“My dear yoga friends”… These were the opening lines of Geetaji this morning at RIMYI. I’ve only heard her through the CDs and on YouTube and this was so different from her teaching. She was just one of us and spoke from her heart. We started with the prayers which were chanted in unison unlike in the classes and the energy in the room was something else.
She then proceeded to talk about Yog and the key message was about keeping up the practice. She exhorted the students, especially those who just started to continue practice and not stop. She quoted Sutra 1:14, ” Long, uninterrupted, alert practice is the firm foundation for restraining the fluctuations. ”
She touched on a lot of topics and post the session there was a group that gathered around and she was talking about how yoga was necessary for the glandular system. She then gave the example of menopausal changes and how that was a time to cool and calm the glandular system while in the earlier period inversions were better for activating it.
I heard the words, registered some and a lot of it was beyond my reach for now but I hope that someday a fragment of what she spoke will speak more clearly to me. Her compassion was palpable and there was humour too. She wryly mentioned the traditional Iyengar temper with making students understand which got the hall laughing. It’s a parampara, a tradition of the lineage that worked and continues to work in getting the students to learn and experience.
After the talk, I stuck around for an hour long Sadhana session. I feel I am still stuck at tadasana even though I practise other asanas. That first asana still eludes me. Sometimes I think even if I don’t learn anything else but that one asana, it will be enough.
We went through
Tadasana
Urdhva hastasana
Urdhva baddanguliyasana
Uthita hasta padasana
Parsva hasta padasana
Uttanasana
Uthita trikonasana
Utkatasana
Surya namaskars
Dandasana
Urdhva hastasana in dandasana
Upavishta konasana
Baddakonasana
Paschimottanasana
Chathushpadasana
Savasana
Just so filled with gratitude for a day of learning.
Pranamami Patanjalim
anonymous sadhaka 