The Camera

  To me nothing takes me out of my practice more than come-see, in an iyengar class its part of the learning process which I love but it takes one out of ones practice, so does taking notes and so does taking pictures, its all disruptive to that inward journey. I have always learned better when I could see hear and write, for some reason this implanted the information in my mind, I was never go home read the chapter and come back for the test so I knew the iyengar method was correct for how I have always learned combining these in such a wonderful way.     

  The problem with my notes is I have gone back to them years later and read and not understood 1 thing I had written, it was hilarious to me that it must have made perfect sense at the time but now I could not tell you how to start with whatever I am saying about the block or hand position or whatever, but pictures now that is something else, the setup and sequence is there, understandable years later.

   I can list just as many reasons not to take pics, doesn’t take a brain surgeon to understand them, so teachers saying no is not what is interesting. There is an interesting thing about US teachers and pictures, its called fear, it was spotted very early if you walk into a class with a camera you are met with it in very clear ways, so the usual reaction I have experienced or seen is a panic flash in the eyes (its what they see in me when they announce 'it's backbend week'), I have seen this many times and it is clear, another reaction I have seen is anger which is just the other side of the same coin.

 I went to my first workshop with HS Arun in 2008 in Dallas and knew immediately here was something more something else so after that first workshop I tried to write notes and knew this would not work well, his classes are extremely prop intensive and a lot of things have the action of a named pose but calling it that pose is right but not the same. So the next time I went to his workshop, it was in boerne, i walked in with my camera.

  so i was full of fear and am used to seeing their fear and knowing anger is a possible reaction, so this past is what i had.... i go up to Arunji and my mouth goes on auto pilot because i am waiting for the explosion, i am saying 'nobody will ever see the pics, as a matter of fact i won't even look at them, i will just take them and go out in the parking lot and set the camera on fire so that he can rest assured they will never be seen by a human', my mouth, i swear, is moving non-stop and i am actually starting to step back to get out of his line of fire... and he suddenly says 'STOP' and my mouth stops moving in mid-sentence and he says 'I don’t care what you do with the pictures, take whatever you want and do whatever you want with them, that is your karma not mine'.
  i walked back to my place and thought he is the most incredible person because that is truth, if i take the worst pic of him i had taken and post it, who does that harm? ME, his students would know the truth, Guruji his teacher knows his practice better than anyone and so would certainly see the truth...they would all see that it was me who was wrong  

  3 things I think must be dealt with by a teacher when I approach with a camera – ego (how will I look, what if it isn’t perfect), control (once its on my camera and I walk out there is none for them) and fear  (see 1 and 2)– when he spoke poof they were gone, it was so clear he had no attachment to any of these.  

  I have to believe this fear which is being instilled and nurtured is some undercurrent in the US, I find it hard to believe all these teachers were beaten with photographs as small children. I am pretty sure they don’t think they are perfect and if anyone saw the pic they would realize the truth.

 I have guessed maybe there is the ‘iyengars may see it’, in my opinion good! So in my job I write software code, every line of code I write is looked at by a group of reviewers before it is allowed to be used and if something is wrong they send a mass email to everyone above me saying what a horrible mistake I made, it’s a lot of fun, but so what, I can take this as a way to learn something I didn’t know, if I was doing my best and there is a better way I want to know this, I would prefer they walked over and whispered it in my ear but public humiliation works too…so if you are seen and there is a reaction … good, learn and move on, don’t learn ‘well nobody must see’, that is not the lesson, I don’t think it is anyway.

  These are guesses all I know is at ramanands workshop this year he walked in and said you can take notes pictures videos audio record, I don’t care…my whole self smiled not because oh goodie I can take pics, ok not just because of that but because poof all that attachment was gone he didn’t have it, none of that meant anything to him, if it helps you as students fine it was nothing to him.  

 Some do respond with no fear and that is so wonderful, not that they say ‘yes’, I am there to learn and I will learn and explore rather I take pics or not, but some, very few, just simply say no or yes and skip the but the world will stop turning on its axis panic attack, so refreshing! Since Gurujis passing there have been so many wonderful pictures of him posted on facebook of him teaching, there are also videos of him teaching classes and audios recorded…these are not professional these are by students, what joy we are all having looking at these