pune travels Archives - Pragya Bhatt

Don’t Go After the Stretch

September 10, 2019

pc: @khan.clicks @deavalin_david_dsouza makeup: makeupbyhennaanbaree location: Cubbon Park

I had a late class yesterday. It started at 7.10 pm and went up to 8.40 pm. The teacher was new to me. After the usual queries (“Where are you from? Who’s your teacher?”) I spread my mat and got ready for a class.

All the teachers at RIMYI have a distinct style of teaching. The strong teacher-student tradition of yoga ensures that your attitude, approach and philosophy towards the practice reflects that of your teacher. Your students will be able to see the ‘Iyengar’ or ‘Ashtanga’ shades in your classes. If you go to multiple teachers/don’t go to any teacher – that is pretty evident too.

There isn’t much of a crowd at RIMYI this year. Last night’s class had about 15 students. We had enough space to spread out. The class was quiet. It wasn’t action-packed or fast paced. We did very few asanas. We held each asana for a very very long time.

As you continue to hold, you’re able to go deeper into the pose. You can intensify the stretch. You can observe which limbs are working, which are sleeping. I worked on lengthening and opening my torso in Trikonasana – I noticed that I could actually activate the hamstrings more. Similarly in Parsvakonasana.

“You may be feeling a stretch in your hamstrings and on your groin,” said the teacher. “But feel the quietness in your abdomen.”

I blinked a couple of times. It’s a mannerism Ive noticed recently. It’s an automatic response if I’m surprised or intrigued.

“Most of us go after the stretch. We think asana works only if we feel the stretch. But all asanas bring quietness in the abdomen too. Find this quiet.”

And with these few sentences, he changed my asana practice forever.

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RIMYI Experiences

The First Class

September 4, 2019

How many times have you quickly gone up into sarvangasana? Do you remember to pull the shoulders back, open the chest, activate the thighs and lift the tailbone up? Seemingly small modifications can change the entire posture.

Perhaps it was nervous excitement or maybe anticipation, but my first class was amazing. By the end of the class my blood was singing and my body felt like it was thrumming (to the beat of my blood?).

I am a sucker for simple classes. I believe if you focus on the simple stuff everything else falls into place. This class focused on the tailbone and sacrum region. We started the class with adhomukha virasana. Rajalakshmi asked us to continue to extend the arms. “This extension isn’t because you are lengthening your bones!!!” she boomed into the mike.

“The bones never extend!!! It’s impossible for you to extend any of your bones!!!” she continued. “Pay close attention to the parts of your body that make the extension possible!” she said.

She encouraged us to pay close attention to the tailbone-sacrum region and observe how it participates in forward bends and twists.

The most interesting part of the class was dissecting the parivritta trikonasana or the revolved triangle posture. There are three movements that make this asana possible: the extension of the side, the bending forward keeping that extension intact and finally, the opening of the chest. And once we were in the final posture we were asked to pull the tailbone and sacrum in to the body.

At one point Rajalakshmi caught me looking at my hip. I realize I do this unconsciously every time I practice this asana. I use my eyes to ensure that my hip is pushed back, which detracts from the overall experience of the asana. “Your side is compressing and you’re becoming a ball,” Rajalakshmi explained patiently. “Extend your chin forward and away from the sacrum. Open the sacrum and lengthen the side!” she boomed again.

This is the magic of the annual pilgrimage to RIMYI.

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RIMYI Experiences

Registrations at RIMYI

September 3, 2019

Finally getting the hang of this.

I headed to the institute at around 9 am this morning. In previous years I’ve always registered in the evenings so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I decided to wear my practice shorts just in case.

The person at the front desk smiled and nodded his head in recognition. He suggested I go practice first and come back later to get the registration forms.

Self-practice sessions at RIMYI can be intimidating. Alhtough you have people of all levels you tend to look only at those who are busy defying gravity. Today there were students going from adhomukha svanasana to urdhva dhanurasana and back again.

Watching students who have a better asana practice than you can be intimidating…or extremely inspiring. As a yoga student the one quality that has been of immense help to me has been that the only ‘I’ I take with me to a class is ‘I am a yoga student.’ Besides this I don’t think, ‘I can’t do back bends’ or ‘I have a mean urdhva kukkutasana’. I’m willing to explore what I already know. And willing to wrestle with prejudice, fear and doubt to discover new movements.

Besides the above two things, the other things I should mention for a month in Pune are:

Don’t bring your yoga mat. You have every prop ever created available for use.
Do bring comfortable walking shoes, preferrably ones that can withstand the rains. Pune is known for its sudden showers (it’s pouring as I write this). Don’t forget a trusted umbrella.
Students generally bring skirts or loose pants to wear over their practice shorts rather than changing at the institute.
Don’t forget your passport photos (along with the other documentation such as visa copies, passport copies etc). It had completely slipped my mind that I needed passport photos, but luckily had some extras in my wallet.
You can pay your fees through cash or card.
A lot of students like to have a coconut post class. I would recommend bringing your own re-usable straws rather than using the disposable plastic ones.

These are the few things that come to mind right now. In case you have specific queries, drop a comment.

Post practice I got my schedule. I have evening classes three times a week, and today happens to be an evening class. Fingers crossed for a good class and an awesome month.

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Yoga

A New Vrkshasana

September 6, 2017

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I love the basics. Even though advanced yoga poses can be exciting, there is still something lovely about the simplicity of the basics. Basic asanas are like the comfort food of yoga.

