December 9, 2015
Pune, India
On Friday, I'll have been in India for two full weeks, and what full weeks they have been! We have a group of over 1200 who are now in the middle of learning from Geetaji at her second annual Yoga Anusasanam at Balewadi Sports Stadium. She is teaching asana, pranayama, pratyahara, dharana and dhyana. She has been in extraordinarily good spirits and has already given some amazing classes. My favorite so far has been this afternoon's pranayama session which included digital work in Brahmari in seated and supine positions. What a brilliant way to quiet the mind. We are surely in for more of this excellence in the days to come. The venue works well; the support staff are VERY helpful, and everyone from the whole wide world is getting along famously in the glow of Iyengar yoga.
In the afternoons, we are having sessions on Guruji's writings, his invention of props, and even a music concert. Abhijata's presentation on props yesterday was especially enlightening. The first story was of Guruji working with the principal of Fergusson College, a local Pune institution. He was in his eighties, and could barely walk. Guru noticed that when he had the principal lie down to do prone poses, his legs kept coming together. So he saw a nearby bar and used it between his heels to help keep the legs apart. Uday imitated the old man very well.
She told of her grandfather having her stand like Charlie Chaplin (toes pointing completely outward), being placed at the end of a trestler with a stool pressing her hips and legs into the end of the trestler and being told to bend backwards and hold the long bar. When she asked Guruji why, he said that turning out the feet had a better effect on her sacrum.
She had Raya and Uday show different versions of ardha chandrasana, to show that a prop could be used both to help a stiff student bring the lifted leg higher, and to help the one who goes too far to come down to the right place. In the first instance, the long bar of the horse/trestler was used for the lifted leg, and in the second instance, a rope with a weight tied into it was used on the upper leg to provide resistance.
She wound up by telling of Guruji's use of the trestler in eka pada viparita dandasana. He was using the stump to hold his sacrum/tailbone area up, and had his forearms bent and down on the wooden platform of the stump. His lifted leg was near the trestler. Abi heard him say several times to move the trestler closer, but when she offered to move it yet again closer, he said NO. He was trying to keep his leg AWAY from the bar of the horse, and finally did not want it moved closer. So here, the prop was used as a guide to stay away from, not to lift from.
The whole story of props was told in a previous blog. You can read it below if you are interested. I was especially fond of the story of the invention of the eye bandage!
A quick summary of the meetings of worldwide Iyengar Yoga Assessors and teacher trainers. First: people involved in assessing and in training teachers should be kind and have "the human touch." Second: there is no need to race through the different levels of the various syllabi. Guruji himself thought that mentorship is a better method than teacher training group classes, apparently, and Geetaji and Prashanti echoed this opinion. HOWEVER, the word, which I'm sure everyone has heard by now, is that assessments will proceed in the year to come. Greta and Prashant did not put a stop to it, but rather gave us much food for thought as we go forward.
More from Pune in the next few days.
Pune, India
On Friday, I'll have been in India for two full weeks, and what full weeks they have been! We have a group of over 1200 who are now in the middle of learning from Geetaji at her second annual Yoga Anusasanam at Balewadi Sports Stadium. She is teaching asana, pranayama, pratyahara, dharana and dhyana. She has been in extraordinarily good spirits and has already given some amazing classes. My favorite so far has been this afternoon's pranayama session which included digital work in Brahmari in seated and supine positions. What a brilliant way to quiet the mind. We are surely in for more of this excellence in the days to come. The venue works well; the support staff are VERY helpful, and everyone from the whole wide world is getting along famously in the glow of Iyengar yoga.
In the afternoons, we are having sessions on Guruji's writings, his invention of props, and even a music concert. Abhijata's presentation on props yesterday was especially enlightening. The first story was of Guruji working with the principal of Fergusson College, a local Pune institution. He was in his eighties, and could barely walk. Guru noticed that when he had the principal lie down to do prone poses, his legs kept coming together. So he saw a nearby bar and used it between his heels to help keep the legs apart. Uday imitated the old man very well.
She told of her grandfather having her stand like Charlie Chaplin (toes pointing completely outward), being placed at the end of a trestler with a stool pressing her hips and legs into the end of the trestler and being told to bend backwards and hold the long bar. When she asked Guruji why, he said that turning out the feet had a better effect on her sacrum.
She had Raya and Uday show different versions of ardha chandrasana, to show that a prop could be used both to help a stiff student bring the lifted leg higher, and to help the one who goes too far to come down to the right place. In the first instance, the long bar of the horse/trestler was used for the lifted leg, and in the second instance, a rope with a weight tied into it was used on the upper leg to provide resistance.
She wound up by telling of Guruji's use of the trestler in eka pada viparita dandasana. He was using the stump to hold his sacrum/tailbone area up, and had his forearms bent and down on the wooden platform of the stump. His lifted leg was near the trestler. Abi heard him say several times to move the trestler closer, but when she offered to move it yet again closer, he said NO. He was trying to keep his leg AWAY from the bar of the horse, and finally did not want it moved closer. So here, the prop was used as a guide to stay away from, not to lift from.
The whole story of props was told in a previous blog. You can read it below if you are interested. I was especially fond of the story of the invention of the eye bandage!
A quick summary of the meetings of worldwide Iyengar Yoga Assessors and teacher trainers. First: people involved in assessing and in training teachers should be kind and have "the human touch." Second: there is no need to race through the different levels of the various syllabi. Guruji himself thought that mentorship is a better method than teacher training group classes, apparently, and Geetaji and Prashanti echoed this opinion. HOWEVER, the word, which I'm sure everyone has heard by now, is that assessments will proceed in the year to come. Greta and Prashant did not put a stop to it, but rather gave us much food for thought as we go forward.
More from Pune in the next few days.
Sattva Yoga Academy, a yoga school teaches yoga teachers training course in Rishikesh through its group of expert level spiritual yoga gurus in India in accordance with yoga union courses. Yoga meditation and tantra yoga at this yoga institute is experiential, transformative and progressive.
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