One-on-One with Geeta

You may have experienced it in a yoga class or workshop.

It's that delightful moment, as in a magic show, when something is revealed IN you or is transformed in another right before your eyes.  

Watching another student have his or her pose transformed under Geeta Iyengar's direction has that quality.  As a student and/or a teacher, you know when you see that new awareness come, and while the change that it brings it ISN"T magic, it is magical.  

Yesterday, though, I wasn't the watcher.

Warning:  The following paragraphs involve sanskrit yoga speak, with some photos from Light On Yoga (where else!) to help illustrate. 

We began with a gentle vinyasa holding the poses: 

Adho Mukha Virasana

Adho Mukha Svanasana

Uttanasana

Adho Mukha Svanasana

Urdhva Mukha Svanasana

Then straight away into headstand and variations:

Sirsasana

Parsva Sirsasana

Parsvaikapada Sirsasana

There was a break while we learned how to teach those new to the pose at the wall and how to teach those doing in the middle of the room before repeating the poses ourselves. 

We stood up to do Tadasana and then arch back as if to do a back bend, when she suddenly stopped and called me to her, and had me do the pose while holding the middle of my back and then brought me up and asked,

"Why is your head crooked in Sirsasana?" (This isn't the first time some one has told me this...At home I practice this pose in front of a mirror.)

"I have crooked neck", I said with a smile.  

She smiled back, and said, "Guruji would say "Crooked neck, Crooked mind!!".  Big laugh from everyone.  

She then had me turn around and face everyone so they could see my crooked neck (it tilts to the right), and then asked me if I could tell which eye was dominant (it's the right one).  Then she asked me to look out of the upper corner of my non-dominant eye. Judging by the class reaction, my neck straightened!

Where they eyes go, the body goes.  You may have experienced that when driving if you take your eyes off the road you drift in the direction you are looking.

Satisfied, Geeta returned to the back arch, had me do the pose several more times to teach what she was really interested in showing...how to go back without hardening the back muscles.  

• Taking the feet as wide as necessary so the tail bone goes in and the back muscles soften and spread to the side rather than hardening.  
• Maintaining the leg/back actions, lifting the spine to go back, hands on the back of the thighs to push them forward.

• Coming up, keeping the spinal muscles broadening rather than jamming in.  

She asked me what I had felt, and since my back was to her, I twisted to the right to answer her question, and she busted me again, "SEE!  Always to the right!"  

So I QUICKLY swiveled the other way to the left to look at her, and we all laughed.   Habits are so deeply ingrained. Developing new ones means creating awareness, then practicing to build the new neural pathways. 

We all practiced the actions in back arch and then continued from there with a similar theme -- 

keep the legs the width of the mat, outer heel pressing and thigh ACTION (not movement) pressing outward to keep the lower back from taking the heat, and keeping the collar bones spreading so that the chest (as in Upward Dog) could come through.  

Here's what we did...each of these was repeated a minimum of 4 times. 

Urdhva Danurasana

• Urdhva Danurasana

• Urdhva Danurasana bringing the head down behind the hands and moving the chest forward.

• Urdhva Danurasana bringing the hands into Sirsasana position, beginning to approach Viparita Dandasana.  

• Viparita Dandasana  

• Setubhandasana - elbows to the wall, rolling on to the forehead, walking the feet out.   We did not take our hands off the floor! 

Setubandhasana

All in all, it was a great class, and when we returned later that afternoon, one of my flat mates and I practiced the head stand variations again to see if my head would stay straight....it's a bit like a rubber band that keeps going back to it's original shape!  I'll have keep working on it. 

Next post will definitely be on food...all this asana practice makes a girl hungry!