Pam's Blog

Prashant was alternately stern and a jokester today. He continued the instruction of “more and more and more and more exhalation” in poses that were obviously in preparation for backbends. He joked, even once it was a pun/play on words, sometimes not in English so only the locals could understand, with a twinkle in his eye like his father and a grin. Even when the joke’s not in English the smiles and laughter contribute to a light hearted, fun environment.

The emphasis was on concave back in the poses, head back, looking back (unless contraindicated for eye, thyroid issues), and to use the exhalation to carve out the back, or suck it in, like an udyana exhalation. The rap of the day? “Suck, inhale. Suck, exhale. Suck, retain.” Repeat, repeat, repeat.

Again, groups of practitioners cycled through three stations; rope wall, at the window wall and in the middle of the room on the mat. Seventy-five minutes went by before we got to ustrasana. Here’s what I remember of the sequence.

Group on the rope wall in rope bhujangasana (a common theme in most classes)

Group on the window wall in rope downward facing dog (another common theme)

Group on the mat in downward facing dog

Swastikasana, lean slightly back, open chest. Look up and back. Exhale more and more and more.

Padmasana, lean slightly back, open chest. Look up and back. Exhale more and more and more.

Upa vista konasana, lean slightly back, open chest. Look up and back. Exhale more and more and more.

Upa vista konasana, turned over the right leg, belt around foot, lean slightly back, open chest. Look up and back. Exhale more and more and more.

Upa vista konasana, turned over the left leg, belt around foot, lean slightly back, open chest. Look up and back. Exhale more and more and more.

Janusirsasana, sit straight, concave back. Bend slightly forward, concave back

Rope wall bjuangasana from elbows

Squat, buttocks to wall, feet under knees, hang from elbows

Window wall, uttitha padangustasana, parsva

Ustrasana

Danurasana

Parsva danurasana

Purvottasana

Rope purvottasana

Salamba Sarvangasana

Savasana

Prashant talked a lot today. There seemed to be more people in the room and less asana done. He continues on his “exhale more and more and more and more” message today using the word evacuation to sum up this action. He encourages us to continue to explore the body as a laboratory to discover the self and see/feel/observe/learn what the connection between the breath and the body, mind, and self is. His rapid fire instructions “breath and body, breath and mind, breath and eye, breath and organs” begins to sound like what my colleague Alicia Rowe says, a rap.

Not only are there large photos of Mr. Iyengar on the walls, it seems like there is every photo in “Light on Yoga” reproduced in an smaller size hanging lower on the walls. There are five walls and on each wall there are three rows of photos, maybe 15 in each row, for a total of more than 125 photos. Prashant pointed out the photo of udyana and encouraged that sort of complete exhalation and exploring what that does for the pose, for the spine, etc. (insert rap of your own here).

More and more I can understand the words yet remembering the entire nearly two hour lecture without taking notes is entirely another skill set I don’t think I have ever had. Another topic was something about study and knowledge. Read, learn, know was, I think, part of it. He had a guy stand up and he said we know this is a human being. We know two things, he is a human and a man. He continued “If I say he is a father, you can also infer he is a husband and has a child. If I say he is a grandfather then one of his children has a child.” We know one thing, then we know two things, three things, and more things about the man.

The sequence went something like this:

Downward facing dog

Badanguliasana in tadasana

Group at the rope wall (so only ten at a time) doing rope bhujangasana, ropes one

Group in the middle of the room sitting in upa vista konasana, twisting to the right then left, then bharadvajasana, then marichyasana one.

Group on chairs doing chair bharadvajasana, sitting sideways, then through the chair

People cycled through these groups until everyone had been at the rope wall

Group on the mat ended class in janusirsasana, paschimottanasana

Group on the chairs did chair shoulderstand.

Savasana

In addition to the six classes a week, I have been practicing every day. About half the days I have gone over to the Institute and the other half practiced in the flat. For the last year I have been rehabilitating a shoulder injury. Even before that, I somewhere along the line lost my ability to do full arm balance. There is something empowering and freeing about standing on my hands and I missed being able to float up and support my weight on my hands.

With some physical therapy this past winter and a LOT of yoga the last eight months or so, I finally got up in full arm balance. The first time I needed a little help from my friend Lorene and the next two times I got up on my own.

