…have yoga mat will travel

Stacey Rosenberg

We can’t help but hear the 70’s lyrics …”Joy to the world, all the boys and girls… Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea… Joy to you and me,” every time we are lucky enough to enter a class of a Master Anusara teacher who has been trained by its founder, John Friend. It happened first on fateful day 8, when we were blown away by cheerful Denise Benitez and her happy bunch of yogis at her studio, Seattle Yoga Arts. This elated experience repeated at Yoga of Sausalito when Laura Christensen was our bright, shinin’ and gifted guide. Our third time-definitely a charm when robust recommendations led us to the super-pleasurable, super- engaging, total body challenge of Stacey Rosenberg at Yoga Tree-Hayes in San Francisco.

Ganesha

Sitting comfortably mat to mat with our yogi neighbors, all attention turned toward Stacey, PhD of story tellin’, who began a series of accounts about Ganesha. After all, it was his birthday and there were just so many life lessons to be learned from this “remover of obstacles”, Elephant God. Throughout the next 1 ½ hours of her “from the heart , challenging sequence, Stacey masterfully interwove tales about wisdom, joy , strength and gentleness, while playfully educating us eager yogis on savoring life’s sweetness – just like Ganesha savored his bowl of modak (sweets) which he held in one of his 4 hands.

Joyous Encouragement

Sweet too, was this clever teacher who kept our minds intrigued while working our YoYo bodies to the brink of a possible slide off our always “keepin’ us skidless”, yogi toes. Wanting to know more about this amusing Deity and his eco-friendly mouse transportation, our compelling teacher masterfully turned this test of strength class, into a fest of pleasure and joy. Could it be that after that muscle explosion, this talented instructor even had one sweet bedtime story left for our most beautiful savasana?

After learning, laughin’, breathin’, workin’ and just enjoyin’ our time with Stacey, we could think of nothin’ better than to head back through the twisty ,turney, “scarier than hell in the dark” Mt. Tam that returns us to the sea and have some sweet dreams about Ganesha….Happy Birthday!