Pune 2012 — Bobby Clennell

My youngest son Jake and I arrived in Pune on Wednesday 1st February at around 4 am. I attended a 9.30 am Women’s class taught by Guruji and Abhijata. It was a special “jet lag class”. We began with some supported inversions, some of which I had never seen done in quite the same way before. This is my 19th trip to Pune — the first was in 1976 — and I don’t know why I am surprised that they are still coming up with new material!

Viparita Karani/Sirsasana: Sit backwards on a chair with the knees bent over the back of the chair rest. Slide back off chair and place the crown of the head on a vertical bolster. Thread your arms through the chair and hold the back legs. There was much emphasis on lifting through the dorsal spine.

Viparita Dandasana: Sit backwards through the chair. Curve back around the chair seat. Support top of the back of your head on a vertical bolster, and your feet on blocks. Hold the back legs of the chair.

Viparita Karani/Sarvangasana: Proceed as for chair Sarvangasana, with your shoulders resting on a horizontal bolster and the back of the head on the floor, but rather than extending your legs out, bend them over the back of the chair rest. As for regular chair Sarvangasana, there was lots of lifting through the dorsal spine.

Setu Bandasana. Sit backward through the chair. Keeping your knees bent, slide back off the edge of the chair and place the back of your head on a vertical bolster (build up the height of the bolster as needed).

Then, just when you thought that this was going to be a restorative class, we went straight into some simple, but extremely vigorous standing poses (including lots of Adho Mukha Svanasana).

This class was just what was needed to throw off the fatigue and fuzzy-headedness of the journey.

Geetaji taught pranayama on Thursday and standing poses on Friday — fabulous classes both of course. Guruji and Abhyjata taught Saturday’s women’s class, and it reminded me of Guruji’s classes in the 70s. This was a “remembering–what–it’s–like–to–be–taught–by–a–master” sort of a class. There’s just no other way of putting it!

Maty Ezraty doing Pincha Myorasana in the practice session

Mary Reilly in the practice room

One evening a few of us attended a Sufi music festival. Parvathy Bauul from the Bauul sect was the last act. She chanted and danced, and twirled, causing her hem length dreadlocks to swing and flare out like a mandala. It was all meditation for her and a part of her practice. Here is a clip of her from You Tube, although you lose much of the electrifying affect that you get when she is right there in front of you.

Bauul is the equivalent of Sufi in India, particularly in Bengal, where Parvathy comes from. Her impressive beauty, her personality and the intensity of her devotional chanting and rotating dance, Dervish style, make her unique. I will never forget her, or that class with Guruji and Abhyjata.

Guruji then left with Abhyjata and a group of students and teachers for a yoga convention in Bangalore. It had been fascinating watching him in the practice room each morning, coaching his students for a yoga demonstration that they were putting on at the convention.

On Tuesday (almost one week into the course) Prashant taught a class “for the mind”. About half way through the class he directed us through some nostril breathing as we practiced standing poses. Sounds fairly ordinary I know, but taught by Prashantji, it was profound. It was after that class that I finally shook off my jet lag and slept through the night.

With Guruji gone (and also Geetaji, who had gone to Calcutta for another yoga convention), we were left in the good hands of three truly excellent Instiute teachers, Navaz Kamdin, Rajlaxmi, and Gulnaas, and later, when Guruji and his entourage returned, Abhijata Iyengar and Raya Ud also taught.

Last night Prashantji taught a challenging back bends class. The sequence included: Padmasana/Setu Bandasana over a block, and Padmasana/Viparita Dandasana on a chair, Ustrasana, and Viparita Dandasana from the ropes. The objective was to come out of the class feeling as cool and calm (Prashantji used the word “sanctified”) as we had after his forward bend class “for the mind”.

This morning, Guruji taught a truly profound and masterful class with Abhyjata. We came onto the points of the fingers whenever the hand was on the floor (Parivrtta Ardha Chandrasana, a version of Virabadrasana III with hands on the floor in frount of us, and Bharadvajasana I: “tiger claws”!).

We are exactly at the halfway point of the month.

Richard Jonas

I love Sunday mornings on Model Colony. There is no traffic. Everything is quiet. I stroll down to the neighborhood café, Lalit Mahal, for breakfast: upma and real coffee. The owner was starting the day with a puja for his garlanded deity, and the fragrance of incense permeates the entire place.

Puja

Interior of the Lalite Mahal

Tori Milner @ RIMYI - October 21,2008

I am in India for my third two-month stay in Pune studying with the Iyengar family. Apologies for taking so long to get something started. I think it’s taken me this three weeks to get my rhythm, which I why I always try to stay for a long time.

I am living on the second floor of a ten-story building right next door to RIMYI (Ramamani Memorial Iyengar Yoga Institute) and the Iyengar home. In fact, last night as we were getting in from dinner we saw Prashant Iyengar watching television next door. It is the natural course of events here to see and hear the Iyengars every day, not just when they are teaching – a concept that seemed so novel my first trip here and now seems so natural.

Change has come to Pune since I first visited in 2004. I’ve noticed many new things – new buildings, malls, stores, wireless internet, higher rents, higher tuition, more women and men wearing Western clothes such as jeans and t-shirts….evidence of recently stricken strong economic times. But so much is the same too….random power-outages, animals moving along with the flow of traffic on the road, off the chart horn-blowing, over-the-top festival celebrations – which now seem to include an endless array of fireworks. Life is good in Pune.

My roommates are Frances and Greg, from New Zealand and Canada respectively. And our landlord, Sanjeev, lives here in the apartment too. He is a local, who is very helpful to consult on a regular basis. We each have our own room and bathroom. There is a washing machine here in the apartment, but I still sometimes wash by hand in my plastic bucket.

I’ve been attending class every day with Geeta, except Tuesdays, which I have with Prashant. I have also been observing and lending a hand in “Medical” class, which is always an adventure.

This week is pranayama and we had our first class with Geetaji last night who asked us to gather all parts of our body under the same umbrella. Our spine was the stem of the umbrella and we were to study the tilts and where the energy is flowing and where it is not and collect everything together, she said, like a kindergarten teacher has to get all the children to do the same thing. It was lovely.

I went home and ate the sweetest pineapple for dinner.