When I am Among the Trees

With no class or practice at the Institute,  Sunday's cool November morning air makes it a perfect time for exploration.  Our apartment overlooks a large park, which is home to myriad bird species whose early morning chorus makes an alarm practically unnecessary.  Stands of bamboo so thick that no light passes through them exist alongside delicate flowers.  

We begin there, in good company with many power-walking Punites, and as we reach the far side, are greeted by a graceful anjali mudra sculpture.  

Through the gates and right onto Hare Krishna Mandir Road, we pass by the Iyengar Institute and head across the busy, noisy expressway just 75 feet from the entrance.  

As we go onto the grounds of the Pune Agricultural College, almost instantly the honking and roar of traffic subsides and we are among the trees...

Huge old Mimosa branches arch over the street, like the nave of a cathedral inviting one deeper inside.  

The well-kept lawn fronts a majestic building in the center of campus, behind which are the agricultural fields.   Both these stand in a stark contrast to the big city bustle outside the gates.

WHEN I AM AMONG THE TREES

by Mary Oliver

When I am among the trees,

especially the willows and the honey locust, 

equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,

they give off such hints of gladness.

I would say that they save me, and daily. 

I am so distant from the hope of myself,

in which I have goodness, and discernment,

and never hurry through the world

but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves

and call out, "Stay awhile." 

The light flows from their branches,

And they call again, "It's simple,"

they say, "and you, too, have come

into the world to do this, go easy,

to be filled with light, and to shine."

A special thank you to my mentor, Peentz, who introduced me to this poem and this poet.

Might as well jump!

Van Halen's song "Jump" came to mind after Saturday's Women's class.  Nine seconds into the opening riff of this early video, David Lee Roth literally jumps into this Hanumanasana-like pose, and later intones, "you've got to roll with the punches to get to what's real".  

Geeta continued the theme of jumping from Wednesday's class.  Just as each pose was taken, we sprung to the next.  Techniques were taught for springing and landing with each new pose added...how to coordinate the movement of the limbs and the lift of the hips so that the legs could move quickly into place.  Initially we worked on the mats but found those got in the way, so cleared the floor of all props and just worked on the cool stone floor.

What I think she was getting at was that practice shouldn't always be the same, step-by-step process...press the heel, lift the knee cap, turn the thigh.  "I can tell you how to bend the knee," she said, "and then your mind is with the knee."  Sure, those techniques help us as we begin to learn a new pose, but after a while, taking the pose on as a whole rather than parts, practicing in different ways, awakens the mind to where there is an opportunity in the body, some new awareness...and today's class definitely awakened some opportunities in us all.

In addition to jumping back and forth from Uttanasana to Adho Mukha Svanasna, a classic warm up in a yoga class, we jumped from Downward Facing Dog INTO Parsvottanasana, INTO Trikonasana...Ardha Chandrasana...Parsvakonasana--landing briefly enough to strike the pose before leaping back to Downward Facing Dog.

There was a lot of grunting and laughter and resting Uttanasana and stopping to watch demonstrations for nuance. The goal pose?  A variation of Visvamitrasana*. Think Parsvakonasana, but as you jump the leg forward from Downward dog, bring the foot to the outside of the hand, duck the shoulder under, and lift the foot off the floor as you straighten the arm. Turn the chest and extend the top arm to the ceiling...now jump back to Downward dog.  Go on...you know you want to try it!  

Might as well JUMP!

When all was said and done that day, I felt lighter and with a new sense of the opportunities and possibilities, even if my Visvamitrasana wasn't quite fully achieved.

* Visvamitrasana is a pose named after a warrior king-turned sage, Visvamitra.  Per Light onYoga, he was in a rivalry with Vasista, a Bhramin sage.  Through hard work and piety, Visvamitra raised himself to bhraman status.  

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!!

Yoga for the Traveler: Part 1

Hours in the air and in the airport waiting to fly can be tough on the body and the mind.  Over the years I've cultivated and improved on an airport and airplane practice which I recently taught in several of my classes.  

