I've realized that I haven't yet described the yoga studio ... it is beautiful. It is a separate building, behind their house in the middle of a most incredible garden. The studio is perfect: huge open space, brick walls, high ceilings with great fans, large windows north and south with all the props – you can hang in a rope and before shutting your eyes, look at the incredible marigolds just outside.
8 days in and I am so enjoying the yoga - both Swati and Rajiv are excellent teachers, each with their own very distinctive style. Swati's classes are efficient and very focused on the precise instructions for the asanas – her sequences have great flow with a very natural progression from start to end.
Rajiv on the other hand is more philosophical and combines talks with the asanas – put plainly, he is a passionate, inspirational raconteur with a love of yoga in it's purest form – 'yog'. The fundamental question he asks is what are we doing? Is it 'yoga' or 'yog'. To him, what is practiced in the West is 'yoga' – by the body for the body – and it stops there (he is very skeptical – to say the least ... – about what the West has done / is doing to yoga). Whereas the science of 'yog' – as written by Pantajali over 5,000 years ago – has an ultimate goal of transforming the self – and while yes it too starts with by the body for the body, it goes beyond to by the body for the breath, to by the body and the breath for the mind. Progressing beyond just by the body for the body yoga is what he is here to teach over these next three weeks.
The first step in this journey is getting us to focus on the interconnections within the body – yes you can pull up your knee in Trikonasana (triangle pose) and it is by the knee for the knee and you can also adjust your foot and have a similar impact on the knee – by the foot, for the knee. Basically the combinations and permutations are endless ... by the foot for the foot, by the foot for the knee, by the shin for the knee. And yes, the Teacher can guide you to find these connections, but ultimately it is our individual journey and we need to find these connections ourselves – how do we do that? By experimenting – in his words it should be 'Eureka yoga' – how are we aware of the impact on ourselves in the pose of the different actions we take – and how do we 'play' within a pose at our own initiative. Which I believe is part of the reason why there is no hands on corrections in the classes – because in his mind, how can a teacher know when you are experimenting, so if they come along and readjust an arm that was back to be upright again, they could have just disrupted your experiment. Clearly this applies to students who already know the physical poses versus those that are just learning.
The other way that he describes this concept is that we need to understand the 'why' of the 'what'. In a pose, the first step is the 'how' – but then, we need to seek to understand the 'why' – why is the teacher asking us to put pressure on the outer foot of the back leg in standing poses – what is the effect of that on the leg, the hip, the chest, the arm ...
I have to say, I don't feel fully comfortable writing this – I am finding it hard to do justice to the experience of both of their classes – but especially Rajiv's. What he is teaching is new to me – he can be inspirational and I'm loving learning it – and many times, I'm sure I'm only understanding and experiencing a small portion of what he is trying to communicate. So – the usual disclaimer – if I'm getting this wrong, it is me, not Rajiv!!!
NB - I also have to say – I have my special yoga shirt with me that I have worn in yoga classes all through my travels – it reminds me of my yoga 'home' and I love explaining to people the expression on the back :-)
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