Kate Taylor's Yoga Site

Friday mornings are always a led primary series. I really enjoy these classes a lot because of the energy created in the room when 55 people are all breathing and moving simultaneously. As Saraswati calls out the sequence, all of the bodies move in unison through the poses. Since the breath is linked with the movements, it is like the whole building is inhaling and exhaling with every breath.

I had a fitful sleep the night before and my mind was not very focused. While I was able to get into most of the poses with physical ease, my balance was off and I almost toppled over in a few poses. When I got to Marichi C, I bound without any assistance on both sides. Yay! On D, I was pretty close on the right side, and not even in the neighborhood on the left. Even so, I decided to try the next pose to see if she would stop me. Bhujapindasana is an arm balance but uses lots of core stength to keep your hips lifted while you gently touch your chin to the mat and hold for 5 breaths. It is not terribly difficult, but a little awkward to get into, and I have not done it more than once or twice before. I was able to get into it and rested my forehead on the mat instead of my chin. The hardest part it getting out of the pose – you are supposed straighten your legs and then bend your knees and go into crow pose before jumping back to four arm staff (chataraunga dandasana) pose. Needless to say I did not get that on my first try.

On Sunday we do a led class again and I plan to stop at Marichi D and really watch the advanced students do the whole pose and transition and then start working on it on Monday. I suppose I should wait for Saraswati to “give” me the pose, but there has been talk among the students that she does not stop people from proceeding in the same way Sharath or Guruji would if they were teaching. And I figure while I am here I might as well try and learn a few more pose.  She does seem to have eyes in the back of her head though and I might be setting myself up to have her call out “you stop!” on Monday when she catches me. Maybe I’ll ask her after I get her to help me in Marichi D.  

It seems like it would be no big deal to ask your teacher something like that, but these classes are pretty quiet without much talking and mostly she tells us what to do rather than us asking questions. The student/teacher relationship is much more formal than in the U.S. Or at least that has been my observation so far.

Speaking of the teaching style, the way they teach here is very different from other yoga traditions with which I am familiar. In the led classes she really just calls out the name of the pose and then counts through the breath (mostly in Sanskrit). If she sees someone doing something really wrong, she might interrupt the count to give them a verbal correction. In contrast, when I teach, I tend to fill the time between calling out the poses and the breath with guidance on how to adjust one’s alignment. Now that I have been through quite a bit of training I know how to go through the mental checklist myself when I am in the classes here, but for new students it must be challenging to know if they are doing the poses right.

There are a few folks here who showed up without any knowledge of the primary series and I have met at least one guy who had never done any yoga before. As I watch her teach these new people I imagine that if I were in their shoes the learning process would be very challenging and as much a psychological challenge as a physical challenge. For one, she speaks with a pretty heavy Indian accent, so sometimes it is hard to know what she wants you to do. Also, many of the students are not native English speakers so they are interpreting Indian-accented English instruction, sprinkled with unfamiliar Sanskrit words. Additionally, the amount of instruction she gives is very succinct. The brand new students I know here have bought books and DVD’s that they study outside of class to get the additional instruction that they might feel they need. On the other hand, this learning process probably creates more humility, which is what most of us westerners need to make progress in or yoga! I can say that even with the experience and training I have had in other forms of yoga, this first week has been very humbling for me.