Subtle Heat: Matthew Cohen's Chi Kung and Yoga

Matthew began class in my favorite way: asking his students how they were feeling. Tired, sad? Ok, tired yes, but not so sad. Ok. So, tired. Hip openers?

Reclining twist, hugging in the knee.....(oh, good, I think, this is the practice I was in the mood for...Chi Kung, yoga....sounds easy, right? A few hip openers....).

Yeah, right. Matthew is a martial arts instructor, and easy and martial arts, in my experience, is anything but easy.

First come crunches. And ok, I'm into crunches. I love awakening my core, even if my brain hasn't caught up yet. The first lunge I took half asleep....and then something snapped. We didn't leave the lunge. We lept up, into crane, half moon, dragon*. The best way to describe it, as Matthew said, was forming half a ying yan symbol. He came up to me and adjusted me so that I twisted deeper, and I understood why. I'm wide awake by now, and we move into warrior two, reverse warrior, triangle (an amazing neck adjustment!). I'm burning up with heat and completely confused as to why- we had, after all, done only a few lunges, right? Ah, but there's the energy of the class....

After a long lunge series on each side, we did a series of pidgeons as part of padmasana preparation. After which we did one of those surprisingly mind-boggling tricks: rotating the torso in opposition to the arms. Tricky.

The most powerful element I took out of class was Matthew's advice that, in his heritage, practitioners softened their chest (mine has a permanent rise per Colleen's memory). The heart is softened, and the spine, the central channel, rises instead. See how that works with your body, he offers, try it out...

*I believe it was called dragon. I'll have to ask.