Settling in

My flat in Pune is a short walk from the Institute. Its a 4th floor walk up: 2 bedrooms, 2 baths, large living room, kitchen and balcony. Its located on a quiet street with lots of trees. There's a few nice vegetable vendors right down the street; a park close by that is a short cut to the Institute.

I've been cooking with a friend, Susan Wong, from SF who is living in the flat below. Her gas has been out of her cooktop so she has been coming over to my flat to eat dinner. Susan is an anesthiologist and yoga student. She has an old elbow as a result of injuries and surgeries and hopes to get advice on how to better manage it with yoga. She talked with Rajlakshmi yesterday and Rajlakshmi suggested Guruji take a look at it today in practice.

Monday was the first day at the Institute. Since it was Jan. 31, I could not take class since my program begins Feb. 1. I observed Chandra teaching a restorative/pranayama class. People told me that she taught principles from what Guruji taught on Saturday. He was teaching how to open the chest and not thrust it forward.

Tuesday, I went to Prashant Iyengar's 7 a.m. class. His main theme of the class was that we should "Do yoga to learn." What we do, he says is "Learn to do yoga." The class was a combination of lecture/doing in the typical Prashant fashion where he emphasizes integration of mind, body, breath. In fact at one point he said that integration should be like a conference call where mind, body and breath each have equal say in the conversation. Gone was his anger and instead he taught with generosity and a good spirit.

Later on Tuesday, I attended my first medical class where my intention was to just observe and absorb. Wrong! I was enlisted to help and a couple of more senior international teachers taught me the fine art of adjusting with a myriad of students with different problems. Guruji was there overseeing the group. Many, many Indian teachers as well as teachers from around the globe were there to assist. I assisted Theresa Rowland from New Jersey while she worked with a couple of "patients," as they are called. The work done by assistants is physical, demanding and exhausting. I could feel my tiredness from being jet lagged rising to the surface.

After assisting in medical class, I attended Prashant's evening class. He took some of his basic themes from the morning class and elaborated on them. Now, by this class my jet lagginess was beginning to get the better of me. We worked on how the breath can affect the yoga. At one point we practiced an inhalation, exhalation, retention of breath out while in Trikonasana (triange pose.) I was so tired that my eyes closed for a second and I almost passed out and felt like falling backwards. Luckily I didn't but that was a close call. I made it thru the class intact, came back home, had a small dinner then went to sleep!