2000

Gray Bear Lodge II
J.J. Gormley

In October I went again to Gray Bear Lodge, this time to study yoga with J.J. Gormley. J.J. Gormley was well known in the Washington, DC yoga community for having founded Sun & Moon Yoga Studio in Fairfax, Virginia and I had heard good things about her teaching which was based on the philosophy of chakras with the workshop titled “Awaking the Chakras”. It went much like the first time I was at Gray Bear Lodge only I arrived earlier in the day giving me time in the afternoon to relax. The staff suggested I visit the sauna which they said was fired up and ready for guests. That sound good to me so I change into something more comfortable and head to the sauna which was a hundred yards or so though the woods from the main lodge. Upon arriving I remove my clothes and hang them next to someone else’s clothes on a rack outside the sauna door and go inside. The sauna was eight by ten feet or so in size with a lower and upper wooden platform around three sides. In one corner was a wooden stove with a blazing fire inside, the thermometer on the wall said it was 105 degrees. Yeah, it was hot! It was somewhat dark inside with it only being lit by sunlight streaming from a small window. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust, and I see there is woman, a naked woman, laying on one of the upper bunks. Awkwardly I say hello, she says hello back, and I climb to the upper bunk as far I could from the woman.  Did I say it was hot? Like really hot, within five minutes I was sweating all over, ten minutes I needed a break so I get up and go outside where there is a bucket filled with cold water and a dipper hanging on the wall. Taking the dipper, I pour the cold water over my head a couple of times cooling off enough to go back inside. After about five minutes the woman got up and exited. I was getting really hot again but stayed long enough so that the woman could rinse off, put her clothes one and leave before I did the same.  At the first session that afternoon I realized that the woman in the sauna was the instructor, J.J. Gormley herself.  The weekend was really good and I learned quite a bit about yoga and chakras. It was interesting to contrast the difference between Doug Keller’s Anusara Yoga style vs Gormley’s chakra style of yoga.  

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