“A Yogi should always keep this in mind: Teaching yoga is not like teaching history or geometry. The teacher must impart a life force—a little current—into others.” –Sri Swami Satchidananda from The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

Hip openers have always been one of my favorite poses, primarily because I have been taught that we hold a lot of tension and stress in our hips, and when I do hip opener poses like eka pada rajakapotasana (one-legged pigeon pose), it allows me to let go of some of that stress I’ve been hoarding in my hips over the last few decades. I’ve got an active imagination, so I picture years of pent up stress just oozing out of my hips, and the release always feels pretty damn good. When I teach a class, I always prompt my students to breathe deeply and, with each exhale, to let go of whatever it is that they are holding in their hips.

During a recent yoga class I attended, while in the throes of pigeon pose, the yoga teacher, Ron White, explained that we hold a great deal of energy in our hips, and when we stretch and open them in poses like pigeon, we are releasing energy or chi. Humm, I thought, this is a little different than what I’ve been taught, but I kept listening with a beginner’s mind. Ron tipped us off to not let this invaluable energy just escape into thin air, but rather to redirect it to another part of our body or mind. He offered a few suggestions: to either send our chi to a part of the body that was sore or tight or to an area that needed some extra loving care.

This yoga class fell the night before I left for vacation, and because I had been trying to cram in as much work as I could before I left, my neck and shoulders were paying the price. They were tight and crabby, so I picked up what Ron imparted and sent my hip chi directly to my neck and shoulders. After a few deep breaths, I felt a flutter of energy tickle down the vertebrae in my neck and through my shoulders. Holy crap, Ron was not kidding; I had transported my chi, and it felt terrific! We held pigeon pose for a while, so I kept my focus on redirecting the chi flow to heal my neck and shoulders and even sent some up to my brain to help with focus. And, the coolest thing about redirecting the energy during a hip opener is that you get to do it all over again when you switch to the other hip.

I made sure I told Ron about my cool yoga experience after class and thanked him for educating me on the fine art of chi. He was responsible for sending a little current of life force into everyone in the studio that night, and he gave me back an enthusiastic smile and thanked me for letting him know.

I love learning new things when I practice yoga. Sometimes it’s something as subtle as getting in better touch with my body and my mind, and sometimes it is a major revelation, like how to channel and transform the precious chi that is leaving my body. This is recycling and green yoga at its finest.

Got a story about how a teacher has left you with a little extra current? Leave a comment below and share your chi!

Recycle Image: Ivan Prole