What is your intention when you come to class? I typically start class with the assumption that the students in front of me are there to learn. If that’s the case, what’s the most beneficial approach so you can progress and discover? Seems simple enough…right? Keep in mind, as you read this, it’s not about presenting the deepest posture possible. It’s about learning how to go in and how to practice with circumspect.
Why am I writing about this? I occasionally have new students with previous yoga experience that are not familiar with the detailed instruction of Iyengar Yoga. These students have been told things like always keep a micro-bend in your knee. Then they are in my class and I am telling them to straighten their leg, not just straight, but poker straight. Nothing happens. Their leg stays just as bent as it was before I said it. I could say it over and over and…nothing. Why? For some there is fear. Again, they’ve been told to always keep that micro-bend, and oh my, the trauma that will ensue if they do something different. This is just one example and applies to any instruction that any student, not just the new student, may try or may choose to ignore.
Okay, so what? They are going to have bent knees as they do their forward bends. So what! Right? Wrong. Often times I am building an asana (posture) and any instruction may depend on the previous instruction being accomplished. In other words, if they don’t follow step 1, they have wasted their teacher’s breath when they give them step 2. A colleague of mine years ago said,by “If you follow Guruji (B.K.S. Iyengar) into an asana, I swear you’ll reach your soul!” Now, I am not saying that I will guide you to your soul, but I am, hopefully, going to take you inward. I am going to help you experience actions, parts of the body, or deeper parts of you.
There is another way to look at this. In yoga philosophy there is a word for valid knowledge, pramana, and invalid knowledge, viparayaya. These are two of the five categories of mental fluctuations. Pramana is only pramana UNTIL it has been invalidated. Then it is viparayaya. Here is an analogy. You slam on your brakes when you see the squirrel run across the road. Turns out it was a leaf caught by the breeze. At first the response in your mind could be categorized as pramana. As far as your mind, your body, and your car breaks are concerned, there IS a squirrel in the road and you don’t want to hit it. Only when you realize it is only a leaf can you recognize it as viparayaya. Unfortunately we live in a world where we think we have valid knowledge. Until we look closer, to discover where we are going wrong, we have imprisoned ourselves and sealed our fate to something much less than the ultimate freedom yoga has to offer. When we are so sure we already know, or we are not interested in trying something differently, there is no opportunity to learn.
For a moment let’s take śīrṣāsana and flip this idea on its head. In other words, let’s look at it from a different angle. Students of Iyengar are told to and taught how to straighten their legs. I have been in class with Prashant Iyengar in Pune, India, and his instruction went something like: In trikonasana the leg should be straight. No doubt. But you should bend your leg. Find out for yourself WHY the leg should be straight.
In closing I offer this: I am constantly questioning my own practice—looking deeply to see where I am going wrong or looking for what I am missing. Saying this another way, I am trying to get to know myself in a more and more profound way and fervently seeking what’s on the inside. When I teach, I am sharing—to the best of my ability—what my practice, inspired by my teachers and by those who came before have shared with me. Now, I only ask this of the students in the room: First, stay with me, stay alert, practice with circumspect, and humor me with the idea that maybe I have something to offer. Then, take these things and try them for yourself in your personal practice and let me know what you discover!
With Love,
Randy
