Pandoraspace

Lessons in Humility and Compassion

It was in the morning class of the second day of the workshop that Jawahar told me that I had to re-learn Salamba Sirsasana. As there was another class that  afternoon, I went up to Jawahar after the morning class and asked him to teach me how to do Salamba Sirsasana correctly. Jawahar asked me if I was coming to class the next day and told me he would teach it to me then.  During the afternoon class when Jawahar finished explaining a lesson in Pranayama, he asked the class whether we had any questions. Then, he looked at me and said to the class that we should not ask him questions after class but during the classes so all could learn.  I need not tell you that that statement made me feel bad.

I did not, therefore, expect much after that set down. Jawahar did make good his promise to help me correct my Salamba Sirsasana during the next day.  I expected no less from him in that respect.  I was, however, surprised and touched when I realized that many of the asanas Jawahar made the class do were designed specifically to help me improve my Salamba Sirsasana. While doing those asanas, Jawahar painstakingly corrected me (and my other classmates as well) and tried to make me understand how to correctly execute them. It was then that I felt humbled by the attention devoted by Jawahar in teaching me how to improve my asanas. While he is a very exacting teacher, Jawahar also showed me great compassion by understanding my weaknesses and not belittling me for it. Rather, he accepted my weaknesses and worked with me to eliminate them.

When we students later expressed to Jawahar our gratitude for the invaluable lessons he had imparted, he simply stated that this is what he does.  And yet, in reality, Jawahar has become one of my best teachers.

Transforming myself through the destruction of my asana

I know very little about the subject of which I am about write. I am only a student of Iyengar yoga and a beginner at that. I am a Catholic and my knowledge of the Hindu religion is likewise very limited. Consequently, I advise the readers to view this article merely as the ramblings of a yoga student in the aftermath of a disappointing exam.

It is my understanding that the Hindu god, Shiva, is both destroyer and transformer. It is said that Shiva destroys a thing in order for it to be rebuilt and transformed into something pure and true.

In today’s class, my teacher, Jawahar Bangera, mimicked Shiva when he totally destroyed my Salamba Sirsasana (not to mention my ego) and asked me to re-learn it.

Salamba Sirsasana is the headstand, which is sometimes known as the king of all asanas. While I still do not know why Salamba Sirsasana is the king of all poses, It is one of the few poses I learned early on, and because of that, it is a pose that I love to do. Before the workshop with Jawahar, I thought that I had been getting better and better at Salamba Sirsasana. I was mistaken.

Like everyone else who learns how to do Salamba Sirsasana, I learned it by doing it against the wall for more than a year. I found joy the first time I was able to get my legs up on the wall. I was happy when I was able to move my legs little by little away from the wall. I was in awe when I first noticed heat generated by my body as the blood flows down to the brain. I began to believe in the pose when, sometime after doing the headstand, there were days I felt active but could not do the asana because my body was tired and days when I felt slugging and could do the asana. It was then that I learned that headstands are a good gauge of the true state of the body, i.e., when the body needed rest. Recently, I had been particularly pleased with myself as I could get up to Salamba Sirsasana independently, that is, without the aid of the wall.

On the first day of the workshop, Jawahar told us to do Salamba Sirsasana. Strangely, before I even got up, Jawahar asked if I needed assistance with getting up and I said no. He did not correct my pose on that day and allowed me to stay in the pose for all of five minutes. So, I went home thinking that I had done just fine on the first day of the class. Of course, I was wrong.

At today’s class, Jawahar could no longer keep to himself the fact that my Salamba Sirsasana was completely wrong. My ribs were jutting out and I was working my lower back too much. Worse, he told me that I had to re-learn headstand by doing it against the wall again. Jawahar said that my Salamba Sirsasana was created by my active mind. At this point, I must say that the one instruction that is repeated throughout yoga classes is that one must keep the mind passive. According to Jawahar, I had gotten into the pose by crook (as in by hook or by crook) and so my pose was crooked. After that, I was sent back to the wall to re-learn the pose the correct way. This was, of course, a crushing set down for me on many levels. It feels like being in Grade 6 only to be told I have to go back to Kindergarten.

Right after this crushing set down, Jawahar says that re-learning Salamba Sirsasana is character building.

Jawahar has done his work in destroying my Salamba Sirsasana and teaching me the right way to do it.  Now, it is my turn to transform myself and step up.

I have been fortunate to have several character building situations in my life but I never though that yoga would present me another such experience. In the past, I would immediately step up to the character building situation by accepting my mistake, learning from it and doing better. While this recent event with Jawahar has humbled me and made me feel disappointed in myself, I find that I am uncertain of whether I am able to find the strength to step up to this situation. Just looking at the wall brings me a sense of dread.

But, I have never been a quitter. At least I have not quit on anything I believed in. So, for now, I have decided to re-learn Salamba Sirsasana (and all the other asanas).

Asana

Perhaps I am one of those people who likes to do things with a purpose.  Perhaps this is why I took a liking to Yoga as each asana (pose) has a purpose.

When I execute an asana, I am aware that I am not merely moving my body but that I am also trying to make myself feel better or determine my state of mind.  I first came to know that each asana served a purpose when Rina told us that, after doing a proper salamba sirsasana (head stand), one can tell whether one is tired.  According to Rina, a salamba sirsasana could perk you up when you feel sluggish or lethargic but in reality have a lot of stored up energy.  A salamba sirsasana could also make an active you realize that you are tired and your body needs to rest.  A salamba sirsasana is also an instant cure to nasal congestion.  Having done salamba sirsasana on several occasions, I can attest that what Rina said is true.

In his book Light on Yoga, B.K.S. Iyengar says that the asanas that could provide relief for some ailments.  I was told by my other Yoga teachers that many people visit the Yoga center in Pune, India on Saturdays to get treatment for various ailments through execution of asanas.  Evidently, Yoga transcends mere physical activity.

In the CNN interview of B.K.S. Iyengar, I recall him saying something to the effect that, when one runs on a treadmill, the body does work but is abused because there is no real purpose to the activity. You keep running but you are going nowhere. In Yoga, the body works to get into the pose because it serves a particular purpose like curing a cold, stomachache or backache, or perhaps, even teaching one how to live.

On learning how to stand, dreading the standing poses and standing on my head

I suppose that my parents taught me how to stand right before they taught me how to walk.   That was the first time.  The second time I was taught how to stand was in Yoga class.

In teaching me how to stand, I remember my yoga teacher, Sari, giving me these instructions: (a) straighten your legs; (b) put your feet together; (c) lift your knee caps; (d) roll your shoulders back and down; (e) do not over-arc your back; (f) soften your gaze; (h) relax your throat; and (i) feel the balls of your feet.  With the number of instructions I was given, I was so disoriented that my mind could not even command my body to stand still.  I literally lost my balance from simply standing.  Besides, it was unclear to me how I was supposed to relax my throat.  Could such act be done?

Who would have thought that standing was so difficult to do?  When I had to re-learn how to stand and found that it was not such an easy task, I learned not to take the seemingly simple things in life like standing for granted.  As soon as I learned this lesson, I also learned how to relax my throat.

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