Farts

It was a foggy gloomy day in Coeur d'Alene, the fog hung like a blanket over the city--as if to say to you--no don't get up sleep, sleep and don't worry everything is going to be fine. It's one of those days where you pull out old black and white movies, snuggle into your most favored and rattiest sweats and curl up on the coach for a day of blissfull stillness. I had planned a restorative for the boys class on Thursday--restorative class for the boys is their hardest class, they do not like it, they fight me the entire hour, and they joke, incessently about anything, they fart--yep that's right fart big loud stinky farts to try and sway me from the restorative practice, but today I was prepared, I knew that with the blanket of sweet stillness surrounding the city they would not want anything but to lay on thier mats retorative poses comencing and eye pillows stilling them. I was happy to bring them stillness, I had made a special playlist--I was prepared, I placed Vicks under my nose--their farts would not get to me, not today ;)!

I laid out the mats--placed the eye pillows on the mats, and began the soft harmonious music that was to relax the little sweeties into their blissful restorative states. I could hear them coming down the hall, their moods were not restorative, they were boistrous, excited, and generally worked up--as they came in, they heard the music, they knew--I got the "look" from one of my senior students, as if to say, "I'm warning you, this is not going to work this time." I stayed on my mat, winked and smiled. All 16 boys were filed in, sitting on their mats, waiting for my theme and then in walked a boy with a pink mohawk, a tough, new boy who obviously was having a hard time, (two guards brought him in). Because he was the last one, he got the honor of sitting in the front row--right in front of me--Good I thought, he will have my attention, and be able to focus on the teacher not the other students--perfect!

The theme was Compassion towards suffering--little did I know how much of that compassion was to be......we moved through Sun Sals to get the body moving prior to restoratives, they were slow beautiful sun sals, the boys did great--really beautiful, followed their breath, hearts shining--it was amazing, as we moved into child's pose--------a fart------------and another fart-----------and another fart----------and another fart-----------and soon the room was filled with the beautiful aroma of boys--the guard couldn't take it, I on the other hand was prepared with Vicks--nothing can get through that wall of protection....we moved into forward bends preparing the body for the stillness to come--yep you guessed it it was a fart extravaganza--the guard was hysterical at how I was oblivious, she opened the door, she stood outside and looked in.....finally a beautiful Savasana our Yoga room also had a blanket of stillness over it, a thick smelly, not so snuggly blanket--and then it happened, they settled in and the farts disappeared, and they released themselves onto the mat...no more farting....just breathing, as I rang the bells the boys sat up, my senior student gave me the wink and smile and they all went back to their rooms--the guard go the lysol and all was right with the world of JDC.