New Media Faculty Development Seminar

Spring, 2010 at Baylor University

Vrtti Handout

March 20th, 2012 by Anne-Marie Schultz in Uncategorized · No Comments

Here's the handout I worked from when talking about the Vritti of  Memory this week.  Funny, I forgot the handout  for  the tuesday morning  class and so I actually had to talk about the  sutras  from  memory.

We talked about  how memory can be a help and a hindrance to practice. Helpful in remembering what goes right and what to avoid to avoid future suffering,  harmful  if a bad memory of  backbends,  causes aversion vrittis in the  mind.

My original plan was to link the vrittis with the gunas and the  three qualities of  citta, but we'll get to that over the next couple weeks.

So  in terms of  Junior I practicing  Pada  I   main theme  1  defintion of  yoga,   main theme 2  The vrittis.



1.05
vrttayah pancatayyah klista aklistah

The movements of consciousness are fivefold. They may be cognizable or non-cognizable, painful or non-painful.  (i)
Thee are five kinds of changing states of the mind, and they are either detrimental or nondetrimental [to the practice of yoga].  B
1.06
pramana viparyaya vikalpa nidra smrtayah

They are caused by correct knowledge, illusion, delusion, sleep and memory. I
[These five vrttis are] right knowledge, error, imagination, sleep and memory.  B
1.07
pratyaksa anumana agamah pramanani

Correct knowledge is direct, inferred or proven as factual.  I
Right knowledge consists of sense perception, logic, and verbal testimony.  B
1.08
viparyayah mithyajnanam atadrupa pratistham

Illusory or erroneous knowledge is based on non-fact or the non-real.  I
Error is false knowledge stemming from the incorrect apprehension [of something].  B
1.09
sabdajnana anupati vastusunyah vikalpah

Verbal knowledge devoid of substance is fancy or imagination.  I
Imagination consists of the usage of words that are devoid of an actual object.   B
1.10
abhava pratyaya alambana vrttih nidra

Sleep is the non-deliberate absence of thought-waves or knowledge.  I
Deep sleep is that state of mind which is based on an absence [of any content].  B
1.11
anubhuta visaya asampramosah smritih

Memory is the unmodified recollection of words and experiences.  I
Memory is the retention of [images of] sense objects that have been experienced.   B


The  Three  components of  citta  (Mind)
Ahamkara      Ego - “The I  maker”
            Manas   Brain – the organic dimension of  mind
            Buddhi   Intellect/ discerning capacity


The three  gunas 
Sattva  balance  order, purity  light, serenity, calm
 Rajas  energy, change, movement,  enthusiasm
 Tamas.  Darkness, obscureness, lethargy, dullness. 

Bascially, the fluctuations (vrittis) of  citta  cause us to engage with prakriti in  ways that stimulate the gunas either productively for samadhi or non-productively.

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Teaching Sequences for the week

March 20th, 2012 by Anne-Marie Schultz in Uncategorized · No Comments

Here's  what I actually taught Monday and Tuesday morning and what I plan to teach tonight at  5.


Monday  Class

Virasasana
Parvatasana in Virasana
AMS
Supta Virasana
AMS
Paryankasana Two bricks  hands at wall
Chaturangadandasana
Bhujangasana
Dhanurasana
Parsva Dhanurasana
AMS
Chatush
Ardha Halasana
Eka Pada Sarvangasana from  Chair
Sarvangasana
Supta BK feet on bolster
Savasana




Tuesday Morning  Class

Vajrasana
Virasasana
Parvatasana in Virasana
AMS
Paryankasana  Two  blocks, one block,  full pose
AMS  between verions
AMS or  AMVrk Prep
AMVrk
PM
Sirsasana (prep)
Sirsasana
Chair dwi pada,  stage I and  II bringing head to floor.
Ardha Halasana
Savasans



Tuesday   Evening
Tadasama
UH
UB
AMS
Chaturanga at wall
Bhujangasana
Shalabasana
Dhanurasana
Parsva Dhanurasana
Chatush
Sarvangasana
Jathara Parivartanasana
Savasana  

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junior 1 practice sequence

March 15th, 2012 by Anne-Marie Schultz in Uncategorized · No Comments

Here's what we will attempt to get through at B and B today.    One of the aspects of Iyengar Assessment is demonstrated practice.  There are 29 poses on the syllabus plus 14 from the two previous syllabi that are likely to be tested.  I am trying out various ways of sequencing the poses and here's one stab at it that does not include many poses from previous syllabi.  