One of the things I got out of Prashant’s lectures/classes last week was the idea that it is worth taking stock of how far we have come. To look at the instrument panel of our practice and measure. Many times in yoga the measurements are incremental. First I could only do badanguliasana two thirds of the way over my head. It was painful to just take my arms over my head without weight. With practice I could get my arms all the way over my head. There was a lot of downward facing dog, plank and, eventually upward facing dog. Then I could do half full arm balance, even if it was just for a breath. Coming out of rope Sirsasana, I could support my weight in full arm balance and come down with my elbows belted (even though I couldn’t support my weight going up). So along the way there were measurements of progress, of how far I had come. That journey of practice along with patience and persistence I was to stand on my hands again. Next destination? Pincha mayurasana.

Saturday mornings the “gents” have class at 7 AM and the ladies at 9:30 AM so there were fewer bodies in class.

Suneeta, who taught Wednesday’s class, also taught this morning. A large woman with a commanding, stern, crabby voice led us through a sequence of poses. As a breast cancer survivor she doesn’t seem to have much compassion as she ridiculed a couple of people for yawning during her questioning and showed her disatisfaction to the answers to her pop quiz questions. As much patience as I see out and about on the roads, there is a serious lack of it in the practice hall. We are too slow, too stupid, too distracted.

Shortly after we started it was clear one of the students in class was suffering a back issue. Suneeta picked her out and commanded senior teachers in the room to help give modifications and props to the woman and, during supta padangustasana, had us gather around to watch the modification before we tried it ourselves. Even then, one on one, Suneeta’s barking voice is harsh and impatient.

There’s a nice link in the sequence somewhere at the root of the thigh, which I will have to find during practice. The whole episode left me feeling jangled and disconnected. It’s not an environment that is conducive to my learning style. I was back to neutral by the time I was back to the flat but it didn’t feel like a complete, calming, or integrated practice or class.

As one of my teachers says “Sometimes the best part of yoga is having done yoga.” Today was one of those days when I was glad class was over.

The sequence (from what I remember) went something like this:

Adho Mukha Virasana

Adho Mukha Svanasana

Parsvottanasana

Trikonasana

Uttihita Padangustasana, foot at the wall

Supta padangustasana (making a point of bending the knee into the chest before taking it straight up or out)

Sirsasana

Eka pada and parsva eka pada in Sirsasana (making a point of bending the knee into the chest before taking it straight out/down and to the side/down)

Bharadvajasana

Paschimottanasana

Salamba Sarvangasana

Yesterday there was a knock at our apartment door and a guy was selling yoga bloomers and t-shirts. He had a backpack of samples and said he had more at his house. Since the sizes he had white him were too small, we made an appointment to view more the next day.

Right on time he showed up at our flat, hailed an auto rickshaw that whisked the three of us away while he followed on his bike! At a corner near his house the rickshaw waited for him to catch up so he could lead the rickshaw to our final destination.

We walked up a flight of stairs and into his apartment where we met his wife. The two of them showed us many handmade products; purses, bags, shorts, skirts, t-shirts, wooden blocks, quarter rounds, straps, blankets. Just when we thought we had seen it all he would produce something else. Handmade paper, stationary, bed sheet, perhaps?

We all bought something and it was totally fun. When we left it was raining and our host hailed a rickshaw for us that took us back to our flat. I admire his business sense, fun light hearted spirit and customer service.

Practice hours are set along with our class times. There are two floors and my classes and practices are held on the first floor and upstairs other classes take place before, during, and after our classes/practice.

At the start of every class we chant the invocation to Patanjali. While practicing one of my first days here, I heard the class upstairs begin the chant. Shortly into the chant, a phone in the practice hall started ringing with a mechanical “Jingle Bells” as the ring tone. Some things in India just can’t be explained.

Today’s class was in the evening, a 6 pm pranayama class. After chanting the invocation we were instructed to come up to the stage to watch a demonstration of savasana. The demo took between five and ten minutes and was done, purposefully, by another teacher, with just a blanket under the head. Once back on the mat Navaz (I am sure I am spelling that incorrectly), our teacher for the evening, talked us through it. Bend one knee into the chest, wait, put the foot on the floor, wait. We repeated each leg three times in a methodical, orderly fashion adding the thumb pushing in the crease of the thigh the last two times. Then both legs. After lengthening the back of the skull manually we bent our arms, elbows on the floor, palms facing headward and lifted the sternum, opening the chest. Hands down, legs long, in savasana. We were probably there for 20-25 minutes. All the while she talked about the breath guiding our awareness while the cars, motorcycles and other vehicles honked and sped through the street below.

Coming out, again methodically and gently, we rolled to the right, then left, then right, then left, then right and sat up to transition to seated pranayama. We did a little viloma, following her instructions and then five cycles on our own. The ending savasana was with the bolster on the root of the thighs. Coming out she had us roll from side to side again and when we sat up she said “That’s enough”. It was 7:15.