May 18 2014
It’s acknowledged that knitting is therapeutic and meditative. With its soothing, relaxing rhythm, focus on the moment, on the joy of the process rather than the result, on observing, being willing to start again, it has much in common with how we work in yoga.
Winter in the Maritimes can be dreary
and wearying. A long vinyasa of boots, heavy coats, gloves, woolly hats and
scarves. This past winter was definitely one of the worst; it seemed
never-ending. No sooner had one storm blown out when the next piled more snow
on top of what hadn’t even been removed.
To warm up our winter at Blue Lotus
Yoga Space we invited students to “cast on with us and cast off stress.” Our ‘Zen of Knitting’ workshop offered an
opportunity to let go of tension - so important in knitting - to share the
experience, and laughter, to create a new item for our winter wardrobes and in
my case to re-discover a long lost skill. All aspects of a yoga practice too.
It’s acknowledged that knitting is therapeutic and meditative. With its soothing, relaxing rhythm, focus on the moment, on the joy of the process rather than the result, on observing, being willing to start again, it has much in common with how we work in yoga.
One of our yogis, Christiann, who
describes herself as “an obsessive knitter”, and enters world-wide knitting
events, lead us through the fundamentals of casting on, often a big puzzle. With two students who knit ‘European’ style
this was not just fun, it reflected something else we share in yoga, different
routes to the same discovery.
For me, who hadn’t knitted since I was
about 16, it was amazing to find how quickly my fingers, and body, remembered,
how the flow was still there, just dormant. Another yoga parallel
Posture, or pattern, for the workshop
was a simple infinity cowl or scarf, in easy stockinette stitch. The ends could
be sewn together to form a circle or knitted as long as wished for a
neck-wrapping scarf. Like yoga, adapting, modifying to suit each student.
We practiced some gentle chair yoga,
sitting stretches and twists to keep our knitting bodies from getting tangled
and knotted, shared herbal teas and snacks and later in the session had a show
and tell of our work.