Kirtan

Yesterday, I started working on this article about Kirtan, one of the eight types of yoga. A woman is doing a "kirtan" on June 19. Specifically, Kirtan is this type of yoga that does not involve any type of movement or exercise - in reality, it is basically sitting around on the floor while a sitar and drummers play to create a "drone." Everyone chants along with the drone, and this apparently sends you into an immediate state of relaxation and realigns your spirit. I guess the main idea behind this is stress relief, not exercise. Personally, this definitely does NOT sound like something I would ever be interested in doing - personally, I just don't think I would ever be able to take it seriously - but I think that some people would definitely enjoy it. Personally, I could never get over the obvious hilarity of sitting around in a circle singing "the names of the Divine" and I think that in order for it to create that meditative state, you really have to actually commit yourself.
You would think that interviewing a yoga teacher would be the easiest thing in the world: stereotypically, they should be fairly calm and relaxed. But no, this is yoga teacher is also a New Yorker: she was on the ball, and actually sort of called one of my questions ridiculous in a backhanded sort of way. She then proceeded to email me four emails worth of attachments and statements about kirtan, emphasizing "the healing powers of vowels" and such. I chose to do two things. One: I did not tell that woman that the story was set at approximately 325 words and therefore there was NOT enough space to include everything she wanted to say. Two: I chose not to include that stuff about "clearing physical blockages" and how vowels can heal your ailments simply because it is my job as a reporter to actually take this seriously and make the readers take it seriously: basically, if she wants people to actually go and try it out, she can't sound like she's out in outer space. This was actually kind of a challenging article, but I think it was a good experience because not everyone is going to be nice to me and it's good to learn how to deal with difficult people in a controlled setting.

My kirtan article will be published after SCORE is over, but look for it on gloucestertimes.com sometime in early June!!