The Yogini from Manila

Let me first tell you a short story.

I took ballet lessons as a young girl under my tita and her daughter in the province. For many years, I wore flat ballet shoes in class as I moved from the beginners to the intermediate class. I’d often look at the advance class pirouette around in toe shoes and long for the day that I would graduate to being a toe dancer. Every summer, tita would sit her intermediate students down to check their feet. She’d examine their ankles and toes. You could not get your toe shoes until she gave the thumbs up. One summer, I was one of those students lined up for the check. I did not pass. She told me to wait another year. I was so disappointed! It took another year of dancing, practicing and working my feet before I finally got her nod of approval. Receiving my Capezio toe shoes all the way from New York was probably one of the happiest moments in my life.

Fast forward to the present.

I’ve long noticed how yin yoga classes put great emphasis on the strength of the toes. In a recent yin yoga workshop with Singapore-based Jo Phee, she began our class on the floor with toe rotations. Taking each toe in turn, we slowly turned them clockwise, then counter-clockwise. Those used to the active and dynamic styles of yoga would probably find this very odd for a yoga class. And in Victor Chng’s yin yoga intensives, he’d have us doing “high-heeled shoes” (his description for poses that have you on your toes, bearing the weight of your body). And fair warning — holding those poses for 3 to 5 minutes was not a walk in the park.

Continue Reading →