Class with Geeta Iyengar

Imagine a yoga teacher so precise, so powerful that she takes hold of your attention and immediately directs your consciousness inward. She directs you and a hundred others to stand firmly on your heels, and use a “pincher action” to make “dimples” on the sides of your hips. From this compactness, you are to lift and expand your chest. Lift the side ribs; spread your collarbones, roll your upper arms out to bring the outer shoulder blades firmly against the back ribs.  Immediately you feel the connection between the firmness of the hip sockets and the Popeye-expansion of the chest. “Now the consciousness can go everywhere,” she explains. “Come, sit here.”  We move in closer and sit by the platform. The platform is a stage shaped like half of a hexagon, projecting out into the room, which is similarly shaped to maximize the teacher’s view of the students and vice-versa.

“If I had told you to stand straight and open your chest, none of this would have happened. You see, I cannot just tell you to open your chest or all of you would be standing around like this,” she says, demonstrating an erect, stiff figure without vibrancy, eyes bugged out.

“But what did I say? I told you to move that skin of the outer hips back and make those dimples. Bring the skin of the outer buttocks closer together; and that firmness comes and then the pranic energy can come into your spine and chest and over there you have that openness. And I don’t say, bring the consciousness into the chest. Did I say? No, I did not say! I don’t have to say because by firming the hips and doing in such a manner the actions to open and widen the sternum chest, the consciousness is already there. And from over there it can go through the entire body.”

This is the Iyengar method at its best. It is an ingenious delivery of some part of the great body of knowledge acquired by B.K.S. Iyengar over his 70 years of practice. Teaching in the Iyengar method involves the articulation of precise body mechanics to allow movement of cosmic energy (prana) through the body. When the body is aligned and expanded properly, the consciousness can spread and make meditation (dhyana), possible. An excellent Iyengar teacher will repeat the same actions in another asana, thereby linking the intelligence of one asana to another, and teach you to sensitize your mind so that you can grasp how the same actions in another pose might lead to a completely different state of mind. 

The delivery of an Iyengar teacher—her words, their melody, volume, and inflection—is to be dynamic, to assist the sadhaka (practitioner) to become mentally alert and then mindfully sensitive. That loud, shouting, booming, demanding voice says “Pay attention,” to the point that you dare not day-dream or wander in your head. This alertness brings you first into the skeletal body. You are directed to your limbs, the muscles and the joints, and told what actions to take, based on what the teacher sees that you need. After the teacher has observed that you have successfully taken the actions as directed, she directs the mind to observe the process in your own body. For example, after teaching us the relationship between the compacted hips and expanded chest in Tadasana (mountain posture), she then has us perform the same actions in Utthita Trikonasana (triangle posture). “You are to sensitize your mind now, and see what is happening in the sternum chest and the sides of the waist. Did you make that dimple on the side of your hips? Did you use that prana to open your chest? Did you stretch evenly the sides of your rib cage? Don’t just do the asana in the same way that you have always done. Perform the actions and then see what is happening over there. You must make your mind sensitive if you are to penetrate the body and see what is happening.”

If the teacher observes that you are not with her—that you are somehow NOT paying attention, not mentally present, not mindfully sensitive, or just plain stupid enough not to know the rules of the Institute and follow them–a thunderous monsoon of emotion will be rained upon you. The lightening will strike, and if it hits you directly, you will get mentally and emotionally fried, unless you have the strength and rootedness of a hundred year-old oak tree. At the very least, you will lose a limb, a tiny branch, whose breaking point must be healed. Those who have been around the Institute for a long time—either by living and working there, or returning every year for their month long course—are like these wounded and repaired oak trees. Every scar they have is a testament to their wisdom and strength, which is not always appreciated when they return to their home countries and try to offer what they’ve learned.

But the veteran yoga teachers keep coming back to Mother India, and to the Iyengar Institute. Patricia Walden has been coming every year for over 30 years; some, like Lois Steinberg, come twice a year. I haven’t taken a poll, but it seems that the teachers who keep coming back somehow accept the lightening as a part of nature; they don’t take it personally, they know it’s not really about them. Or, they rationalize that the unpleasantness of the yelling is the price that must be paid to learn at the greatest yoga temple in the world.