1. Urdhva Prasarita Padasana
2. Ubhaya Padangustasana
3.   Urdhva  Prasarita Ekapadasana
4. Adho Mukha Vrksasana (palms turned outward; against wall)
5.. Lolasana
6. Gomukhasana
7. Eka Hasta Bhujasana
8 AMS
9 Utthita Parsva Hasta Padangushtasana (with and without support)
10 Paryankasana
11 Dhanurasana
12. Parsva Dhanurasana
13  Bhekasana
14 Urdhva Dhanurasana
  14.5   Dwi Pada Viparita Dandasana
15  Prasarita Padottansana II
16  Pincha Mayurasana (against wall)
17  Sirasana I (away from wall)
18  Purvottansana
19. Chatush
20  Salamba Sarvangasana I
21. Eka Pada Sarvangasana (top leg perpendicular to the floor and Halasana leg straight;  left and right sides of the spine parallel).
22. Halasan (feet on floor)
23. Parsva halsana (feet on floor)
24. Salamba Sarvangasana II
25. Salamba Sarvangasana I
26. setubandha sarvangasana (classic pose, dropping form Sarvangasana)
27. Jathara Parivartansana (legs bent)
28. Ardha Matsyendrasan
29.  Ardha Baddha Padma Paschimottansana (both hands holding front foot  GFW 127)
30. Maha Mudra
31. Swastikasana and Supta Swastikasana (LOY plate 5)
32.  Savasana

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A Philosopher and an Account walk into a bar

March 13th, 2012 by Anne-Marie Schultz in Uncategorized · No Comments

Sounds like the beginning of a joke,  but worry not.   It actually relates to the relative lack of popularity of Iyengar Yoga  out there in the "market place" of  ideas and is  a reminder to myself that I need to have an email conversation with an accountant about why  we don't have enough money to cover all the classes that we need to cover in BIC.

Plato's Symposium begins with Apollodorus, a wild disciple of Socrates, responding to a question that his friend just asked him. We don't actually hear the question, but later we learn that the friend wants to hear about a party where Socrates, Alicbiades and some others got together to talk about love.

Apollodorus is  a recent convert to philosophy, but then he fell in love with Socrates (or perhaps philosophy) and now makes it his business to follow Socrates around and know everything he says and does.  In yoga terms,  he has a strong desire to sit near the teacher,  but Apollodorus is very much ruled by the vrittis and has not yet achieved any sense of calm that philosophy might offer.

In the middle of this conversation, he tells his "friend"

 not yet three years that I have been consorting with Socrates and making it my daily care to know whatever he says or does. Before that time, what with running about at random and thinking I did things, I was the wretchedest man alive; just as you are at present, thinking philosophy is none of your business.”
 “Instead of jeering at me,” he said, “tell me when it was that this party took place.” (172c)

Well, Apollodorus  does comply with the friend's request  but not before getting a few more jabs in at the character defects of his friend. 

So, friends, if you too must hear the whole story, I had better tell it. For my own part, indeed, I commonly find that, setting aside the benefit I conceive they do me, I take an immense delight in philosophic discourses, whether I speak them myself or hear them from others: whereas in the case of other sorts of talk—especially that of your wealthy, money-bag friends—I am not only annoyed myself but sorry for dear intimates like you, who think you are doing a great deal when you really do nothing at all.From your point of view, I daresay, I seem a hapless creature, and I think your thought is true. I, however, do not think it of you: I know it for sure.


The friend responds,  "You are the same as ever, Apollodorus,—always defaming your self and every one else! Your view, I take it, is that all men alike are miserable, save Socrates, and that your own plight is the worst. How you may have come by your title of “crazy,”1 I do not know: though, of course, you are always like that in your way of speech—raging against yourself and everybody except Socrates.

Anyway, Apollodorus strikes me as a bad Iyengar teacher.  Here's someone who has walked into the yoga studio with at least some interest in learning about yoga  and Apollodorus rather than saying "great, let's get going."  he makes some, no doubt true, observation about the friend's pyschology, that  will impede the friend's ability to learn.

Iyengar yoga is not a feel good about yourself method. However, it is not trying to be. The ultimate goal is to see the self, but that process requires unmasked numerous levels of ego constructions that get in the way of seeing the self and that, generally speaking is a pretty unpleasant process for the one undergoing the  ego stripping.  No wonder people just want to flow and move to some music.  The friend just wants to hear some gossip about speeches on love that occurred between famous  people.

Now, that said, I think Iyengar yoga does make you feel good, but generally as one of my teachers, Rajiv chanchani put it,  it is because you get a break from the ego for awhile and you experience the true self,   It is a sattva producing practice, but the means of getting there are often not fun and it takes a while to get clued into the "game"  and once you are clued in  there is a sense that the "stripping of the false self"  gets more and more painful. Not in the sense  that  yoga hurts the physical body, a la the NYTimes article, but in the sense that you are consistently put in a cauldron of self discovery that makes you see all the ways that you avoid looking at what truly is.


philosophy is a lot like that too, it takes you beyond the surface level meaning of self, other, world and truth and once you see that things are not as they seem,  it is hard to live in the world of appearance with all the other people.

 Beyond that, most people seem to be pretty satisified with themselves as they are and would rather pursue a course of study that helps them order and structure the world as they see it or learning the rules of the world as it is socially define. Sort of like accounting, or medicine, or real estate, or tax law, or interior decorating,  or bartending...  not that these pursuits don't help people,  they do.  You learn the rules of a conventionally established system of knowledge,  you achieve mastery,  and you go on doing what you do, making money, helping people, , the aim of those systems is not to uncover what really is and the most fundamental level.   you don't really pursue why those systems are the way that they are and that they are not really real, though I imagine  bartenders have the opportunity to see that quite clearly.

well, off to sit and breathe for a while, then walk the dog and teach.

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Seeing the self

March 13th, 2012 by Anne-Marie Schultz in Uncategorized · No Comments



“We are already one. But we imagine that we are not. And what we have to recover is our original unity. What we have to be is what we are.  Thomas  Merton

“Become who you are.” 
Nietzsche

“then the seer abides in its own true splendor .”
Patanjali, Yoga Sutra 1.3.




As many of you know, I subscribe to this philosophy quote of the day from philosophy works..org. Lately, I try to match that quote with some other philosophy and with something in the yoga domain.  Generally, they all interrelate or my practice is to make them interrelate.  Often, that’s the  seeds of my daily blog.  Other times, there ‘s  something more concrete on my mind that I write about,  (like I still need to write about accounting and philosophy), which since, I’m up early, I may go ahead and do.)

I had a really good time teaching down in San Marcos last night. Yesterday was a rather challenging day emotionally and it was really great to step outside of my own difficulties and teach some yoga. To be reminded that the true task at hand is not getting through the day but seeing the true nature of the soul. Talking about that task and teaching others yoga clarifies my mind.  It purifies the various vrittis and attunes me to my own true nature which is ultimately undisturbed by the rise and fall of circumstance.   

As the rise and fall of circumstance go, nothing too major, mostly the logistics of dealing with insurance and the health care industry and the disruptions that all that causes to daily life. Happily. Jeff does seem better and the allergist, those she is unsure what caused his intense reaction, does have a plan for treatment and basically approved of the treatment plan we had developed.   When Jeff is better, they can run tests, but until he is off antihistimines they can’t really test what he is allergic too.  Though it is frustrating sometimes not to know the cause of suffering, because of a desire to avoid future suffering,  I was remind both of  sutra  2.15 (Even pleasant experiences are tinged with sorrow and the  wise person,  keeps aloof from them)  and also another story, I think it is from the Buddhist tradition,  “if someone has been struck by an arrow, you don’t speculate on how the arrow got there,  you remove the arrow.”

In many ways, it was fascinating watching her work, as it is fascinating watching anyone who is good at what they do, do what they do. She was kind of like a human computer, listening to the input of information, matching it with what she knows and  using past experience, memory, discernment, inference, observation, to come up with a plan.   We got out just in time for me to make it down to San Marcos.

Which is about the only thing I had planned for the day, that actually happened according to my plan.  And how great it was to end with the opportunity to remind others of their own true nature and  in doing so remind myself.

And the up side of  spring forward. It was still light when I got home.

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On form and philosophy

March 12th, 2012 by Anne-Marie Schultz in Uncategorized · No Comments

My friend and student, Shannon Lee recently posted a link to an Elephant Journal Article,  Asana and Eros.  I was somewhat intrigued as I just finished a long stint of teaching the Symposium, Plato's dialogue about Eros  and I'm busy occupying my mind with things other than worrying about Jeff's allergy situation,  and I finished sending off a Plato abstract and I wrote a blog about forms for my Plato class.

The article is interesting in many ways and the author like me has some academic training in Philosophy. She characters Plato's Symposium in this way as a teaching about love (eros) which leads utlimately to an awareness of  love itself and pure formlessness.

Well, sort of,  Eros in the Symposium leads to an awareness of the beautiful itself,  the form of beauty in and of itself, not formlessness.  Plato's finely crafted character, Diotima, a female priestess who educated Socrates in  ta erotika as  well as many other things is telling Socrates about the true nature of  love.  Socrates himself is telling this story at a party where a lot of drinking and a lot of talking about eros is going on.  As Plato's finely crafted character Socrates tells the story,  Diotima describes the end of the "ladder of  love in these terms,

‘When a man has been thus far tutored in the lore of love, passing from view to view of beautiful things, in the right and regular ascent, suddenly he will have revealed to him, as he draws to the close of his dealings in love, a wondrous vision, beautiful in its nature; and this, Socrates, is the final object of all those previous toils. First of all, it is ever-existent 
and neither comes to be nor perishes, neither waxes nor wanes; next, it is not beautiful in part and in part ugly, nor is it such at such a time and other at another, nor in one respect beautiful and in another ugly, nor so affected by position as to seem beautiful to some and ugly to others. Nor again will our initiate find the beautiful presented to him in the guise of a face or of hands or any other portion of the body, nor as a particular description or piece of knowledge, nor as existing somewhere in another substance, such as an animal or [211b] the earth or sky or any other thing; but existing ever in singularity of form independent by itself, while all the multitude of beautiful things partake of it in such wise that, though all of them are coming to be and perishing, it grows neither greater nor less, and is affected by nothing."  

She, Diotima, says a good deal more about it  which, if you are interested you can read on line at the Perseus Project  but one thing is for sure, it is not pure formlessness that the philosopher trained in love correctly, ultimately sees, it is pure form, unalloyed by its prakritic taint.

Why does that matter?  Well,  while I think there are loads of similarities between the Platonic world view and "the patanjalic" worldview, I don't thing there is formlessness at the end of the Platonic vision and to quote one of my favorite teachers, David Latcherman, "where important distinctions are to be made, one ought to make them."  Rather, I think one sees the underlying structure of reality as what it is and that is form,  not formlessness, at least from a Platonic perceptive.

It is  curious too the idea of asana, which is clearly a formal practice,  ie there is a form of triangle pose that we all participate in, would lead to an awareness of the formless.  It might lead to an awareness of the interconnectedness of forms, that all poses really are one pose, but not poselessness. I guess some of it depends on what you mean by formless,  that there is not a fundamental structure, that that  structure is imposed upon a deep level of unity that does not admit difference, maybe.  If you mean by formless, anything goes, no.  For the Greeks, beauty definitely had a structure. Indeed, our word cosmetic is related to cosmeo,  cosmos, which means among other things order, formedness.

It reminds me of that famous BKS quote,  "your mind is in many pieces, your body is in one piece." My body is in many pieces, my mind is in one piece.  His mind, through his loving attention to asana practice has lead him to a single pointedness of focus where he can see the form of what is, as it is.

I'm in the midst  of  writing a blog about the theory of forms for my Plato class blog so you can stay posted on the first part of that  discussion over here.

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Viveka and Having a Home Practice

March 12th, 2012 by Anne-Marie Schultz in Uncategorized · No Comments



"When I am doing the asana, I am not stretching my body.
I am finding out whether my intelligence has reached that level or not."
B.K.S. Iyengar - Yoga Rahasya

The ceaseless flow of discriminative knowledge in thought, word and deed destroys ignorance, the source of pain. Patanjali- Yoga Sutra  2.26

“The more clearly you understand yourself and your emotions, the more you become a lover of what is.”   Baruch Spinoza (1632 – 1677) Dutch philosopher


Christina and I had a long discussion yesterday about teaching and the expectations that a teacher brings to the pedagogical experience. Too often as  teachers, we teach students as if they were versions of ourselves.  To a degree, this is desirable  and understandable. We see ourselves in others, it makes us compassionate, etc.  But  if  we  do not use  our “discriminative knowledge” or viveka, we run the risk of missing  what actually needs to be taught.  To teach well, we have to see clearly what is. 


We were talking about this in the context of having a home practice versus a daily going to class practice and  why it is so difficult for so many to roll out a mat and practice without the guidance of a teacher or the energy of a class.

As I have mentioned before, for me early on there was little choice. If I went to every class in the larger Waco area that was only three classes a week. I liked how yoga made me feel and I wanted that feeling more regularly so the dearth of public offerings forced me to have a practice.  Now, I go to a lot of classes, but I still don’t consider classes my practice, partly because meditation and pranayama and inverting are a daily part of my practice and that does not happen at the level of my own practice in a public class and  by and larger those practices are very internal and are really more appropriate for me alone in my mediation room or yoga room than me in the group with others. (Not that I have not had  great pranayama experience and instruction in  Iyengar classes, particularly workshops. I have, but it there  is  clearly  a “go home and  do likewise” vibe that is assumed.

I think that is the general assumption in an Iyengar class, that you don’t come to class every day.  You come to class with the idea to learn something to take home and practice. Whether or not that is a justified assumption for Iyengar teachers to make in the average public  class, is another matter,  but  in other methods,  going to  class  simply is your practice.
I do  explain this to my students, that I see the yoga class as a classroom where we learn. We also learn by doing, but I don’t seem my primary job as providing a space for getting their daily practice in. That should happen to a degree, I see my primary job as presenting people with the information and example and motivation that they would be able to develop their own practice.

Why? Because home practice really is the laboratory for  self-observation, for the cultivation of viveka, which destroys all  ignorance, according to Patanjali.  Practicing at home  allows to do  become a lover of  yourself and a lover of  what is. Spinoza has his moments.

Yes. We explore ourselves in class also, but there you explore yourself qua student and that is only one aspect of yourself.

Often, students ask  what should I practice?  (I do have some answers to that question, but that’s another blog post).   First ask yourself, what are you practicing now?  It might not be yoga.  It might be that you are a runner or a dog walker or  an artist, but whatever you do on a daily basis, with “skillful action”  is the start of a practice. 

It could be that you are great at cooking or  doing laundry or taking care of kids.  Think about how those skills might relate to having a yoga practice.

For me, I was a daily exerciser. I practiced clarinet, I studied, I prepared for class, I wrote. I already had a lot of seeds of daily practice, so in some ways, it was not hard to see yoga practice as  just another thing I was doing already, but still  it was not a seamless process.

Second, or perhaps better yet first,  ask yourself  “why do I want a home practice?”  The answer has to be meaningful to you.  I wanted to feel better every day. That  is still part of my motivation, but  I’m interested in the subject itself now  much more than I was  in the beginning. I am also interested in knowing myself and I do see practice in those  terms, it is self-exploration, just as philosophy is self-exploration of a sort.  But my point is.  You  have to find an answer that will motivate you.  At first, it might just be ego driven. I want to be able to kick up into Handstand without help, so I don’t feel so  inept in class.    That’s the start.

The reasons will change over time, but the first step is figuring out the reasons and the motivations you have now.  It might well be that you have no desire to have a home practice and if that is the case, then don’t beat yourself up about it.  If that is the truth of the matter, then you at least have culvivated viveka about that. You have, in a small way, overcome ignorance and become a lover of what is.   Come to class and enjoy the ride.  That's your practice and as Pattabi Jois says, "Practice, all is coming."

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Sequence and Philosophy for the Week

March 11th, 2012 by Anne-Marie Schultz in Uncategorized · No Comments

I just got the 2012 Assessment Manual in the Mail.  Not too much new material, but Junior I candidates now are being assessed on  Integration, which I assume means the integration of philosophy into teaching.  Which is one of the many skills I'm working  on.

Here's the general plan for the week (san Marcos and Castle)  the  poses in parenthesis are the level 1-2  options. My goal is to work on five to seven of the poses on the junior I syllabus each week or poses from previous level that are likely to be retested  Those poses are in bold. 

Also, a word on the Sutras. The first  translation is  BKS Iyengar. The second translation is Edwin Bryant.


1.01
atha yoganusasanam

With prayers for divine blessings, now begins an exposition of the sacred art of yoga.
Now, the teachings of yoga [are presented].
1.02
yogah cittavrtti nirodhah

Yoga is the cessation of movements in the consciousness.
Yoga is the stilling of the changing states of the mind
1.03
tada drastuh svarupe avasthanam

Then, the seer dwells in his own true splendour.
When that is accomplished, the seer abides in its own true nature.
1.04
vrtti sarupyam itaratra

At other times, the seer identifies with the fluctuating consciousness.
Otherwise, at other times, [the seer] is absorbed in the changing states [of the mind].




Five  Organs of  Perception  Jnanendriyas

Ears Srotra
Nose Nasa
Tongue Jihva
Eyes Caksu
Skin Tvak     

The organs of  perception are how we acquire knowledge about the external world, the world of  prakriti

Forward Bending  Sequence  for the week.


Vajrasana
Parvatasana in  Virasana
AMVira
AMS
Utt
Padangushtasana
Padahastasana
Utt
Malasana
Utt
Urdhva Prasarita Eka Padasana
AMS
AMvrk ( palms out  against wall)
PM  (or prep)
(Prasarita Pad I)
Prasarita Padottansana II
Sirsasana  (away from  wall)
Utt
Chatush
(Sarvangasana I  from  eka  pada with feet on chair)  to teach
Sarvangasana II  From  eka pada with feet on chair
From Halsana with feet on floor if  possible  and  arms in  plate  241 position
Down to Halsana on floor if possible
Parsva Halsana. Either on floor  with feet or  two chairs.
Halsana
Paschimottansana
Savasana
 





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The State of the Asana

March 11th, 2012 by Anne-Marie Schultz in Uncategorized · No Comments

Just sweat out an ocean at Bikram Yoga - Jason Lobo

Iyengar Yoga. When you are read to take your practice to the next level -  Tag line for BKS Iyengar Studio Dallas. 

I ' m up early despite the Spring forward  Jeff seems to be doing a bit better. Our current theory of what is causing his allergic reaction:  sheets.  We had a different pet sitter stay when we were out of town and she very nicely washed the sheets for us, but I noticed a different laundry detergent than we usually use, so that along with all the other stressors of  pain meds, surgery recovery, et al, may be the answer. So we got some new sheets,  Jeff has some itching on his arms still but he is much better. It has been a scary and frustrating last few days, but at least we did go more than 24 hours without a trip to the ER. 
I've been reading Christina's recent blog posts about Bikram yoga and thinking about its widespread popularity compared to Iyengar yoga.  When I go to the Iyengar institute in NYC, their classes are relatively full, but I bet Bikram classes are even more full in NYC than they are in Austin. It is cold there and there are a lot of toxins to sweat out.  .  In Austin a large Iyengar class would be 8-12  students. At a Bikram studio in Austin (which has classes pretty much every hour of the day,  an average class size is at least 20 and there are 4 studios with many classses). You do the math.  
 I was pondering this phenomenon last night after my "how to do things with chairs" workshop, which had three lovely students. Welcome Meredith, to your first offical foray into true Iyengar-land. We had a great time and everyone learned a lot  but it is a little hard not to get discouraged about the numbers. I do know some people planned to come but this that our the other thing kept them away, which happens.  It is SXSW weekend, it is pouring rain, it is 3:30 on a saturday,  but that is not really the point. Even if 6-7 people had come great,  it is still clearly not something with broad appeal. Similar example,  6 people at the sunday session of Devon and Theresa's workshop last week, they have significantly more knowledge and experience than I do.
Now one part of me is unconcerned,  you teach who shows up  period.  But why do people in general, not show up to Iyengar Yoga.  But I love Iyengar Yoga and know it works and I would like for it to be a vital presence in the local yoga world and I am willing to work hard to make that happen. This blog and the Iyengar Yoga blog and teaching at the castle and  offering yoga workshops are just some of the ways I work at it.
So  one thing I came up with yesterday what that it is "Just" a marketing problem.   That's why I really like the BKS dallas redesigned web page  and tag line.  When you are ready to take your practice to the next level.   The tag line for  NYC Iyengar Yoga is  "Profound, Intelligent, Transformative."  
Austin Yoga Institute is  "Iyengar yoga from the heart."  Clear Spring does not have a tag line, it's newsletter  tag line is "Information and Irregular Reminders  about Regular Classes  and Special Events"  which does reflect Devon's quirky sense of humor, but  neither slogan captures the dynamism and the depth of knowledge that exists in a good Iyengar class. 
Now I regularly attend classes at both studios,  but I am already committed to the method. I'm not a new person out there in the "marketplace" deciding to embark on a new year's yoga resolution. 
You have to know what Iyengar Yoga is  to understand what Peggy is trying to convey with her from the heart tag line.
 Another thing I came up with yesterday,  it is not  that  people don't want to work hard. Bikram yoga, by all accounts is hard.  and you sweat out an ocean. (Jason Lobo, by the way, is a wonderful yogini. He is one of the three people in the room with George every week. He is an Anusara Inspired teacher and  he does Bikram, at least from time to time).  Bikram  has a slogan,  "give me sixty days and I will change your life."   Sixty classes in sixty days, that's their challenge.  
Now, do anything for sixty days, every day, that you haven't been doing, that is "good" for you (or for that matter bad for you"  and it will change your life. Sixty classes in sixty days of Iyengar Yoga will also change your life... I actually have never gone to sixty classes in sixty days, but I practice every day... The New York  Institute used to have little bios about their teachers and one question the Teachers were supposed to respond to was "How has Iyengar Yoga changed my life?"  Several simply answered, "how has it not?"
Iyengar  Yoga  is  hard.  It is hard on pretty much every level of  existece. True you don't sweat out an ocean, but you are  pretty clearly confronted with the difficulty of the reality of human embodiment.  
 It isn't that people aren't wiling to deal with being told what to do.  Other systems besides Iyengar yoga tell students what to do. 
Some of it I think is that, no Iyengar Class is exactly the same and so it doesn't meet an expectation that "this is what a yoga class is supposed to be."  This comes up a lot  in the "but I don't know what to practice" query,  or  the how do I know what do to when the teacher isn't telling me."  Well,  I think it takes a long time  to develop an inner sense of what to do and to get Iyengar yoga,  you need to cultivate that inner sense.  Practice what you know, all is coming.   Later I will write more on cultivating this discernment. 
 Jeff suggested to me last night that a lot of people just want to do, they don't want to learn.  There's a sense in which I think he is onto part of the problem, Iyengar classes can seem slow and plodding... but we are supposed to have students do yoga in an Iyengar class, but there's a lot of  "come and watch."   So  how to market learning environment and see a doing environment as a learning environment.
Christina, Darren and Noah  are certainly endeavoring to do just that with their new endeavor.  Not that it is "just" marketing.  A learning environment has to exist to market it effectively and then  as a teacher, part of the task is teaching people how to learn and how to like learning. 
Later, I will compare this to philosophy and accounting in academia. 
Stay tuned. Off to practice. 

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Yoga off the Mat

March 10th, 2012 by Anne-Marie Schultz in Uncategorized · No Comments

This has been a yoga off the mat past few days. Not that I haven't been doing asana,  but mostly I've been dealing with my own mind and samskaras around caregiving, hospital vortexs, and abinivesha.

As most avid readers of my blog  know, Jeff had the screws taken out of his ankle last week, and everything seemed good until wednesday when he developed pretty severe hives in reaction to some medication, perhaps Hydrocodon, though. The current theory is Ibuprofen Anyway,  we've gone to the emergency room three times in the past three days. He needs to see an allergist obviously, but that has to wait until Monday.  His own doctor has been out of town the past two days. Allergists don't work weekends. The ER people really don't know what to do other than give him and ep shot and IV antihistamines as he is not going into heart stopping situations, which his good,The hives come and go and as is often the case in engagements with western medicine, they don't really know.  There's often a kind of expectation of certainity that  comes with the authority of western science and it is always frustrating when that expectation is thwarted.

It is funny in a way because western science is so skeptical of other modalities of healing partly because WS thinks there's a lack of certainty to those methods. 

Mostly, I'm just trying to stay present and not freak out. I really dislike hospitals due to prior ba associations with them, bascially, if something can go wrong, it seems like it will (that's the hospital vortex vritti). However, the present situation is not the past and I am working hard within myself not to project worse case scenario kinds of thinking onto this situation. There's also a tendency to defer to said "authority"  but I've definitely gotten better at that. Also, I have to say I am much more impressed with the overall health care situation in Austin than the one in Waco

In general,  Jeff seems better than he did wednesday, we have various anthistamines and epi pens, and the like, but he is definitely still suffering. Apparently, allergic reactions can linger a couple weeks even after exposure to precipating event. 

Off to get breakfast tacos and other treats at the farmers market,  then yoga  practice and chair workshop is still on, though Peggy is subbing for Stacey at 2  instead of me. 


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