HOW THE MIGHTY HAVEN’T FALLEN WRITTEN BY JESSICA CORBETT
Her left leg violently shakes from bearing the full weight of her slender body. Her right leg raises to waist level with her foot flexed and her toes pointed toward the floor. Slivers of shiny hardwood peek out from beneath sticky rubber rectangles. The studio is a sea of colored mats. Today, most are shades of blue and purple — some brought, some borrowed. She straightens her arms, reaching forward to whitepaned windows and the Mighty Yoga sign. Beads of sweat drop to her yoga mat, which won’t be peeled off the floor for at least an hour. As she slowly lowers her right leg, which was raised for warrior three, her foot lands near the back of the mat. The right leg stays straight while the left bends at the knee. Her arms reach to the ceiling. Warrior one. Virabhadrasana. She is one of 30 students in Liz Falk’s Thursday afternoon all-levels class. Liz stands near the middle window at the front of the room, watching carefully as 30 bodies shift at her gentle commands. Her black curls are captured at the nape of her neck. A purple racerback clings to her tiny, toned body, her bottom half concealed by calf-length leggings and a stretchy black skirt.
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PHOTO COURTESY OF LIZ FALK
Liz has been teaching workshops and weekly classes at Mighty Yoga for about three years, and her specialty is progressive vinyasa flow. Just as it sounds, this style of yoga focuses on flow, with each sequence — called namaskars — adding more poses as the practice progresses. “Yoga is the union of movements and breath,” Liz reminds her students, urging them to move at their own pace. Liz approaches each class with a plan, which typically includes a theme, perhaps a focus on one of the Chakras, and several namaskars from warming flows to peak flows to cooling flows. But she often adjusts her sequences mid-practice, gauging the skill level of her students or “the energy of the room.” A few poses are always a part of the practice. “Breathe in for upward dog. Urdhva Mukha Svanasana.” For some who are new to yoga, the foreign language can be off-putting. Because the studio emphasizes accessibility, instructors always use the poses’ English names too. Liz says learning the Sanskrit names was an important aspect of learning yoga and in her classes she tries to “balance accessibility and respecting the tradition of the practice.” The student on the coral mat can’t quite make sense of