by Celia Klassen
Press/Times staff writer
About 20 members of the community gathered at the American Falls High School library Friday, Jan. 17, for “Serenity in Blooms”. The FFA American Falls Chapter put on the free event for those who signed up to partake in a Dosha breathing session followed by Ikebana (the Japanese art of flower arrangement).
A wide range of ages gathered for the class where Carroll
Klinger and Sally Beitia taught about the balance of your Ayurvedic doshas and then about breathing techniques to help deal with stress. Klinger and Beitia have a yoga school in Pocatello called James Barrett Fit Fusion Studio which is more than what comes to mind when you think of “yoga”. They focus on the union of body and mind. The “mind” being different from the “brain”. Everyone’s brain looks virtually the same, but if you could view everybody’s mind, those would all be vastly different.
First up was a self-evaluation to find out whether your three doshas were balanced. Ideally, they would be balanced, but most of the time we aren’t. The three doshas are: Vata (ether and air), Pitta (fire and water) and Kapha (water and earth). There are three classes, and the first focused on Kapha.
Kapha; earth and water. Earth and water make mud. Kapha relates to babies, and things that are new; just created. If you think of babies, “waaah pick me up, hold me,” said Klinger. It’s the part of you that needs to be nurtured.
Pitta; fire and water. Pitta can be likened to the middle part of your life, where you work and you’re busy and you have children and fun times. Vata; water and earth. This is “how we go out” said Klinger.
If you find you are deficient in one of these, or too high in one of these, then you work on it and you do that with breath work. To strengthen Kapha you breathe faster (to get the mud dry). It gets you motivated. Those attending then learned “billow breath” where you circulate the blood and create heat. You lift the fire and bring in the mud to dry it. Then the mud isn’t so sticky, and you no longer want to just stay in bed; you’re ready to take on the day. As we learned this breathing technique we focused on our posture because “Proper Posture Prevents Poor results”.
Klinger, obviously a fan of Winnie the Pooh, likened high amounts of each of these Doshas to characters in the story. Kapha is like Pooh, Pitta like Tigger, and Vata like Rabbit.
What is the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, and yet we do this in our personal lives all the time. It’s a new year and we set ourselves goals, we think we’re going to turn over a new leaf, and then somewhere mid-February comes the realization that actually, we’ve slipped back into most of our bad habits. We do this because we’re afraid of change, and we don’t know what being different looks like. Klinger encouraged us to put on your own mask first, don’t say yes to everybody else all the time. It’s ok to take a little time for working on yourself.
We then moved into the Ikebana part of the class. The FFA students spread out around the room to help assist with tips and techniques to create your own masterpiece. Although an example was printed for direction, you were free to create whatever felt right to you. I chose to try and copy the example, with a few extra stems. It’s a very different kind of arranging and was nice to do something new. The only challenge then was to get to your car without slipping on the black ice and sending your arrangement across the parking lot.
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