I had two LONG flights this trip, so I did the Pre-Boarding practice at the first airport and the On Board practice on both planes, and it was very doable.  Several flight attendants and passengers wanted to get in on the game!  Of course, you can do other poses than what I have listed in my sequence here and may find other ways to do them.  Click the link below to access the sequence.

Airport - Airplane Sequence

Let's have a little fun with this:  Announcing the Airport/Airplane Photo Contest!  

Send me a photo of yourself doing a yoga pose at the airport or on an airplane by November 26.  You can email the photo to me (rosie.richardson726@gmail.com and do let me know if it's ok for me to share it on a future blog post at the end of this journey).  I'll bring a special gift to the first 10 students who send me their entry.  For those of you who are not my students, play along anyway!  

Here are a few samples of the poses I did on the plane in that little hallway between sections.   

 

    

Being "At Home"

Raise your hand:  Who remembers encyclopedias?  

When I was kid, we had shelves full of these gorgeous bound volumes, and I would spend hours getting lost in them.  At the end of most articles was my FAVORITE part:   "See also...fill in the blank", directing me to further exploration. 

Now, we have the internet as a seemingly infinite "see also" encyclopedia directive.  A search on the phrase "at home" revealed uses familiar and antiquated:

• Present or here
• In one's own place, community or town 
• A sports team's venue
• Comfortable, relaxed, content, confident, safe, 
• At ease in one's surroundings
• Ready to receive visitors and entertain (think British period dramas)

We spend much of our life "at home"...in our comfort zone, if you will, and when out of those boundaries, naturally, seek to find our way back in.  

As yoga practitioners, however, we are by nature explorers, expanding the boundaries of awareness.  We learn through the practice of asana that the feeling of place is wherever we are today in a pose.  The more we practice a pose, the more we learn about ourselves in it, and the more comfortable we get...until we spy that little reminder to "see also" in that asana where we are again faced with the opportunity to know more. 

And in this way we expand our awareness of and openness to the idea of a greater sense of the infinite within.

Traveling and learning to live away from home offers that same opportunity for expanding the sense of what "At Home" can be.  Here in Pune, we took care of the necessary first [food, water, shelter, internet :-) ] and now are looking around to appreciate the setting.  More on that in another post.

Classes will start today, but yesterday was spent settling in and of course, that means PRACTICE.  I truly do feel at home in the practice hall at RIMYI now.  I chose to do a sequence Guruji gave for Jet Lag (I'll share it in another post).  And even though one really CAN stay in one's own place during a practice in a busy room full of others doing the same, it is lovely when something unexpected draws you out.  Toward the end of my practice, the sounds of Guruji's great grandchildren's laughter in the courtyard came bubbling up through the grilled windows.  

On the way out, I noticed among the shoe shelves something I had missed coming in...a reminder that the Institute is not just a place of learning, but also a HOME!  

Another Opening, Another Show

Dear ones, 

I'm finally off to Pune again!  Stay tuned to this site for future musings, photos, sequences and links.  

Those of you receiving this blog for the first time, when you go the actual website for the blog,  please select the "FOLLOW" button on the right in order to receive notices of new postings.  It will guide you in next steps.  There is also a way to follow through email. 

In the meantime, here is a video from the asana performance for Patricia Walden's 70th birthday...you'll recognize a number of Down Under teachers (I'm in it), either demonstrating poses or narrating.  If you receive this as an email, to see the video you will need to select the title of the post which should be highlighted in blue.  

Asana Performance for Patricia Walden's 70th

Moving the Skin You're In

What does it mean to you to "practice yoga"?  

I know...that is a BIG question, so when I was asked today how LONG I had been practicing yoga, I had to think about what those words really meant.  

But before we get into that, let me tell you about our last class today.  

