At a morning of Yoga On The Rocks with Core Power Yoga, Ruby Warrington finds herself on the fast track to yogic bliss. Because even the healthiest highs are about the set and setting, right?
2000 yogis under one sky…and getting high at Red Rocks
They say that the key to achieving the perfect high is all in the “set and setting” – where you do whatever it is that’s going to get you there, and who you do it with (the voice in your own head included).
And if the concept was adopted by psychedelic pioneer Timothy Leary in the 1960s, who applied it to his early experiments with LSD, a recent experience out in the wilds of Colorado proved that the same theory can be applied to the more wholesome consciousness-elevating practise of yoga.
Two weeks ago, I joined 1999 of my fellow yogis at Core Power Yoga’s Yoga on the Rocks, an outdoor, 7am class at the iconic Red Rocks amphitheatre just outside Denver. Considering I’m usually a solo flying Yogaglo.com girl (my mat lives under the rug in my living room / home office, so I can just log on and get my dog on whenever I find a moment in my day), its safe to say that when it comes to set and setting, finding my spot between the majestic slabs of sandstone rising into the sky was a serious “WOW”.
And twenty minute into the class, a juicy, danceable sequence led by Vinny Amendola, Core Power Yoga’s Director of Operations, I swear I could have flown up into the cloudless sky on the wings of my warrior three and not come down for as long as the flow kept flowing.
The phrase “high as a kite” was made for moments like this – and yet at the same time, I felt one hundred percent embodied. In other words, it seams that practising with a Beyonce-concert-sized crowd in an outdoor venue designed to amplify the magic of music, was the express train to yogic bliss.
Lululemon took over the Royal Opera House in London in March 2014
The super-sized, out-of-the-studio yoga experience has been trending for a few years now. From the Mind Over Madness Summer Solstice practise in Times Square, to Lululemon’s 600-strong class at London’s Royal Opera House in March this year, my 60-something Bikram sessions are serious small fry. Just this week I caught up with Elena Brower, fresh back from guiding a 6000-person class in Montreal (a record – but only in Canada).
But why go to all the effort of bringing together such a throng, when yoga, essentially, is an inward experience? “Because community magnifies the power of yoga,” says Heather Peterson, the Senior Vice President of programming for Core Power Yoga (a very corporate-sounding title for one very spiritually aligned lady).
“There’s an energy exchange that happens. When you’re sharing an experience with a large group of people it’s possible to actually feel how our energy is connected. I think we’ve all experienced it at a concert. And that’s one of the great lessons of yoga – that we are not separate. We are one, but many.”
Lululemon ambassador Alison Cramer of Laughing Lotus in NYC led the 1000-strong closing session at this year’s Solstice event in Times Square, and has this to add; “The word ‘Yoga’ comes from the Sanskrit root “YUJ” and means “union”- the union we have with the Divine within (or best self, highest consciousness, God, whatever the word you use) and the union we have with the world around us.
When hundreds of people come together for practice, we are physically, tangibly connected by a common activity that encourages us to live from that Divine self, and reminds us that we are all on this spiritual path together.”
Put like that, it makes sense that the most transformative incidents I’ve experienced in my practise have without doubt occurred when it’s mat-to-mat at one of Elena, or Seane Corn or Gabby Bernstein’s 200-strong Wanderlust master-classes. Cut to tears streaming down my face and a healing connection to the most unreachable parts of me.
Yoga On The Rocks; “A fast track to tinglesville”
So what about setting? Living in Brooklyn I don’t get that many chances to practise outside, but whenever I do it’s a fast track to tinglesville. Could be because; “touching nature balances modern life,” as Heather Peterson puts it.
“In the ancient practice of Ayurneda, the science of living a healthy, balanced life, one of the key components to balance the aggressive pita energy of modern society that we all live in, one of the key soothing balms to that, is nature. It’s the water we’re all so thirsty for. It’s like the rain that finally comes.”
There was no rain at Red Rocks, just an open blue sky of endless possibility above. And if 7am sun salutations always sound a little too ambitious for you, the early morning start was the final piece in the puzzle; “Sun salutations were designed in the original thought as an opening and warming of the body. It’s literally evoking the energy of the Sun,” says Peterson.
“You realize; this is what the yogis intended, so many centuries ago, when they said ‘practise early, sadhana early.’ You realize the ultimate plan.”
Lululemon’s Serpentine Summer Sunset will happen at the Serpentine Pavilion in London’s Hyde Park at 7pm on August 20th . Yoga On The Rocks with Core Power Yoga will return in summer 2015.
