MLK Day was the last day of the Interfusion Festival. I only signed up for two workshops, but I ended up taking three. I paid for the entire weekend, so I figured I might as well get the most out of it!
Starting the day off with a meditation was very relaxing. Yonah Levy led the practice, and I liked that he burned sage to create a relaxing atmosphere (the whole room smelled of relaxation). I'm not very good at meditating because my mind regularly wanders, but I won't get better at it unless I practice, so I am glad I had this opportunity to try it out again. We did some belly breathing, which I normally don't do, but I think it did help me center my thoughts. This workshop was scheduled to be 50 minutes, but it only lasted a half hour. In a way I was disappointed because I signed up for something more, but it was already hard enough for me to sit with my eyes closed for 30 minutes, let alone nearly an hour.
I thought this was going to be a workshop involving singing bowls*, but it turns out that we were making the sounds! We sat with our eyes closed, and then made different sounds (spending about 2-3 minutes on each sound, and then rotating back to repeat all of them). We made elongated sounds that were kind of like these words: Ohm, I'm, Cream, and Glum. For me it was like the meditation I did in the morning, except my mind couldn't wander as much because I was thinking about the sounds I was making. And if you've never been in a room full of people saying "Ohm" at the same time, it is very powerful! We also did breathing exercises, like fire breathing (i.e. fast, quick breaths) and breathing out fully with our tongues sticking out. One point that the teacher, Maryamma Paratan, made was that we should sit up very straight to properly do all of this. Since this workshop was nearly an hour long, sitting cross-legged with my back straight for that length of time was kind of difficult; some people in the class actually just laid down! Maryamma complimented me after class for sticking it out for so long. I think I would try doing this again while meditating at home, but only for ~10 minutes!
*In case you want to hear what singing bowls sound like, here's a clip (or nine hours of it...):
This was a class that I had not originally signed up for, but luckily there was enough room so I could join in. I thought this would be a good way to end the whole Interfusion weekend. I liked that the teacher, Anita Chandra Bliss, covered lower back issues, as well as those for the neck and shoulders, because I would say that is where I hold the most tension in my body. She has the mantra, "Support creates release," meaning that when you support your back and neck in the right way, that tension will be released. During the stretches, she talked about relaxing any muscles that aren't necessary for the benefit of the stretch; relax your hands, feet, face, etc. I thought some of her instructions were really repetitive, because in an hour we only did a handful of things, but she insisted on giving the same notes for both the left and right sides; she covered a lot of the same things twice, or even three or four times. I can appreciate this for safety purposes (i.e. to not hurt ourselves during the stretches), but the poses were not so complicated that we couldn't remember what we had done on the left by the time we were doing it on the right. I will say that I liked the spinal twists the best, because I do those at least once a day to crack my back (probably not what she has in mind by release, but it is so satisfying!). And then Interfusion 2019 was over! I'm not sure what the next one will hold, but I will definitely be there, because I already bought my ticket! Buy tickets for the 2020 festival here.
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