Wes Anderson Meets Yoga

Caitlin here!

Have you watched the recent reel on the @vessel.studios Instagram titled 3 Versions of Bridge Pose featuring our very own Kelsey Block as "Girl with a Block?" If you haven't seen it yet, you can view it above. If you're unfamiliar with the concept and unsure who Wes Anderson is, make sure to watch the films Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums and Moonrise Kingdom as soon as possible. You won't be disappointed.

Outside of my time at the studio teaching/ doing Pilates and yoga, I am an actor and film nerd. This summer, I set an intention to bring my art more into alignment with the other areas of my life, and this creative project I storyboarded, directed, and edited for Vessel was the first endeavor in which I really felt these two worlds of art and movement coming together in a way that brought me so much joy.

The worlds of acting and yoga are not so dissimilar. This is where they meet. These complex and layered worlds contain oceans of depth for the human vessel to access and draw from, if the vessel is open, available and ready to be played upon and changed by the practice. And now, making this connection, it's no surprise why I was so drawn to yoga twelve years ago. What I love most about the practice of yoga is the opportunity that it provides to release the emotional body and re-regulate the nervous system through a variety of physical postures. And yet, it is this aspect of yoga that I feel can be easily overlooked. I understand how a focus on the physical postures can become disproportionately emphasized, but I encourage you to view mastering the physical shapes as only the first layer in a practice that can offer you so much more, if you allow it.

Now, as a teacher of yoga (and pilates), I am keenly aware of how open a student's vessel must be in order to receive these benefits of nervous system regulation and emotional release. I cannot help but notice those who are open to receive those benefits, and those who are not. As a teacher, I cannot force anyone to open themselves up to the practice. Everything I say in class is merely an invitation. But I do see (and energetically sense) the shifts in students' nervous systems and emotional bodies from the time they step into the room to the time they leave. And it brings me so much joy when I notice students who come with vessels open to receive. They are the ones who leave class with vessels overflowing.

See you in class!

Caitlin