Bricked

The last six weeks have been intense with classes five days a week. It’s been a soaking in and while the greedy student in me wants to continue, I think it’s best to scale down from next month. I’d like to accumulate less learning and experience and explore more instead. It feels a bit lazy to depend so much on online classes rather than struggle a bit on my own. Of course, I need and want my teachers but I could do with more self practice.

Bricked!
Today’s class had multiple repetitions of brick setuband sarvangasana and variations. By the end of the 90 minutes, there was a fire lit in the sacral region, not in a sore way but in an alive sense. Sirsasana and sarvangasana that came towards the end of class was beautiful in its steadiness thanks to that imprint of the brick. The bio mechanics of asanas also means freedom in the corresponding frontal body and I was left with a feeling of fearless vulnerability. The eyes too experienced something different today unlike the usual 1000 watt going off in the head. It is difficult to articulate the sensations, a cradling of the lower part of the eyes would be somewhat close.

The brick was a wonderful teacher, it’s constant pricking never letting me forget what our teacher wanted us to experience. Like she said, one part is about doing the asana and the other is feeling the asana. Range, endurance, flexibility all of that comes slowly or fast. It may come and go depending on illness, injury or other conditions but the feeling of the asana can be replicated using props. In this online format and with fewer props, we often substitute the usual ones with items at home like pressure cookers, stools, pillows, dupattas, sarees, sheets, steel dabbas, dining tables, chairs, sofas, beds, walls etc. It reminds me of Guruji’s early days and how his curiosity made him play with easily available materials to teach himself.

He was a brilliant student, curious and tenacious. As a student, there is much to learn from the way he learned. He listened, he observed, he experimented. There wasn’t any sense of an end goal to be achieved, rather it was more an immersion in the endlessness of yoga. I doubt I’d ever have even a fraction of that zeal and commitment, at best I could possibly expect to plod along in fits and starts. As I reflect on today’s class, I find myself asking yet again- why do I practise yoga, what is the fascination with asana that makes me go back time and time again? There is the mental clarity, emotional stability, physical well-being but I suppose it is also a being alive in this embodiment fully and without limitations. Somehow yoga has never been about getting something in return for time on the mat, the fulfillment has been in the endeavours.