We come to the end of our second week of yoga, properly tired and happy. It was a hot sweaty time in the shala...up until today we were starting at 5:45 after an entire batch of bodies had heated up the space. As of this morning we have been moved to the first group, 4:30 am, which is really 4:15, but which gathers by 4! Now it is our job to heat things up for everyone else. Given the extra warm for winter Mysore temps I don't think we'll find that too much of a challenge.
Sharath has been extra "teacherly" this trip, giving an uncharacteristic number of form corrections and adjustments, and I'd like to pass them on to everyone. I was corrected in Pada Hastasana for being a little too narrow in my stance. Second Series form correction: in Bharadvajasana the crossing arm should go around the side of the legs, not at the point of the knee as I was originally taught. This leaves the torso as a straight up and down spiral. I have also heard Sharath correcting for many : "feet closed in Dhanurasana" meaning the whole inner edge of the feet should ideally join, not just the toe tips. He also says commonly, "Don't be lazy", or alternately, "Why you hurry?". His pace in led class is extremely even and unrushed, though the count may appear to stop entirely during Navasana while he advises students to "stop shaking" and during Utpluthuh as he reminds us ,"Lift up, no cheating".
Sharath seems kinder and more generous than in the past, and he never fails to help students with their challenge postures if he is stopping them. He has been very observant of Aeryk and me this week. He has given us some "new" postures and changed our time. He still likes to treat us as one unit, which fortunately we are both happy with. He gave me a posture while he was sitting on Aeryk, then said to him, "oh, and you too." When he changed our time he addressed it to Aeryk, saying, "tell your wife". It will be easier for him to teach us at the earliest time as we will be together and won't have to pass notes. I am inwardly prepared for the time when we may be split up, so to speak. Thus far we have never been given a posture we needed help with or needed to be stopped at. Sharath's formula is to add postures slowly one at at time, not usually more than one in a week (this week being unusual for us in that respect). If we get to a place in the practice where one of us is less proficient at the posture, one of us may move on without the other. It is not really that usual for couples to progress as evenly as we are.
Saraswati is as omnipresent as ever, helping Sharath with his students while maintaining her own. She has lost a lot of weight this year, and I am not certain if it is from grief and changes with the loss of her father, or if it is a byproduct of her own yoga practice. She looks good, still gruff but warm. I received several of her backbend assists this week. Sharath helped with my last one of the week, yesterday, taking me a bit farther up my leg that I had gone before. Even a few inches feels like a mile! Aeryk gets so much more flexible in his backbends here it looks a bit like his back is broken in the middle...maybe from the heat, or maybe because, generally a rebel, he will submit to Saraswati's authority and bend just like she tells him to.
That's our week, warm, wet, bendy, and very early.
vivian
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