Episode 11 - Ganja Yoga: It's like peanut butter and chocolate
Or so says Dee Dussault, the inventor of this delicious new tradition.
When a book called Ganja Yoga came across my desk, I expected yet another California-sprouted excuse to get stoned. But just a few pages in I realized I got that wrong. The author, Dee Dussault, had deep knowledge cannabis and yoga and how they could be combined in inventive ways. "Just like peanut butter and chocolate," she writes, "each is fantastic on its own, but when they come together, each makes the other better.” Who can resist a yogi with a sense of humor?
So when I was last in San Francisco I headed to her Thursday night restorative class. In most yoga classes you plunk down your mat and disappear into your own solipsistic bubble. In ganja yoga you spend the first 30 minutes in a circle of fellow celebrants, chatting and partaking of edibles, or joints and vaporizers, each filled with a different strain. (The $25 fee covers all consumables). And the people mix was wide. Equal numbers of men and women -- gay, straight and otherwise -- all colors of the rainbow, and all levels of cannabis experience. Two young men had never before smoked in public so this marked their cannabis coming out. Oh, to live in a legal state where such things are possible...
Thankfully, the class was a restorative one, mostly involving positions on the mat. (I doubt ganja would have enhanced my balancing poses.) Dee’s approach was gentle and more meditative than acrobatic. By the end I felt relaxed on a cellular level. A final joint of CBD was on offer for those who wanted to reduce their THC high before regreeting the world.
Dee, a Toronto native, developed ganja yoga 8 years ago, cutting against the grain of so many purists who insist that ganja has no place in this ancient practice. But Dee’s a maverick. She’s also an intimacy and sexuality coach, who helps couples sustain sexual connection, with or without ganja enhancement.
Tune in to hear about some of the novel ways that cannabis can enhance both yoga and sex. It’s worth a listen.