Yoga

The professor in charge of the "Leadership" element of our programme has thrown lots of challenges our way. We have done three different types of personality assessments to help us understand ourselves and others better. A 2 day intensive leadership lab. We have had sessions on teamwork, communications and Yesterday's "expression, presence and story telling" session was the most recent - some people were telling some pretty personal stories and it was a really intense experience. This is certainly the part of the course that has hardest for me, but on the other hand this is a unique opportunity for learning in a supportive group.

In the interest of providing a relaxing and destressing counterpart to all this, she also arranged for us to have a session with her Yoga instructor this evening. I don't consider myself to be a particularly fit person but I have been going to the gym a fair bit recently so I'm not completely sedentary. Flexible I am not.

Those of you who aren't vegetarian will probably be familiar wiith the sound of joints parting as you dismantle a roast chicken or turkey for the plate? That's the noise I was making. I felt as if I was participating in some sort of bizarre self-dismemberment ritual at times. I suspect I have dislocated things I never even knew were located in the first place! An interesting experience for sure, and I do feel stretched and relaxed now. It clearly worked for others too - in our 2 minutes of "quiet time" lying on the mat at the end there were a number of people snoring! Given how many people (not me I hasten to add) have been having trouble sleeping here, that is quite remarkable!

I would definitely try it again if the opportunity arose, but I don't know if I will be signing up to creak and groan like an arthiritic old man in the undergrads class at the sport center...

I owe a big thank you to those who organised the session however, as it is something I would almost certainly never have tried otherwise!

Oh yes, the picture. Our session was in the campus chapel, a non-denominational worship space in the modern style. This is the roof, which looks for all the world like the hull of a boat. I can only assume this is an architectural nod to the great christian cathedrals where the main body is known as the nave - from the latin word "navis", meaning "ship". Why would part of a building be described as a "ship"? Because the shape of the roof bears a resemblance to an upturned ship!

From yoga to etmology... I really need to stop procrastinating and go and read the cases for tomorrow!