Posts Galore, how exciting!

Thanks for posting here and also on Anne's blog.

Sharon, I love your insights about your meditation and asana practice informing one another. I think your perceptions of Iyengar Yoga are very common and from what I can gather, there is a fair amount of disappointment here that this tradition has become reduced to something like what you describe. Prashant did this whole big thing one day about how "The Iyengar clan and all of its super star teachers are so good at points. They know where to push, where to lift, and they have a point for every ailment but what they fail to communicate is what is beyond all of those points."

I think a lot of it is just the consideration of stability and freedom as it relates to the study, practice and teaching of this thing we are calling yoga. I mean, the points are great. I am happy to have the structure of forms, recipes and so on for practice. Nothing like some good biomechanical points to help us focus and keep the body safe as we practice. But perhaps they are more of a means than we have been led to believe.

I have this friend named Ed who is a great guitar player. He plays these absolutely stellar solos that have the ability to really transport the listener to different realms. For a while he was a yoga student of mine. He had done yoga before but more in the "anything goes" methods. One day after class we were talking about the precision I was asking for in my classes. He said, " I didn't really get it at first but I think it is like music. People ask me all the time how I can play such great solos. To me the answer is simple- I know my scales." I replied that not only did he know his scales but he practiced them a lot as well. So like that.

I find it takes a kind of discipline to take what Prashant is saying or what Geeta is saying and apply it to levels that are deeper than the surface. Many times, on the surface layer, the comment is not true at all. For instance the whole "accusation" that we are not interested in learning. Of course I am interested in learning. But then, it becomes obvious that I was totally inattentive to some action in my pose and in that moment I absolutely was not an interested learner. Guilty as charged, so to speak. And it is a lot to really wrap myself around that even when we can manage attention on "three points", inevitably there is a fourth point or the culture of the pose and so on to which we will be called to pay attention. (Kind of like how I say in class all the time that we are rewarded for a job well done with something harder to do.)

Rhonda- there is a great group from New York. Mostly from the Iyengar Institute in Manhattan- they are all students of Mary Dunn. Haven't met anyone who is Dutch however. Sorry I will miss you in October but I am excited to hear that your art career is taking off in a big way. Those of you in Texas who have admired some of the pretty necklaces I wear, meet Rhonda- she made them.

And Hello, to Linda. Nice to know you are out there.

One cool thing from Sunita's class (other than it was fun, she was funny and quite knowledgeable.) Sunita is one of Mr. Iyengar's daughters and she was subbing for Geeta on Wednesday mroning in the Ladies Class. Not so much anything that she said but her studentship to Mr. Iyengar was really great. She was teaching and he was in the corner practicing and then he would tell her how we could improve or what was going wrong in the pose and then she would report what he said to us and it went on like that several times throughout the class. So as she was teaching us, he was teaching her and she was so completely grateful, non-defensive and in good cheer about his help. She didn't in anyway shrink from her seat as the teacher and she was absolutely utilizing his help with utter and complete humility and gratitude. (So the next time any of you have me in a as a teacher in a teacher training scenario for practicums, this is what I will expect! Just kidding.) It was just a great teaching in action of how we could be with our teachers.

All right then, enough for now.