Posted by Sam Kigar on Mon, Apr 12, 2010
I love my yurt! It is a beautiful structure that evokes a kind of special magical feeling.
Last spring, I erected a 24 foot yurt in Evergreen Colorado, to house my 15 foot therapy pool.
I use the pool to give Watsu sessions to my clients. Watsu is a kind of water therapy that combines Shiatsu with water. I float people in a pool of warm water. I support their bodies while I move them through the water giving them gentle stretches and twists. It is both relaxing and rejuvenating. In July of 2009, I opened for business as Sweetwater Watsu.
When I was getting ready to establish my Watsu practice, I looked at a variety of structures that would work as a housing for my therapy pool. I chose to erect a yurt because I loved the round shape. I am so glad that I made that choice. The interior of the yurt is incredibly beautiful with the ceiling pattern of beams radiating out from a central dome. And the clear ceiling dome provides a view of the blue Colorado sky.
When people first step through the door of my yurt, their eyes light up when they see the inside of the structure. They frequently comment on the beauty of my space. As I work with my clients, the yurt lends to the calm feeling of healing energy. When people lay back in the warm water of my pool, they look up at the clear dome surrounded by radiating beams. It is a beautiful sight. My clients frequently comment on the shape of the yurt and the wonderful feeling they get when receiving a Watsu in the warm water inside of the peaceful yurt. It seems magical. The shape and energy of the yurt definitely lend to my Watsu practice.
For more information about my yurt or my Watsu practice, visit http://sweetwaterwatsu.com or become a fan of Sweetwater Watsu on Facebook.
Susan Lange
Sweetwater Watsu
http://sweetwaterwatsu.com
303-638-9843
Posted by Sam Kigar on Sun, Feb 22, 2009
In January I had the opportunity to travel to Paris, France to see 25 Colorado Yurts go up in the Grand
Palais. The yurts were for an installation by famed photographer
Yann Arthus-Bertrand and his group Good Planet. The art piece is called
6 Billion Others.
The Grand Palais is a structure of staggering proportions. It dates from 1900 but today it still has one of the largest glass ceilings in the world. Event organizers (from the design firm Scene) told us that although the Grand Palais
is an awesome space, it can be rather difficult to control. That's why they chose to use yurts as the space in which the art would actually happen. The 25 yurts were to comprise 25 mini-cinemas.
We arrived before the show opened and yurts were starting to pop up all around us. Some were fully pitched. The latice
and rafters were up on others. The effect was awesome. Normally we think of yurts as natural and traditional spaces, meant to be pitched in organic settings. But here they were surrounded by steel and glass- a monument to industrialisation. Colorado Yurts are
traditional but have adapted and because of this they work well in all sorts of environments. Even in the most modern of settings they fit.
Check out this video to see one of the most impressive yurt pitches ever:
We didn't quite know what the
organizers meant by saying that the Grand
Palais is difficult to control
until the
show's opening night. Of course, we liked the idea of yurts in Paris and we know that they make
beautiful settings in which to show movies, but there was a practical element to using them to too: Paris in January is
cold and it's very difficult to heat a space that is 72,000 square meters. Yurts, on the other hand, are very good at retaining heat when
necessary. So when we arrived on opening night we, along with the many thousands of other guests, headed straight to the warmth of the yurts.
Each yurt showcased a different film in which people from around the world responded to a
different
question. One film asked individuals what war has meant in their lives. Another spoke to the meaning of family; still another was about how to make love last. The films were honest, moving, and sometimes funny. As we watched regular people from around the world, we understood something more about the similarities and diversity among the world's population. At the same time we realized that we were sitting with people from around the world and there, inside the yurts, we began to feel a little closer to them.
Ask a question about the yurt experience
here.
-By Sam Kigar
*Photo by Dominique Erhard