Namaste, Luz e Harmonia

This post is for all my beautiful yogis!  I just got home from my first yoga class here in Brazil.  A friend from school knew about this studio because her mom works there. She introduced me to the studio and she and her brother attended the class with me.  There were five other people in the class as well, including the teacher.  The room was white and clean, and felt like yoga.  Upon entering the room I breathed a sigh of relief: this is something I know.  We began the class in a seated meditation, breathing and clearing our minds.  I could understand a fair amount of what the teacher was saying, but I'm sure that some things got lost in translation.  One thing that was repeated many times and I understood, was the idea of inhaling light and exhaling harmony.  I thought this was beautiful.  The class was an hour long and consisted of four to five combinations of poses, repeated several times.  I was familiar with most of the poses, but the order they practiced them was different.  There was a lot of downward facing dog and, to my delight, pose da criança (child's pose).  With each set, the teacher gave us an intention.  I had difficulty translating these in my head, but one that I think I got correct was, "We put all of our energy towards the divine journey."  My intention for each set was to translate the intention she had given us.  During last set we were in child's pose, but a variation where we had rolled forward onto our heads, our backs parallel to the ground.  Then I heard the teacher say something that sounded like "inversion", and I thought, "We're in child's pose, how can we do an inversion now?"  But before I knew it I was balanced on my head and hands, with my elbows supporting my knees and my feet in the air.  I felt pretty accomplished.  We then enjoyed a luxurious savasana and ended with many "namaste"s.    

I talked with the teacher after the class was over about the differences and similarities of this class and my mom's classes.  The teacher invited me to return next week and see what another class was like, because each class is different.  The biggest difference I found was the greater focus on breathing and lesser focus on alignment.  But despite small differences, I left the class feeling as uplifted and calm as I do after my mom's classes.