Today, Geeta taught backbends in the Ladies’ class. I was unlucky to be menstruating, but lucky to be doing so right next to Lois Steinberg, also menstruating, and leading us in the menstrual sequence, chapter one of her outstanding book Geeta’s Guide to a Woman’s Practice.  

 

When you’re menstruating in Geeta’s class, you’re sent to the back row to do the menstrual sequence. I love backbends and desperately wanted to receive the teaching that Geeta was giving, but have too much experience to lie about my condition to serve my ego.  So I surrendered to my nature and agreed, as the only person wearing the watch, to keep track of timings. One minute on each side of forward bends. After several of these supported postures I sat up and listen as Geeta started to talk about the ill consequences of doing backbends wrong. She was talking about the chest. She mentioned something about inviting disease in the thyroid with a closed chest. And then Lois warned me, “you’ll get yelled at,” so I soon put my head down again melted my brain into the bolster. The lightening did not strike and I kept my ears open.  

The emphasis on the backbends was all LEGS. In Ustrasana (Camel posture),  the instructions were to press the shins and ankles down, and move the legs forward. Move the back body and spine to the front body. Do NOT let the body fall to the head side, but resist this tendency. This theme of the legs and moving to the leg side was continued by linking actions in Dhanurasana (bow) and Urdhva Dhanurasana (upward bow). In Dhanurasana, she emphasized freeing the thighs from the abdomen. Pick them up, move them back to prepare for the pose. There was some shoulder preparation, but the main emphasis was lifting the thighs off of the floor. This was done first, in the preparatory stage, one by one, to create maximum space between abdomen and thighs.  She also had them lengthen the chest forward. After students took hold of their ankles, they were instructed to press the buttocks down. “Lift the thighs off the floor and maximize that space between the thighs and abdomen. Do not allow the knees to go wide. Keep them in line with the hips. Turn outer knee toward the inner knee and then lengthen the outer thigh from the outer hip to the outer knee. Maintain that alignment!”

In Urdhva Dhanurasana, the main instructions were to straighten the arms, but move the buttocks and hips toward the leg side. This was to prevent chest compression, or the decrease in space between neck and shoulders and ears and shoulders. “Even if your arms are slanted and your shoulders are not over your wrists, move your hips to the leg side. You are to see that the chest remains open.” Over and over again, she gave these instructions as they repeated the backbend from the floor. People used different prop setups depending on their needs, and assistants were called over to correct and assist anyone whose arms were not straight or chest was closing. After 6-8 repetitions, she gave them a rest, and asked, “Was that not better? Did you not feel the difference? Come, sit down, listen here.”   

By this time, we had finished our supported supine postures in the “red” section, so I moved in for the talk. “So many times, even teachers from the west are teaching these backbends wrong. But what does it mean to be doing right? Look at these pictures of Guruji.” We all look up at the hundreds of black and white 8×10 photos on the upper walls surrounding the studio. “Do you see his chest? Is it closing or is it open? (It is obviously beautifully open.) But so many teachers, they look at those pictures and they see the arms and legs close together and they teach it wrong. If you are a master, okay, you can do like this and the chest remains open. And for people who can do well, they can’t teach! They see someone struggling and they don’t know what to do, because they can do for themselves and they don’t understand what the correct action is. But for beginners and even advanced students, we must begin with a different shape and work with the open chest first. And when that is coming, okay, you can then come more to the chest side; and then you must work with reshaping the arch. But that is a different chapter. Today the chapter is on opening the chest by moving to the leg side.”

Geeta was in top form—calm, clear, and informative. “You see otherwise you inwite the problems. The problems that are inwited (v’s and w’s are interchangeable in this country) when backbends are done wrongly can be in the thyroid. That compression there affects the thyroid and so many of the hormones. Or you get a headache and feel nausea. That headache means there is to much pressure in the brain and that nausea means the organs are affected wrongly. This is why it so important to keep that chest open. You see even in the medical classes, we always see that that chest remains open and there is no compression in the throat or neck. Am I right?” The senior teachers all nod. “So see that you are working correctly and not allowing that throat to become tense or the chest to become compressed.”  

The lesson was clear and unmistakable, a real take-home from India.

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