Happy belated International Yoga day (June 21). Its wonderful to be in India and the institute seems to be celebrating for the whole month of June by offering extra lectures on practice, the art of Yoga presentation, and various other topics.
Practice has been a hot topic. One of the main messages concerning personal practice, throw away the syllabus. Of course if you want to be a pilot you need to study the manual., and when being lead into a pose you want the teacher to have practiced that pose a lot on their own body before putting the pose on your body. But that being said, the institute is pushing us to think outside of the syllabus.
Don't practice in the linear mind set. Practice should be joyful and scrumtious. Practice any pose on any level syllabus, if your heart so desires it and even if it doesn"t. It has also been recommended to practice the class sequences found at the back of Mr. Iyengar's Light On Yoga.
Here are a few techniques for scrumpiuos practice. Work on one pose from a variety of different techniques. Research how its done from various books and from various teachers and just spend the whole practice time working on the one pose. You can warm up as needed and cool down as needed. Another practice technique is to take all props away and just taste the pose. Try the unthinkable, for at least a second. From this raw practice it might be easier to see what is not lighting up in the pose. When you experience the.pose without the prop then you have a better chance of knowing what to do to open yourself to the pose. You also have a new appreciation for the creation of Mr. Iyengar's props.
Another question that came up, what to practice if you only practice for an hour. Inversions are like a calibrator for your system. They give you energy when you need it and calm you down when you have too much energy.
The other afternoon I took a walk through Ferguson College and came across some posters, see pictures below. Also the Shirole Farm is similar to our 7-11 store it has absolutely everything tucked away. Until next week keep practicing Namaste.
