Sharath Rangaswamy - Ashtanga Led Primary Series.. where everything applies.

When I opened my eyes at 5.00am on the third day, I thought I was going to feel so sore and wasn’t able to attend Sharath’s class. But as it turned out, I felt brand new and could not find the soreness in my low back, which I expected from all the classes and workshops in the past 2 days. I figured the heat patch worked on me! I had put 2 patches on the effected area the night before and felt great that morning!! So I got all worked up and excited to attend Sharath’s class with much enthusiasm.

As preparation to the class, I had done a 30 min Yin class on my own and also a session of nauli as part of the cleansing practice prior to the Ashtanga class. It usually makes me feel so much lighter. And it did. I arrived at the convention centre 30 minutes earlier. At first there were only a few of us there but in just 5 minutes, throngs of practitioners arrived and already making a bee line at the entrance. As much as I didn’t want to make any expectations out of the class, I did want to make the best out of this one, especially after paying so much money for it, a bad thought.

So much distraction was going on before the class actually started. What with the photo taking, people asking for autographs, and warming up into contortions beyond disgust. Luckily for me, I had a front row seat where there was nothing between me and Sharath. Meaning, NO distractions.

I was mending my own business and trying not to be bothered by all the fracas when I heard Sharath said ‘samasthiti’, which basically means Standing or in Sharath’s words, class begins. And so it began, the tradition of almost a century old, the culture of Sanskrit counting, the flow of ASHTANGA Vinyasa, right before you presented by Sharath Rangaswamy. Hearing him brought me back to Mysore when I was practicing with Guruji Sri Patthabi Jois. The flow, the energy went like a soothing river coming down from a mountain. I don’t remember him having us stop to catch our breath, but then I felt I was jumping back and through with a lot of ease.

That day I was determined to lighten my practice and to step back a lot more than I would usually do. I wanted to find out how its like not to be intimidated by all the other ‘super Ashtangis’, not to force anything and just go with what your body needs than what it wants. Gosh, how wonderful it was to practice humility and be able to retract back when you listen to your own body and without having this distraction of seeing and looking at others with judgment. One thing that Sharath did that was so enlightening was to emphasize the practice to bandhas and drishtis. It worked wonders for me that day.

I am not saying that I could do ALL the postures of the primary series but see, that didn’t matter that day, because as an avid ashtangi, you would know the sequence and have learnt the variation of every difficult posture and know when is the time to adopt to that. I was happy with the version of Supta Kurmasana and that was all that matters. After our last vinyasa, as usual, there was no instruction of coming into Shavasana. All he said was ‘take rest’, a cue for us to rest in any way we seem fit as individuals. I wish everyone would collectively come into shavasana. Only a few of us did while the rest rushed to Sharath to have photos taken with him. However, by time I was done with shavasana, Sharath was still there waiting for everyone to finish and we ended up having breakfast together… Sharath and moi. Om Shanti.