These are notes from a class I’ve participated in at RIMYI during December 2019, which might be of interest to Iyengar yoga teachers and practitioners.
2.12.19 Prashant
This is my second session with Prashant, and my first asana class. The parts in italics are paraphrased, and necessarily represent my subjective understanding of what was taught. Although the list of postures is complete to the best of my knowledge, the comments are very incomplete; just the bits that I picked up and which stuck. They do not necessarily relate directly to the pose they come after- we were working in rotation and his discourse could have been inspired by anything he saw happening in the room. I am planning on purchasing the recordings they are now offering of Prashant’s classes, as there is so much he says that I will have forgotten already, or not registered or understood the first time around. So these notes may well get an update once I can listen to the class again!
- Innvocation in swastikasana
- Tadasana
- Urdvha hastasana
- Urdvha baddangulyasana Exhale, go further, connect body, breath, mind
- Parsva swastikasana (x 2 or 3) You can choose to ‘do’ the pose. This is outer body, sports method, gym method, for those of you that are exercise fanatics. You want to get up and exercise your body. So do it this way. Or maybe you choose to do it because you know you have a specific problem, so you want to release your shoulder or your back, so you do for that. This is not yoga. Yoga is not doing. Inhale, exhale to flush out. Body breath mind. This is connectivity.
- Utthita trikonasana (x 5) at the ropes, in the space You are thinking that ‘I am doing trikonasana’, straight legs, straight arms, leg turned out etc etc. But this ‘I, I, I’, what is this? You are not doing, Your legs are doing, your arms are doing, you are not doing. What about if you put your arm on your waist? Or you put your arm overhead like on Parsvakonasana, or your arm further back to open the shoulder, or you have the hand on a brick, or the brick in the top hand and the weight takes the arm back? Then OK you will find the shoulder opens here, I get more of a stretch here or here. You know all these things. But where is the breath? Where is the connectivity? Many of you are coming here 3o, 40 years and you still want your teacher to tell you what to do. This I know very well. You should know! You should be thinking ‘teacher, shut-up, I know this’. If there is study of connectivity you will be thinking this, not coming every day to be told what to do.
- Utthita parsvakonasana (x 2)
- Adho mukha svanasana- in rope
- Rope number 1 (x 2) There are many teachers who want to keep a student for life. Who get upset if the student goes to another teacher and so on. What is this? You should not want just that your student to stays with you. In that case you want them to be your client. This is what some teachers are looking for; life-long clients. But teacher and client is not a pair. Teacher and student is a pair.
- Sirsasana
- Sethu bandha sarvangasana (with brick)
Followed by a superb thali from the Jain Boarding House.
What a great morning!
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