A Manouso workshop in Denver
I have been to many workshops taught by Manouso..austin, denver, durango, dallas, providence, la... one of the things that makes him stand out for me is his ability to bring Guruji into the room, he talks about his teacher in such a way that you can almost see him standing there. The workshop that stands out for me, in this way, was in denver. I started realizing that there is genius in Iyengar yoga during my 2nd year of practice, the result of that action or watching a demo would leave me thinking that is just brilliant, so it is not required for a teacher to point it out for me to see it but how wonderful when they do.
Manouso had someone demo Utthita Parsvakonasana. He said for some students there arm doesn't just go over the ear but goes behind the ear. That was wild enough since i always have a great view of my arm in this pose since it's in front of my face but I could see this person had his arm toward the back of his skull. So Manouso is describing being in Pune and Guruji showing this on a student and he says Do you know what Guruji did, he touched the person here, Manouso touched the demoer on the upper side torso between the waist and armpit chest, and Guruji said 'extend here' and the demoer's arm aligned exactly over his ear. I got chills, it just hit me as the most amazing thing, Manouso had taken an action and shined a spotlight on it and said 'here, do you see how amazing this is'...
the next day in class he said get a chair, dwi pada viparita dandasana, we started partner work, the doer was in the chair and the partner would stand over their legs and starting at just above the knees use their hands to rotate from the back of the leg walking up the legs with their hands rotate, rotate rotate...in Manousos class when you do partner work it's 4x each: you do, partner does then find a new partner and repeat...then... again partner starts at top thigh walking toward the knee..rotate rotate, rotate...then again from the top knee to the sacrum rotate rotate rotate... then from the sacrum to the knee, then from the knee to the sacrum squeezing the hip bones in then from the sacrum to the knee...after over an hour when we got out of the chair and he said 'Again' my head turned and i looked at him 'seriously??...again, seriously...i mean i think i had the thighs rotate in concept down 30x ago'...but he looked extremely serious...so again..rotate rotate rotate... so the sequence of that class if you would like to write it down was swastikasana then dwi pada viparita dandasana in the chair...i left thinking okay that was good but chillbump-less
I flew back to dallas and a few days later was in class, 'get a chair, dwi pada viparita dandasana'. I stepped through the chair and went back...starting just above my knees, rotate rotate rotate...chills...there was no conscious thought, i had not said to myself i would now do the action, he had placed that in my cell memory, he had given me that gift...i was halfway out of my chair with an overwhelming desire to send him an email 'i apologize for my ignorance - karen', my brain did kick in telling me to stop it and go back to the pose since a) he already knows your ignorant and b) in the acceptable reasons to walk out in the middle of a class, sending an email is probably not going to make the list
headed to los angeles this weekend for a workshop with Manouso.
I have been to many workshops taught by Manouso..austin, denver, durango, dallas, providence, la... one of the things that makes him stand out for me is his ability to bring Guruji into the room, he talks about his teacher in such a way that you can almost see him standing there. The workshop that stands out for me, in this way, was in denver. I started realizing that there is genius in Iyengar yoga during my 2nd year of practice, the result of that action or watching a demo would leave me thinking that is just brilliant, so it is not required for a teacher to point it out for me to see it but how wonderful when they do.
Manouso had someone demo Utthita Parsvakonasana. He said for some students there arm doesn't just go over the ear but goes behind the ear. That was wild enough since i always have a great view of my arm in this pose since it's in front of my face but I could see this person had his arm toward the back of his skull. So Manouso is describing being in Pune and Guruji showing this on a student and he says Do you know what Guruji did, he touched the person here, Manouso touched the demoer on the upper side torso between the waist and armpit chest, and Guruji said 'extend here' and the demoer's arm aligned exactly over his ear. I got chills, it just hit me as the most amazing thing, Manouso had taken an action and shined a spotlight on it and said 'here, do you see how amazing this is'...
the next day in class he said get a chair, dwi pada viparita dandasana, we started partner work, the doer was in the chair and the partner would stand over their legs and starting at just above the knees use their hands to rotate from the back of the leg walking up the legs with their hands rotate, rotate rotate...in Manousos class when you do partner work it's 4x each: you do, partner does then find a new partner and repeat...then... again partner starts at top thigh walking toward the knee..rotate rotate, rotate...then again from the top knee to the sacrum rotate rotate rotate... then from the sacrum to the knee, then from the knee to the sacrum squeezing the hip bones in then from the sacrum to the knee...after over an hour when we got out of the chair and he said 'Again' my head turned and i looked at him 'seriously??...again, seriously...i mean i think i had the thighs rotate in concept down 30x ago'...but he looked extremely serious...so again..rotate rotate rotate... so the sequence of that class if you would like to write it down was swastikasana then dwi pada viparita dandasana in the chair...i left thinking okay that was good but chillbump-less
I flew back to dallas and a few days later was in class, 'get a chair, dwi pada viparita dandasana'. I stepped through the chair and went back...starting just above my knees, rotate rotate rotate...chills...there was no conscious thought, i had not said to myself i would now do the action, he had placed that in my cell memory, he had given me that gift...i was halfway out of my chair with an overwhelming desire to send him an email 'i apologize for my ignorance - karen', my brain did kick in telling me to stop it and go back to the pose since a) he already knows your ignorant and b) in the acceptable reasons to walk out in the middle of a class, sending an email is probably not going to make the list
headed to los angeles this weekend for a workshop with Manouso.
I know what you mean about his ability to bring Guruji into the room. I still remember the first time he said, "My name is Manouso Manos and my teacher is BKS Iyengar." At that moment, I was hooked.
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