines around it was so strange but amazing! He told us to lie there and move every part of our body, wiggle every single part, but keep everything in contact with the ground. He said to shake out our anger. Shake it all out. It was so tiring and I felt stupid, but my God! It was great! When I thought I was too tired to shake anything else out, he'd say, "Channel your aggression and your anger. Get it out! Cleanse everything." And I'd think, man! I AM angry! This feels great! and I'd wiggle harder, energy renewed. Then he'd say, "Are you moving everything? Shake through the tongue, wiggle your face, your eyes, your nose!" And I waggle my tongue inside my mouth and squint and move my face like I had some kind of nervous twitch. Super weird. I can't imagine how much power it took the yogi not to laugh at all of us. We probably looked like spaztastic seizure victims, twitching all over the floor, making ridiculous faces. But oh, the spazy twitching was so effective and wonderful.
     The last thing we did was chant. For fifteen minutes. The same thing sitting with our eyes closed. It was the longest I have ever spent focusing on one thing. The chant basically meant, great is the greatness. Meaning the world and universe and life and everything are great and vast and wonderful. Since we were chanting for so long, though, I forgot what the chant meant. I kept thinking, wow this is the longest I've ever focused on one thing, this is good for me. I need practice with meditation. When we were done, the yogi said, "Ecstasy! Great is the Greatness!" And someone said, "Oh!" and someone else said, "Is that what that was?" haha, so I wasn't the only one who forgot!
     Overall, we both thought Kundalini was weird, but not necessarily in a bad way. We're glad we tried it and loved the shaking out of the anger--I'd recommend trying that at home to anyone! I did miss the movement and stretching of Hatha and Vinyasa types of yoga, but I definitely need practice meditating so this was probably very good for me. Interesting to say the least.