Suneeta was alternately scolding and direct again today. One of the regular locals to the class describes all of the Iyengars as “fiery”. She obviously knows her stuff, although, in my opinion, the whole chastising and name calling gets in the way of the delivery. It seemed like there were fewer people in class. In fact, before we began she encouraged some people to move up and over so we weren’t so close together.
Her first scolding was about being on time. “Come to class on time, in fact it is a rule that you are to be there five minutes before the class start time” and be ready. Coming in late is distracting to both teacher and students. We see, we hear, we get disturbed by the movement of the person coming in late.
This morphed into a lesson on steadying the eyes, to not look here and there (and especially don’t look at anyone else in the room), to quiet the mind and the body. The rest of the class was focused on training the eyes on an imaginary line and following it when turning or moving in the pose. Instead of a single point, which narrows the mind, see the length of the line to broaden the mind. She incorporated this idea of the line in the rest of the sequence (with tirades and scolding and name calling in between poses), which went something like this:
Baddhakonasana – turn to the right and left, training the eyes on the imaginary line and see this line in all the rest of the sequence
Bharadvajasana
Parsvottanasana
Trikonasana
Uttanasana
Sirsasana
Chatushpadasana
Salamba Sarvangasana
Savasana
