A Week of Iyengar Yoga in Austin

Monday afternoon, Christina and I went to Peggy's advanced class at AYS. We worked on restoratives and pranayama. Peggy was working from a sequence that BKS Iyengar had given at the 1993 convention in Ann Arbor. That's really one of the things I love about Iyengar Yoga. Having access to that kind of history/continuity about practice. This was my first time taking Peggy's class. I really enjoyed it and learned a lot. Peggy started the class reading from BKS's commentary about the sutras relating to Pranayama. We spent a nice amount of time upside down and a heck of a lot of time in kapotasana, supported in various ways by various chairs. Peggy is a dedicated long term practicioner and it is clear she is very dedicated to bringing her students to deeper levels in their own practice. It was also nice because so many people in the class had been at the Lois Steinberg workshop, there was a bit of a group share about various salient points in the poses we looked at.

Wednesday Afternoon I went to Devon's Hard Work class at Clear Spring. I normally go to this class, though lately since I've been doing Christina's Anusara Class at Seventh Street and going to the Happiness Class on Mondays. The hard work class is just that, two hours of hard work in yoga. We did a few standing poses utilizing the ropes, really working on getting openness in the chest. and some inversions, full arm balance, sirsansa (where we reinforced some of Lois' points about the actions of the fingers). Then we had a very long foray into the vasisthasana group of arm balances. (HARD WORK) and ended with a lovely sarvangasana.

Thursday and Friday Morning I went to Heide's class at Castle Hill. She taught pretty much the same sequence both days. Standing forward bend work really working on the concave back extension of the front body and then carrying that action into the seated forward bends. An added bonus of taking classes there, the great prop wall. We used all sorts of belts and bars which greatly facilitated the necessary upward extensions.
I really liked the repeated sequence, another chance at cultivating the various actions in the poses. I kind of liked knowing what was coming up. Heide has excellent pacing. There's enough time to have your own experience with the pose, but not so much time that you feel bogged down with mastering every extruciating detail.

I also subbed Christina's class Thursday afternoon and we worked on inversions (see teaching philosophy and yoga blog for a description).

And still the weekend coming up. I'm teaching at YY South Saturday at 9 and I plan to make Heide's advanced class on Sunday.