Geeta taught an asana sequence intended to quiet the mind and nervous system before teaching some of the subtle work of pranayama and dhyana.  For those readers newer to the yoga scene, these are three of the 8 limbs (ashtanga) in yoga.  They include:

• Yama - a code of ethics...no lying, violence, stealing, coveting or sexual misconduct

• Niyama - personal practices - cleanliness, contentment, sincere effort, self-study of yoga and texts, and surrender to the Self

• Asana -  the Posture practice

• Pranayama - Breath Control practice

• Pratyahara - Withdrawal of the senses

• Dharana - Concentration

• Dhyana - Meditation

• Samadhi - A profound state of meditation where one "meets the soul face to face" as Iyengar described it.

You'll note that meditation is way down on the list as it is considered a more advanced practice in yoga, BUT even a newer student begins to taste a bit of it in an asana class, where one is essentially practicing meditation on the action or stillness in the poses. 

But just sitting or lying down to meditate? Either my swirling thoughts get in the way, or I drift in and out. 

Today's class was the culmination of a week of Asana and Pranayama for Meditation.  Toward the end of class today, I reached such a profound state of relaxation during the supine pranayama that when she instructed us to "move the skin" in one direction or another, I had so much spaciousness and sensitivity in my physical body that I COULD feel the skin respond.  My nervous system was QUIET, my senses were NOT directed outward (though technically I was listening to Geeta), my thoughts were NOT swirling, my mind was completely present on the very experience she was teaching and my body relaxed and responded.  

It was very, very interesting.

WELL, I probably lost you when I said "SKIN MOVING", didn't I?   

When I first ventured down this road, I recall hearing a teacher giving a skin-related instruction and thought to myself how impossible that seemed!  As I walked home through the usual cacophony of traffic sounds and smells, completely aware but undisturbed by any of it, that memory came back to me and I had to laugh at myself...it IS possible after all! 

Back to the question at hand.  When some one asked today, "How long have you been practicing yoga?" I said, "Well, it really depends on how you define it."

Like many, I came into my first class with curiosity, hoping to feel better, get stronger and more limber.  In 1998 I would have said I was "taking a yoga class", not practicing yoga.  When I enrolled in the teacher training program 10 years later, I'm not sure that I could call what I was doing then "practicing yoga" either as I really only knew about the Asana practice at that time.  

Lynn, an Australian yoga teacher who lives here, noted gently that even though it wasn't in my awareness yet, I was starting down that path back then, and that it takes years to build to an experience and awareness like today's.  

It's a bit like learning to read and write. 

We learn to read and write at say, age 5 or 6, but the type of reading and writing then is not the same as when you are 10 or 20 or 50.  Before you can write a dissertation, or even understand one, you first need to learn your ABC's -- How to recognize the letters, write them, say them. Then learn to recognize words, read and write simple words and sentences and books...then harder words, complex sentences, advanced books and so on.  

Equally, in a yoga practice, you have to learn your ABC's...First there is asana.  You can't learn to stand on your head until you understand how to stand on your feet and legs.  You have to learn learn how stretching and straightening the arms and legs stretches the spine.  You have to learn what Geetaji calls "the gross actions" of the body before you can learn more subtle and detailed ones.    

Little by little, you begin to develop awareness of the outer layer of the physical embodiment, moving gradually through the layers of your being, all the while, cultivating the discipline to meditate.  BKS Iyengar has referred to the asana practice as "meditation in action". 

So many years of exploring this, both in and out of class, on and off the mat, learning to appreciate and live the lessons in the Yoga Sutras of Patañjali, trying and failing and trying again and succeeding, rinse...repeat...this is what "practicing yoga" means to me.  

This final post brings me back to the very first one. The intense experience of learning daily with the Iyengars and the many hours of practice in the hall every day have transformed my awareness, moving it along the continuum.  

As for my next visit, perhaps I'll take some inspiration from the Vibhuti Pada, the third chapter of the Sutras which describes the special powers that come to yoga practitioners....Invisibility has a certain appeal! 

Thanks for coming along on my journey of transformation this month.  

Please - Feel free to add your thoughts in the comments section on what practicing yoga means for you.