Day2 of the Intensive

An amazing day - Geetaji is an incredible teacher, guess that isn't a news flash but it's rather stunning to be here.

Today she started right into asana, standing poses. She had people on stage to show corrections, from the stage she would say gray tshirt on the back row of the first section come here, she had seen their issue from the stage, this was really incredible.  the first woman was called when we were all in upavistha konasana, in tadasana she showed how her right buttocks was round but her left buttocks was tight, she made her work to move the round buttocks in and make more balanced, she had her walking with her feet at the edge of the mat, walking back and forth as we watched how this imbalance improved, wow. She chanted Sahana Vavatu for her to see not to be fearful on stage we were all here to support each other.
After she corrected her Geeta asked what did you feel and the student said I feel great, geetaji said 'i dont care about great, i can make everyone in this room feel great, what did you feel?'



She told a story at the end of class that was so powerful, she asked if everyone was ok with her doing these demos and correcting because it was hard for her to see and ignore, then she said Guruji had stopped practicing and 10 days before he passed he was sitting on the balcony for fresh air, from the balcony he could see the class and someone near the window was doing wrong. Geeta said we will go and let them know but he had to correct this he called 'Abhi, Abhi' and she came to the window and he told her. it was funny but suddenly just so emotional too.

 We then went to see the Aga Khan Palace - Mahatma Ghandi , his wife Kasturba Gandhi,  and his secretary  Mahadev Desai were interned in the palace from 9 August 1942 to 6 May 1944, his wife and secretary died here. The grounds are beautiful.

Aga Khan Palace

Aga Khan Palace

Aga Khan Palace - Julie 

Aga Khan Palace - finally

Aga Khan Palace

Aga Khan Palace

Aga Khan Palace - getting closer

Then we got back for the afternoon session. Abhi talked about the commitment of attending Iyengar classes. She told a wonderful story of Guruji would tell her do an asana anytime anywhere, when she had just learned sirsasana they went on a picnic by a waterfall and he said Abhi do sirsasana at the base of the waterfall and have your head right in the base, she was scared and said no but soon did it and she said it was wonderful with the gentle flow of water on the back of her head. She said Guruji said 'we seek freedom but we cling to bondage'.
 One day tthey were working in parsva sarvangasana and Raya told Guruji 'my legs are too long' and Guruji replied 'yes make them short'
  Our journey is from the known to the unknown, the known has limits, don't put boundaries on your practice'. Go through the process of your commitment, set aside your previous experiences and do it new, 'habit is a disease'.
 The afternoon ended with a comic interlude. A doctor who is kind and obviously loved Guruji very much but not so much a presenter. This doctor cared for Guruji. So he had Patricia and Manouso on stage and would tell them to go in a pose and then he would start talking and you weren't sure what the purpose of them doing the pose in the background was for. So they did trikonasana, parsvakonasana, parvritta parsvakonasana (at this point i was laughing so hard it was really fun,) vira III, they would be in a pose and he would say something like see the muscles extend uh yep he's right about that but ... sirsasana (fairly long sirsasana while he talked about how great sirsasana was for you) , uttanasana now this was actually interesting he measured Patricia's spine in tadasana 26" then measured in Uttanasana 31" and he said so thinking the point is to get your head to your legs is ridicuous. It was lovely seeing their demos it was just so unrelated to what he was talking about that it became rather humorous to me.

Sirsasana is good

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