Hi there…I know it’s been a few days since you’ve heard from me but I spent the weekend in the yoga studio. I had the amazing opportunity to attend an Inversion Flow Weekend with Briohny Smyth and her husband Dice Iida-Klein. Briohny is a well-known yoga teacher who is famous for her Equinox yoga video which has over four million views on YouTube.

It was a huge treat for the Charlotte yoga community to have Briohny and Dice for the weekend. We started with a two-hour master class on Friday night that focused on hip opening to get us into eka pada galavasana. To give you an idea of the intensity of hip opening in the class…we started in double pigeon. My hips are still sore today…it was so hard but so good.

Saturday morning was a three-hour inverted backbend practice. We worked on tons of backbends from forearm balance with our pivotal pose being full handstand scorpion.  Here are a few pictures from that practice.

Dice demoing tick tocks, photo credit Wanda Koch.

Briohny demoing a prep for hollow back.

Practicing hollow back, photo Wanda Koch.

Another angle of hollow back. The focus is to learn how to back bend from your upper back and not all in your lower back.

Saturday afternoon was a three-hour acro/partner workshop. I was feeling pretty exhausted and sore from Friday night and Saturday morning and the combination of eating a brownie and a pumpkin cupcake for lunch at a baby shower but I rallied. This workshop was so much fun. We worked on partner stretches and acro yoga. We warmed up Rockette-style in a straight line and went through a flow together and held each others shoulders for a lot of the poses.

Photo Wanda Koch.

Photo Wanda Koch.

And then we got into the crazy acro yoga stuff. This is where I learned that despite my cheerleading background and spending years being thrown up in the air…I have major trust issues. 😉

Briohny and Dice demoing. Amazing. Photo Wanda Koch.

Photo Wanda Koch.

Photo Wanda Koch.

It wasn’t just guy/girl. We are strong too!

I had to miss the handstand workshop this morning because I had to teach but I was so grateful for the time that I did spend with Briohny and Dice. It is so inspiring to be taught by such incredible yogis who have so much knowledge to share.

I love yoga.