Le plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. (Sorta)
It’s hard to pinpoint the exact moment my yoga adventure really began –– sometime around when I was 11 or 12 and read my first yoga book and started doing poses –– but a MAJOR chapter took place at the Laughing Lotus in NYC where I did my teacher training and taught for nearly a decade.
I’ve been back a bunch since retiring from the Lotus, and yet it’s now been a year and a half since I’ve taken a class at the center.
First of all, I walked past the entrance to the building since it’s been entirely remodeled.
Secondly, the whole floor has been taken over, so instead of heading down the hallway and hanging a right, you take a right, then a left, then you’re in the middle of things and then … you’re there. [IE, the space is totally re-configured.]
Two of the senior teachers and I exchanged effusive greetings and I reunited with several wonderful, longtime students –– although none of the karmis at the front desk had the vaguest sense of who I was.
I almost reenacted the scene with Will Ferrell and Christina Applegate in ANCHORMAN, THE LEGEND OF RON BURGUNDY:
Ron Burgundy: I don’t know how to put this but I’m kind of a big deal.
Veronica Corningstone: Really.
Ron Burgundy: People know me.
Veronica Corningstone: Well, I’m very happy for you.
Ron Burgundy: I’m very important.
Anyway, although I felt both totally at home and a complete stranger, taking class with Dana was the same as ever.
Inspiring and athletic. Incredibly sophisticated in its sequencing, yet seemingly spontaneous and improvised. Dazzlingly inventive yet rock solid. And mostly feeling like you’ve somehow drifted into a really great party that you really wanted to be at for years –– one where you were totally welcome and at home –– and in lots of ways, never, ever want to leave.
So even though I didn’t recognize the entrance to the building, and 95% of the people didn’t recognize me, there was something unbelievably spectacular about being back at the Lotus and taking a Dana class on a Friday afternoon.
Maybe you can come home again …
