Impressions re Baron Baptiste

I just returned home from the first evening of a Baron Baptiste workshop at the Centered City Yoga Studio in Salt Lake City, entitled "How to Heal Relationships with Yoga".

I'm going to wait until after the weekend to develop an opinion (I'd like to digest the experience first), but here are some initial impressions:

• Baron did not have the presence that I had anticipated: my perceptions of Baron have been crafted around hearsay and advertisements. In my mind, "Yoga Bootcamp" does not convey a laid-back person. However, to my surprise, Baron was relaxed but assertive - but the practice is still quite vigorous!
• Interesting enough, the owner of Centered City Yoga is Baron's former spouse. To my knowledge, the ex-couple were more or less at odds for the past couple of years. During the introductory conversation, Baron was extremely candid about his relationship with D'ana (former wife). I find the personal disclosure very interesting ... we'll see if it remains in the realm of "appropriate" over the course of the workshop.
• One of Baron's comments that resonated: "If you have a conflict with someone in your life, consider that it's 100% on YOU and not on the OTHER." In my mind, there are a number of potential themes birthed from this comment worth exploring, including taking total responsibility for our aversions, whatever (or whomever) the subject of the aversion may be. Another theme might be the effort to eliminate the notion of other, in the pursuit of unity, oneness, etc.
• The first session was to provide the class with a training ground to examine personal relationships (i.e., the relationship one has with himself/herself). The instruction was to "literally let yourself come apart on the mat during the flow sequence. During this age where alignment is king (and sucking in your belly is the superficial queen), the invitation was greatly appreciated! Grounding the feet or other parts of the body in contact with the floor were emphasized simultaneously with upward-facing drishti and/or reaching toward the heavens with the upward-reaching limbs, as appropriate. Literally pulling oneself apart - peeling back layers of the onion.
• I have to add an additional comment, whether it's valuable to the audience or not ... the room was extremely hot. Nearly Bikram-hot. I don't sweat that much during my marathon-training runs! And given, the Ethereal Room is generally a tad bit chilly during the winter, it was quite a change!

Stay tuned ...