Pubdate: Wed, 17 Dec 2014
Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA)
Copyright: 2014 Hearst Communications Inc.
Contact: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/submissions/#1
Website: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/388
Author: Victoria Colliver

DOUBLE-JOINTED YOGA

Marijuana Brings a Relaxed Aspect to the Ancient Meditative Practice

In a small South of Market studio, yoga is practiced on, shall we 
say, a higher level.

As if doing child's pose, or balasana, in a candlelit room with 
tranquil music wasn't relaxing enough, Ganja Yoga adds cannabis to 
the experience as a way to help bring one's practice to a state of 
heightened spiritual consciousness that may otherwise not be reached.

On a recent evening, instructor Dee Dussault talked her students 
through the various poses, encouraging them in a soothing voice how 
to breathe deeply through the diaphragm and, when the mood strikes 
them, to take a hit off a joint or vaporizer.

"You can consume cannabis throughout your practice, as much or as 
little as you'd like," said Dussault as she walked through the room, 
gently adjusting her students' poses. The marijuana, she said, serves 
to relax her students, allowing them to reach a more spiritual state of mind.

Ganja Yoga invites students to partake together in the first 15 
minutes of class provided they have a medical marijuana card. If they 
don't, they are welcomed to "do their thing" before class, as sharing 
or "mooching" during a session is discouraged.

An old combination

It's tempting to think of cannabis-enhanced yoga in the same faddish 
vein as aqua yoga, disco yoga, laughing yoga or hip-hop yoga. But 
some yoga historians say the combination of yoga and marijuana dates 
back thousands of years, when the ancient yogis consumed bhang, a 
beverage made from the flowers of the female cannabis plant, as well 
as charas, or hashish, as part of their daily asanas and meditation rituals.

Several of Dussault's students said they routinely get high before 
yoga, so they appreciated having a place to do so openly.

"For some people, it's just what they would do anyway," said Isamarie 
Perez, 27, of San Francisco.

While health experts don't generally advocate smoking marijuana, many 
are starting to recognize that the plant's active components, called 
cannabinoids, potentially have powerful properties that may be 
beneficial to health.

The most well-known cannabinoid, delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol or THC, 
has been associated with reducing the severity of glaucoma, relieving 
pain and controlling nausea in cancer patients. Some scientists are 
studying the use of non-psychotropic chemicals in the plant known as 
cannabidiols, or CBDs, in slowing the growth of cancerous tumors.

Not supported by all

Health aspects aside, many in the yoga community don't support the 
idea of combining ganja - the Sanskrit word for the cannabis flower 
head - with one's daily practice. Some say marijuana conflicts with 
the concept of body purity that yoga encourages, or that it inhibits 
the ability to experience the true inner self.

"While I'm not personally against weed, I do think that yogis who are 
serious in their practice should think twice about using it, 
especially if it's on a regular basis," wrote Julie Phillips-Turner, 
a Maryland yoga instructor in a blog posting entitled "5 Reasons 
Yogis Shouldn't Smoke Marijuana."

Phillips-Turner notes that she expects "bake and bend" classes to 
become more common as the legalization of marijuana, already approved 
for use in four states and the District of Columbia, spreads. But her 
objections are based mainly in her belief that marijuana takes away 
focus and creates what is known in yoga as "maya" or a veil of 
illusion, or it confuses numbing with calming.

But Dussault said she sees cannabis simply as a tool to help people 
get to a place of transcendence. "Cannabis can help get into a more 
spiritual or meditative mind-set," she said.

Not a common offering

Marijuana yoga classes are not widely available. Aside from the class 
in South of Market, a class in Atwater Village in Los Angeles called 
420 Remedy Yoga has been held for a couple of years, and pot-friendly 
yoga classes have popped up in Colorado and other states where the 
substance is legal.

Dussault, who has been practicing yoga for 20 years and teaching for 
five, started offering cannabis-enhanced classes in Toronto in 2009 
before bringing it to San Francisco in October.

In her Ganja Yoga classes, Dussault teaches what is known as hatha 
yoga, or a gentle form of yoga that focuses on breathing and involves 
a series of poses that encourages stretching and relaxation.

"We don't do postures that would be considered intermediate or 
advanced because people are in altered state," she said. "I would not 
want them to go beyond their body boundaries or fall over."

Dussault also sees marijuana as a health and wellness aid, even 
beyond the common applications for glaucoma or nausea. "The stress of 
modern living can leave people anxious," she said. "It is a wellness 
or health aid, especially if people take time to research strains 
that have applications for their particular health needs."

She's arranged with Meadow, an on-demand Bay Area marijuana delivery 
service, to have specific strains of marijuana delivered to class.

Getting high not the goal

When it comes to consumption, Dussault advocates the "less is more" 
philosophy. "I tend to tell people to consume less than they would if 
they were just hanging out and eating pizza," she said. "You don't 
want to get so baked that your yoga is impaired."

Her students, some of whom are new to yoga while others have been 
practicing for years, said they found the classes relaxing and that 
marijuana added a different element to the experience.

"It definitely puts you in a relaxed state, and I think that's really 
important for yoga," said Praveen Sinha, 37, a software engineer. 
"It's a little slower, and you tend to hold the poses for longer."

Yanika Schneider, 30, a chemist, said she not only enjoys the class 
but is interested in how the cocktail of chemicals in marijuana bind 
to cannabinoid receptors in the brain. "There's a lot of interesting 
scientific challenges to analyzing what weed is," she said.

For Cole Short, 24, an advertising art director who was not a yoga 
enthusiast before attending Dussault's classes, the marijuana was the big draw.

"This is the only way you'd get me to do yoga," he said.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom