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Feb 11, 2006

Monday night and Geeta taught another standing pose class. After the class got organized, we did a 15 minute sirsasana, and that included parivritta sirsasana, parivritta ekapada legs only, and eka pada sirsasana. The standing poses felt good after that. Tonight she was satisfied with our shoulders and the focus was on the floating ribs. It was fascinating to see how my awareness grew as the class progressed, but also how different the sensations were as we worked on that area in nine or ten poses.

I went to day to Chandru's studio to pick out some DVD's. Chandru has been taking pictures and videos of events and classes for years. His studio has lots of business from yoga students who want a record of what they did here or to see what went on at other special events. The DVD's I picked out included an Intensive I in which I participated in 1993, and I am eager to review them. The others cover how to use various props, some teacher training and some special footage of Mr. Iyengar's practice in 1937. I hope we can start having occasional movie evenings at the studio, perhaps combining with a potluck from time to time.

I was picked up in a car for the trip to the video studio. This is much nicer than traveling across town in a rickshaw, but it does insulate from the real city. We did pass by an area of extreme poverty and I caught a glimpse of rows and rows of what appear to be makeshift huts, but are permanent homes, some with tin roofs and a few homes that are made of a large piece of canvass hung from a height across a stretch of side walk. We stopped at a light long enough for me to watch a scene where a mother was doing her wash. Her two children, a girl of about 10 and a boy of around 6 or 7, were helping and playing. Their only clothes must have been in the wash because they were nude. They were alternately helping the woman fold a saree and playing with a cricket bat. They seemed totally oblivious to their nudity and the heavy traffic passing by next to the small barren patch of land where they were playing.

We also passed a few cows in the side streets and a goat or two. The first I have seen on this trip. Years ago they were a common sight on busy city streets as well as quiet residential lanes, and a small herd of cows (water buffalo) spent much of their days in a small pond down the street from the hotel I usually stayed in (which is a ten minute walk to the Institute). The pond remains.