Overcoming Duality

So one of the sayings that B.K.S Iyengar is famous for goes something like this, "you must see how there are back bends in forward bends and forward bends in backward bends." Well, these past two classes must fall under that rubric. This is a forward bending week at the Institute. So Tuesday night Christina and I were sort of expecting a mellow philosophy lecture with a few asanas in between based on our experience last week with Prashant. Not so. Major Backbends, starting with rope sirsansa and setu bandha and then an epic stay in dwi pada on a chair... then onto standing back arch, drop overs, kapotasana ekapada rajakapotasana, then some so called baby back bends like up dog and bow. It was gruelling, actually. Christina banned my use of the word gruelling early in the day saying I was overusing a perfectly fine word, (But really so many of the stretches are pretty gruelling, but it is true, I do get in a word rut, like "posh and trendy restaraunts") Then last night she said, "see we really need the word gruelling now and you spent it on a harmless little hip opener." Then, Geeta's class this morning was also a pretty intense backward bending class.

Both Geeta and Prashant talked a lot about the importance of cultivating the mind for learning and not to get stuck in "just doing" or doing what you know. It is a good lesson. It actually reminds me of one of the things that first attracted me to Iyengar yoga. It was clear that the system allowed for life long learning. In academia, at some point you become the teacher and while you might remain a student in the sense that you are a scholar of a philosopher's thought. I am still and always will be a student of Plato. At some point, your formal studentship is over, while you were someone's student and people know that about you, typically the studentship ends and you are a teacher... Not so in Iyengar yoga. Even when you are a teacher, you are still someone's student.

There's much more I want to write about all this and its relationship to Socrates, aporia, and keeping an open mind, but I got caught up in emailing today and now it is time to go practice some forward bends.

Other news of note. Our roomate Jaya arrived today and Christina and I bought real indian style bloomers.