Wednesday, April 20, 2011

In class

A lot of my students have got the astavakrasana -- Amitabh, Jit, Sonia, Claudia, Simrat. Will soon post this most exotic of asanas  with a collage of them all doing it!!! It is a wonder to me why yoga teachers don't teach this sort of pose here. Often, it is easier than the other, more seemingly simple ones like the side crow:)

Anyways,  Mayank is now comfortable in the nirlamba sirsasana, where the supported headstand (salamba sirsasana) used to give him a lot of trouble.. I have found that for some people with a shoulder co-ordination issue, the tougher nirlamba sirsasana can be easy!! It is a matter of wonder to me, but has worked in several cases where the salamba, or supported headstand, is difficult for some reason of co-ordination. In fact, today Mayank held the nirlamba sirsasana, after just the third day into it, for over two minutes, and very very steadily!! And plus, he got the paschimottanasana also... and held on for quite long:)

In the Monday class the four bachchus -- all girls in the 20s -- sat for pranayama in the lotus, so I was maha thrilled. It is very difficult for me to hold on to the 20s age group amongst Indians -- they love the class and all that, but seem not able to have to the discipline somehow to stick on, because somewhere the belief they have the entire life to catch upon yoga! Plus the yoga fare in India is so extremely boringly taught -- and directed at the sick or fearful and the gym-brain-dead types -- that the general attitude is  lackadaisical towards it... It is not taught as a physical or spiritual adventure it truly is.. In the thirties age group, there is usually lot of backsliding in practice -- go up, come down-- go up, come down. In the forties-fifties age group tiredness from the various commitments, including familial as well as the sudden blossoming of new hobbies (recapturing things that were missed in the twenties:)... So Sigh, sometimes I feel drained at the pattern I expect in each age group!!

Any case, even if somewhere the general pattern of yoga seeps in, I believe, it is entirely due to some great karmic backlog of goodness from all your past lives ... So all this pattern-shattern thing, I must simply overlook and just teach, teach, teach!

1 comment:

Anila said...

Kudos to all your students! waiting for their pics :-)