Aria Mayland

I had the good fortune to practice next to Aria one day in class, and let me tell you, it's impressive. After taking her class, however, I understood that her inversions weren't a result of pure luck, but of intelligent, mindful and a very specific sort of hard work. After some slow stretches, strengthening and awakening work and some flow, we moved onto our peak pose, handstand. The intention for the class I took was about rolling in the inner thighs, and we took out blocks and practiced that. Aria commented about firming the triceps towards the biceps, and gave us many more precise cues that unfortunately I cannot now remember. But I did mind them very much, and as all yogic work, it sinks into the body sometimes without notice. Then, Aria took it one step further, and asked us to do donkey kicks with a block between my thighs. This was absurdly frustrating (and for that reason brilliant). I can do a decent job with donkey kicks, but with a block, my ego took a nose dive. And watching that process, and the senselessness of those thoughts- there the yoga kicked in. We moved into other handstand preparations, and then finally went up, which was so fun and super rewarding. Aria gave lots of options for how to kick up into handstand, and individually guided students. Handstand (next to camel) is my favorite super refreshing pose. I felt amazing after that class....