Ana Forest Workshop
Ana Forest: Heal Your Back Workshop
Yoga Journal Conference Miami
“If you want to use yoga to heal emotional pain, you must find out where it resides in your body and learn to take your breath there. I don’t teach yoga to help people to transcend. I want people’s spirits to reside in their body. I literally want to help people embody their spirit. Not go through life fragmented.”
Ana Forrest (www.forrestyoga.com)
As soon as i walked into the room, i could feel that Ana Forest is a formidable presence. She looked more petite than on her DVDs and you could tell that she cared deeply for everyone in the room, but she was also really tough and nothing escaped her eagle eye. Within the first couple of minutes she told us ‘i’ve already spotted the people who space out- i’m going to keep bringing you back.’ I think i may have been one of those people, as there were a couple of times where my attention may have wandered only to feel the force of her gaze right at me, and the reminder to come back. She had a really down to earth approach to ‘being present’ an expression that she distainded, she told us ‘don’t just remind yourself to be present- actually experience the inhale, the exhale and the sensations within your body.’ Taking notes was not allowed- instead she told us to ‘store the information in our cellular tissue’.This was a transformative class, rather than a relaxing one, Ana’s tone was often stern- although she balanced that with humor, there was no music and the room was hot. I didn’t bring a block, but they were prepared with extra rolled up towels (and i didn’t get into trouble).
Ana also had some tough spunky assistants- they were also really switched on. Plus they, and her, wore some tough, leather, motorbike looking fingerless gloves. I asked one of the assistants about them, and she told me was to protect their wrists because they do so many arm balancing postures, i was glad we didn’t do many in this class. Ana started with lots of wrist stretches- taking one arm out in front, palm facing forwards, then pulling back each finger, keeping the rest spread.
Throughout the class she reminded us to ‘Be generous with yourselves- take big breaths’. We all had to investigate our backs with breath, then ‘choose our area’ (the area of spine where we felt pain or tension) and she kept reminding us to return our breath and awareness through the class, to each area.
Maybe because this was a theraputic class- she probably gave the most options of any of the instructors, and told us the specfic healing adaptions for each injury. She was very specific with all her instructions, telling us ‘i choose my words very carefully- if you follow exactly what i’m saying, this will feel amazing- if you kinda sorta follow, you’ll kinda sorta get it- but we don’t want any kinda sorta stuff here’. Her instructions were all very detailed and precise, for example, she often instructed us to ‘Draw sitbones towards tailbone’ (sometimes instucted individually for each side), an instruction that it took me a while to integrate!
Another intense and powerful exercise was to lay prone with a rolled up mat under the lower belly, Ana said ‘be prepared to face your demons,because this is where we store all our shit’.
I could feel a deep throbbing at the belly- more a pulsating than pain- and it was really intense. We kept the blanket roll under the belly and lifted up into cobra pose and after that it felt a bit more comfortable. Aparantly if we have intestional congestion/blockage it often reads as back pain, Ana also described it as a healing pose for eating disorders.
While Ana did not use the forum of the workshop to talk about her past trauma which including being born ‘crippled’, physical abuse, drug addiction, epilepsy, and bulimia, she is very upfront in the way that her past has compelled her to develop her system of yoga and share it with the world as ‘a living example of a spirit who has freed herself from the bondage of trauma, and chosen a warrior’s path of compassion’ (www.forrestyoga.com)
You can read more about Ana’s life, philosophy and see some incredible video of her practice at forrestyoga.com. The picture below also comes from her website- there was no photo session at the end of this workshop!
