Day 29

Yesterday was the second session of classes at the Iyengar Yoga Institute.  I was dreading the commute all day long, and of course it's been raining which makes the Muni all the more fun to be on. But once I got there it was good.

Utkatasana

We started off with the two poses that I like to call the Annoying Poses... Urdhva Hastasana and Utkatasana. We learned some variations that actually made them something I could see myself enjoying during my home practice... If you remember Utkatasana is like the image to the right. The picture might be slightly off as you are supposed to raise your pelvis up and have your arms behind your ears. Your hands are together. The arms in this position are reaching up, pinky finger towards the ceiling and your chest and armpits are opening up to the space in front of you. Also, shoulders are not lifting up, so you need to make the conscious effort to pull the shoulder blades down the back.

Why it was not so bad in class:
After doing this a couple times, it was apparent that nobody's arms wanted to stay firm and behind the ears. Your body, it just doesn't want to do that. So we put belts around our arms, right below the elbows, put our hands together made our arms firm, THEN put them behind our ears. At that point someone else came behind us and tightened the belt. Your arms at that point are not moving as the belt blocks them from coming to the front of your ears. I might even say good times.


The class was good overall. Cathy also told us to think about the 8 limbs of yoga and how they relate to our practice. The first limb of yoga is ahimsa: to practice non-violence. This may seem easy but to get to the level of not hating anything is where we want to be. I'm thinking that means I (or we as people) should just understand situations that we would otherwise dislike or hate and go on, but not dwell in whatever passionate feelings we might have for them. SO. I am going to try to apply this to the annoying poses AND take it beyond the practice to the Muni + Rain situation I'm about to endure.  I'll let you know how it goes.