Settling in
We have now completed day four of the ‘Intensive’ and we’ve settled in to a daily routine. If we leave the hotel via the back door we can walk to the venue in less than ten minutes and it avoids the very busy and polluted Fergusson College Road. However we give ourselves an hour so that we can get a spot near the front of the room.
On Monday, day one, Abhijata Iyengar ( Mr Iyengar’s granddaughter) taught the morning session and as many people had just arrived it was quite a gentle start. Prashant Iyengar (Mr Iyengar’s son and Abhijata’s uncle) taught the later session. He is more focused on philosophy so there was quite a lot of sitting and listening with the odd pose from time to time. Suffering with jet lag I could feel myself drifting off a couple of times but I quickly came back to reality when we had to jump up to do a pose. He makes you hold the poses for a looong time. Prashant is very good at getting yogic concepts across and he has a very clever way with words to do this. Abhi says in the foreword of his book ‘My life my words’: “As a teacher, he has an uncanny knack of packing zing into every class.” That is very true. Straight after class they served us some delicious Indian snacks with a cup of chai.
Having eaten at Wadeshwar the previous two evenings we found a place a couple of doors down from our hotel where they served a lovely vegetarian platter which we shared.
Our first class on day two was taught by Abhi again. The focus was on the hips and we worked with belts around the top of each leg to roll the thighs out in a variety of poses with the key poses being Baddha Konasana, Utthita Trikonasana, Utthita Parsvakonasana and Ardha Chandrasana. Fabulous! She is such an amazing teacher. Our Savasana was done in prone and we helped each other to release any tension in the lower back and hip area. Raya was in charge of the afternoon session which was restorative. We had three different versions of prone Savasana at the end. Bliss! Those of you who come to my classes will benefit from this at some point.
After class I had made an appointment for us to see Sunita, the seamstress, with the view of having some clothes made. I choose two gorgeous cotton fabrics and she is making two kurtis for me.
On our way back to Hotel Ketan we stopped at the same place as the night before and ordered the exact same food as the night before. This is becoming a bit of a habit; dinner accompanied by mango lassi in the same place two nights on the trot.
After another morning session with Prashant on day three, the pace was stepped up with backbends leading up to Urdhva Dhanurasansa which was repeated so many times I lost count. Abhi wanted us to hold the last one for a whole minute. We could all feel our legs shaking as we walked down the stairs when we left the venue to go for lunch. After class at 17.30 we skipped the snack and chai and got a tuc-tuc to RIMYI to observe a medical class. The students who attend that class have individual programmes as they all have different problems. The hall is full and there are lots of teachers rushing around helping them. It’s slightly chaotic. We had to sit quietly at the back of the room as a couple of young boys were hanging from the ceiling ropes, a heavily pregnant lady was having her arms and legs pulled when she was lying on her side with her back against a pillar, some back pain sufferers were getting on with their poses with their legs up against the pillars, an elderly gentleman was on a back bender just to mention a few. Apart from the pregnant lady you have absolutely no idea what’s wrong with these students but nevertheless it is fascinating to watch.
Dinner was at the popular Vaishali opposite the hotel and we couldn’t resist the dosas again. I will look like a dosa when I get home if I don’t start eating something else soon. I even had a dosa for breakfast. A dosa is a light crispy pancake made from a fermented batter of rice and lentils I’ve been having the cheesy version. Yum!
Today the afternoon was taught by Mr Iyengar’s grandson. Every teacher has a slightly different style of teaching and he used excerpts from the Bhagadvad Gita, all in Sanskrit, to conduct his class. I’ve been studying Sanskrit for a while now and although I can read some of the signs along the roads, hearing it spoken (at 120 miles per hour) is something else. The language in this part of India is Marathi, but they use the same script as Sanskrit.
We’ve had several power cuts today. Luckily they haven’t lasted long. It’s happened twice whilst I’ve been sitting here in my room writing this.
The Wi-Fi in my room is hopeless so my first blog took ages to load. Pune is supposedly one of the largest IT hubs in India! Pune is also known as the ‘Oxford of the East’ with top educational institutions.