She's BA-AACK!

The rhythm of the days here seems simple on the surface:

• 2 hours of asana class 5 days a week
• 2 hours of pranayama class 1 day a week
• 3 hours of practice 6 days a week
• 1-3 hours of observing classes taught by various institute teachers 6 days a week

That's six to eight hours at the Institute six days a week, and each day is arranged a little differently.  Some days begin at 7 am with class followed by practice, others at 9 am with practice and class toward the evening.  Some days at the institute end at 4:30, others at 8 pm.  One of the challenges is figuring out how to restore and preserve one's energy in the interstitial moments to get the maximum from each class, practice and observation...when to eat, do errands, do laundry, and rest.  

Jet lag plays a huge role the first week, so one has to be cautious not to bite off too much in those first days. Inevitably though, the Institute teachers hit the ground running, and so it was with the first class...

Abhijata, Iyengar's granddaughter and a powerful young teacher, looked at the crowd of new and veteran Pune visitors and acknowledged the nervousness, anxiety and jet lag in the room.  As she instructed us to let that feeling release from our eyes, face and throat in the first two quieting poses, the feeling of tension leaving the collective body was palpable.  Then she brought us to standing...and BAM!  

Quick as fox, she ran us through the standing poses like we were speed dating, calling out the pose, giving one or two instructions, then "second side".  Fifteen seconds per side, one pose, two poses...8, 9, 10 poses.  As we came up from resting Uttanasana, in my peripheral vision I see that Geeta Iyengar has entered the room, and is seated next to the very large Patañjali statute that decorates the asana hall.  

She watches the next pose, and much like her father before her when others were teaching in his presence, she jumps in and takes over the class.  

She's BA-AACK!!

It has been several months since Geetaji has been well enough to teach, so this is very exciting for all of us who have traveled so far but had not been expecting to experience her teaching this time.  

Virabhadrasana III  - Warrior III is the pose that has her fired up, and so we begin to find the both the length, movement and moment of extension as well as the moment of balance in the pose.  We do it over and over and over again, with the same speed as Abhijata had started us, until finally she's satisfied that the front body is staying long.  Then she turns to the back leg which lands short of its starting point when we come down to both feet, so we repeat the pose this time with support -- our hands coming down to the floor in front of our shoulders, stretching the chest forward and the leg back to land back where we began.  Every three or four attempts, we stop as she makes another point or threads in a philosophical point.  I'm NOT exaggerating when I say we did this pose 24 times!  

[Note: 11/12:    I purchased the recording of this class to be able to listen to the more philosophical components of the class and in the process recounted.  We did Vira III in one form or another 14 times on each side for a total of 28!  Note that we were moving swiftly, not holding.  But this is less important than what she was trying to convey about the moments and movements in the consciousness.]

The class continued in this vein for another 90 minutes, with lots of breaks where she wove in philosophy. Today's theme was how we wrestle with the citta - the mind -- how hard it is to be just in the moment, not worrying about the next moment, not thinking about something else including letting our worries take over.  Geetaji is fierce but she has a great sense of humor in her description of the movements of the citta..."I wonder what's for lunch today?"  "That's a nice blue t-shirt over there."  How long WILL we do this pose?"  And the opportunity to stay in the moment came when she called out for us to do Sirsasana - Headstand.  

Immediately students came forward and announced this problem and that problem....maybe you've done this yourself...I know I have.  Long story short, Geeta stopped to reiterate her point about not letting these vrttis...the movements of the mind take over the moment we are in...that she wasn't asking us to take headstand forever.   Go..do the pose...find out!  Be in the pose and "Don't just die there...be alive there!"  

Geeta's BA-AACK!!