A Basket of Beautiful Offerings
Once in a while, you attend a workshop or seminar that changes the way you look at something - enabling you to see things with fresh eyes. I had that experience this weekend, attending an anatomy and yoga workshop by Maria Cristina Jimenez, a very gifted young teacher, at Willow Street Yoga Center , in Maryland. Her extensive background in anatomy, yoga, Rolfing, and bodywork, punctuated by several dissections - and her clarity and the compassion she embodies for both her subject and her students - touched me profoundly, and enabled me to "re-imagine" the body and its amazing capabilities in a totally new way. Maria Cristina spoke of the importance of the language we use in our teaching and the effect it has on our understanding and impressions of the body. For example, instead of referring to the "rib cage" in this manner, she introduced the image of a "rib basket" instead, which contains our vital organs. When I shared this notion in my own yoga cla