Some thoughts on Sequences and Socrates

At the Iyengar Yoga Convention in 2003, Manouso said one of the best things about going to Pune is that you set aside a month in your life to dedicate to your yoga practice and that you are there with other people doing the same thing. It is really true. The focus of life here really is doing yoga. Now, yoga is a pretty important part of my day back in Texas and I definitely organize my day around my yoga practice when I can, but there are definitely days that yoga falls to the bottom of the do to list. Not so here. In the morning, we have either a three hour practice or a class and then in the afternoon or evening a class or shorter practice. It is a great schedule in that it is quite conducive to cultivating a learning frame of mind.

Iyengar yogis and yoginis tend to be obsessed with sequencing. During and after workshops, there is a lot of getting together and sharing sequences with each other. This practice is called "doing notes." This practice even occurs on the cyber level. I've been emailing sequences back to Randy and Devon as a means of sort of sharing the excitement of being here with them but what I really want is to practice the sequences with them!!! Now the sequence, even a great one, isn't magical in and of itself, but it does provide a frame or a map that guides one to the important actions to practice. Here it is nice because classes are two hours and then typically we have three hours the next day to practice what we learned in class. It is a great practice in and of itself, the writing and reflecting with Christina and the doing so immediately afterwards. It feels very integrative.

I think we, as in we in the the west, typically think of the classroom as where learning happens. But really whether it is in the philosophy classroom or the yoga studio, class is where you are presented with new ideas, but that presentation is only part of the learning process, you have to go and make the new information part of what you already know and sometimes that process involves giving up something that you thought you knew to be true before.

which circles back around to Socrates. Socrates is famous for phrases like "the unexamined life is not worth living" and of course "the Socratic Method." One aspect of the Socratic method is aporia. Socrates gets his various interlocutors to admit aporia, to admit that they don't have an answer to the particular question under investigation. Only then can true learning take place. I often tell my philosophy students that I see aporia as the process of becoming open minded. If we think we already have the answer, then to a significant degree our mind is closed on that issue. Unfortunately, admitting we don't know, often isn't a lot of fun. We feel fear, shame, embarrassment rather than excitement to see a new way of looking at the situation.

I think this process of being open or receptive to learning is what Geeta and Prashant are driving at when they talk about not being prepared to learn. We are too attached to what we already think we know about yoga to experience yoga in a different way.

Well, that's it for now. We have to go find a Pune equivalent of Kinkos. If you ever come to India, bring ten copies of your passport and visa. Each hotel has needed one, and the money changers need one and Chandru needs one and Pandu.... Pranayama class tonight!!