Roger Cole

I am in La Jolla for a 1 day workshop with Roger Cole, I have attended his class in Del Mar a few times but this is the first all day event i have been to. It was held at a studio which was not an Iyengar studio and he was brought in as part of their teacher training. It was really interesting watching him teach a room full of students who had never done Iyengar yoga, he had slides and spoke about BKS Iyengar leaving me even more grateful to have started a path of yoga in the sphere of such a genius, as Roger Cole explained his use of props to find integrity in the pose, alignment is a technique for equanimity.

The morning session was more active, several things stood out. watching people who had never done sarvangasana on support. He asked someone to demonstrate who regularly did the asana without support and who loved the asana. Then showed that her neck and shoulders looked good but the torso and legs were not straight so he put her on height and had her go back up to show, she said she felt she would fall over without him there, so interesting not just the alignment change but someone who does the pose and who is obviously flexible but finding and keeping the alignment made it so much more difficult for her.

 My favorite from the morning was Virabhadrasana I - him showing the tadasana pelvis being kept as the legs stepped apart, keeping 1 hand on the sit bone of the back leg side and 1 hand across the torso on the front hip bone keeping the same relationship of tadasana, raise the heel and bend the front leg keeping tadasana, he said almost everyone bent the back leg because the back leg wants to bend but the quadricep of the back leg must be engaged strongly to keep the leg straight, he said when the back leg bent it was like walking over to the wall outlet and pulling the plug, all the energy goes out of the pose.

The afternoon was restorative, he studies the physiology of relaxation so he had ekg's, eeg's, brain waves, heart rate graphs during a restorative practice... all of the science just made me more astounded at BKS Iyengar. He said he believed viparita karani was one of the most relaxing things a human could do from his perspective as a scientist, other forms of yoga do vip karani, it is in the ancient texts,  but only Iyengar yoga used the configuration with the pelvis supported in this way. Him explaining inversions triggering the blood pressure sensor in the neck, the sensor sending the message to the brain that the blood pressure has increased which has the brain enlarging the arteries and lowering the heart rate to bring the blood pressure down so that inversions, when in a calm mind state, lowers blood pressure, and Guruji knew all of this from experience ... wow. How stretching has an immediate reaction of causing the brain to contract the muscle, staying in a gentle stretch leaves you more relaxed as the impulses get weaker over time.

the teacher does not have to walk a student deeper and deeper into a state of deep relaxation, you just need to get the student to the tipping point as it tips a little more relaxation takes over and relaxation progresses by itself

prasarita padottanasana - forehead supported, if head to the floor be on crown, if flexible uttanasana head supported

dwi pada - blocks on lowest height, 1 block horizontal under pelvis 1 block verticle under shoulders, belt mid thighs

setu bandha - 2 blankets shelf fold in half lengthways end to end, legs torso on blankets mid calf belted

supta baddha konasana - 2 blankets lengthways fold stacked, 1 lengthwise fold folded in half for head support, blanket folded over feet under thighs

I was fascinated that someone explaining what BKS Iyengar gave to the subject to a non-iyengar group was every bit as astounding as any teacher talking about Guruji's gift to an Iyengar class, it will always give me pause to really try to understand the depth of this mans accomplishments