I discovered yoga a number of years ago and took my first class from an Indian teacher, Aisha, who wasn’t a proponent of power yoga or anything even closely resembling a workout. We would do a yoga pose and then rest for a minute or two before moving on to the next pose. This was an evening class held in a Hindu temple room with high ceilings and dim lights. It was very relaxing, especially  when we lay in shavasana (corpse pose) as Aisha spoke, guiding us through the final ten minutes of the class with a relaxation exercise that usually involved images of colors and shapes.
 
“Follow the rhythm of your breathing. Slowly take a deep breath, in and out. You see above you a blue sky with fluffy white clouds. Then the light begins to turn orange and later pink…”
       
As Aisha continued to speak, I would drift in and out of listening, sometimes following her directions but just as often not. It felt wonderful.

“What’s your favorite part of the class?” Janice, a fellow classmate, asked me one evening.
       
“I don’t know…I like it all. What about you?” I replied.
       
“Oh, I like the sleeping part best.”
       
I knew she meant shavasana, even though I had never thought of it as “sleeping’.

Over the years I took other yoga classes but never made much progress. This was fine as I wasn’t aspiring to get to the “advanced” stages or become an instructor. Once I registered for a beginner’s level course and the new instructor turned out to be my old classmate, Janice, from that very first class.
       
“You can’t be in this class! We were at the same level three years ago.”
       
“Yes, I’m one of your students—this is still the right level for me,” I nodded, smiling back at her. 

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