My schedule has changed a little bit for this month, so I now have Devki’s class on Wednesdays from 7.45-9 am.

In today’s class we focused on the groin. I’ve been here for a month and so far I haven’t done a blog on any class I’ve attended, but today’s class was different from any so far. We focused on the spine and the root of the spine (moola). We were supposed to grip the spine and the root throughout the sequence. We started with the Swastikasana and went on to the Baddhakonasana.

The class had a pleasant tempo. It didn’t feel like I was struggling in the asanas and pushing my limits. Yet, as the class progressed I could clearly feel that I was settling into the asanas rather than fighting my way into them. As though my limbs were moulding and unfolding effortlessly. I feel I was discovering what the body can do when the mind is quiet and the ego recedes. By the time we got to the Trikonasana I felt light and lithe and it was the best Trikonasana I’ve done while here in Pune.

I always learn something new in Devki’s class. And it’s always something fascinating. POMELO_20170906094836_save The Vrkshasana/Tree Pose is perhaps the first balancing posture that we learn in yoga class. Over the years I’ve heard a lot about the symbolism associated with this pose. The more common ones are to be rooted and strong and to find balance despite what is happening around you. But today Devki said be like a tree and provide shade and protection to all that come to you. A tree doesn’t judge a good person or bad, an animal or a human. It provides shade, protection and relief to one and all.

Although as human beings we are constantly evolving and growing (as we should), we can also be like the tree and ensure that external factors don’t diminish our light or detract us from the work that we are meant to do. We should be compassionate towards all who we come in contact with and see the larger picture even in the midst of the most sticky situations. The tree that provides protection is larger than those that come to it for relief and has a greater purpose. Think about this when practicing your Vrkshasana next time.

Towards the end of the class we went into Baddhakonasana once again and performed it like the Savasana – with the intent of relaxing the body. I couldn’t help but smile when I realized my spine, the root (moola) of the spine and the posture had all come together effortlessly in the Baddhakonasana.

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Travels Yoga

When the going gets tough…

September 22, 2016

I watched ‘Eat Pray Love’ and later devoured the book. I loved the book and the movie. I remember googling to find out what ashram Elizabeth Gilbert had checked into. My friends and discussed the book and its ideas to death. We planned similar journeys. And finally, all of us hoped that should we ever experience a life altering event, we would have the courage and strength to overcome it just like Elizabeth Gilbert.
Elizabeth Gilbert went on to write another book about her life post marriage with the love of her life (whom she met in at the end of ‘Eat Pray Love’). I haven’t had a chance to read that book yet, but I do hope to pick it up soon. Over the past few weeks the internet exploded with news that Elizabeth Gilbert has divorced her husband of 12 years – for the woman she’s in love with. The thing is, this news wasn’t brought to the world through newspapers and magazine stories; Gilbert put it up on her Facebook page herself. She included a picture of herself with the woman she loves.

Today while in the Sirsasana, with rivulets of sweat running down(up?) my torso and onto the mat, I think I gained a new perspective. This morning we were taught how to balance our shoulders and torso in the headstand. The teacher took us through various moves that helped us understand the positioning and behaviour of our shoulder blades and other parts of the torso. This was to give us insight into how we can improve our headstand. I was experimenting with my headstand and the experiments had me almost toppling and definitely very very unstable.

I’m sure falling in love while married, deciding to commit to the woman you love (despite knowing she has terminal cancer) and finally calling it quits on a relationship of 12 years with the love of your life (and which has been immortalized in a couple of best selling books) wasn’t easy. And it didn’t happen overnight. There must’ve been moments of uncertainty, of fear, of helplessness, anxiety, doubt, anger…and an overwhelming sense of insecurity. Deciding to go public with an intensely private matter of this kind also couldn’t have been easy for a woman known the world over for her soul searching trip to India and Bali. No one in the public domain is impervious to criticism. With social media being so pervasive, every detail of your life can be analysed. You can be publicly berated for your actions, opinions and personal choices. Therefore I think it was very very brave of her to be open about the choice that she made, and to risk a lot of bad publicity, ‘unfriends’, ‘unfollows’ and ‘unlikes’. In an age where lifestyle choices are beamed out to the world the second they are made, we are constantly under the scanner.

For health and fitness professionals, it is imperative to look their best in every post. Even pictures of them looking less than their best are always pictures of them looking fabulously less than their best. The constant scrutiny from fans and followers creates intense pressure to look a particular way or make certain choices. For fitness professionals choices such as drinking, smoking and indulging the sweet tooth present a challenge – to broadcast or not to broadcast? I wonder, for instance, as a yoga expert what if I were to one day get a condition that yoga is meant to prevent – how would I go public with it? Would I, like Gilbert, have the courage to talk about my experience? Or what if I were to gain all the weight back (a fear that I constantly live with)? How would I even begin to talk about it? Which is why I feel like the protagonist on ‘Eat Pray Love’ is more courageous than what was portrayed in the book. Her courage is uncommon and her quest for herself is very honest.

This is something we can all learn from. What if an event in your life forced you to re-evaluate everything you’ve stood for so far? Most of us are so fixated in our opinions and lives that we can almost never admit that we are wrong. And what if we had to do so publicly? I can’t imagine what Elizabeth Gilbert went through, but I think it would have been a process of immense growth and fulfilment.

When was the last time you were faced with a situation that challenged your basics and how did you deal with it? Was it a process of growth and learning? If yes, what did you learn?