15/10/2024
I asked one of the teenagers classes last week to describe a biscuit. There are some new students and I wanted to explain how every asana has its own Sanskrit name. To begin with they talked about the appearance of a biscuit but soon the words “chocolate chip” 🍪came in together with descriptions of textures and thicknesses. And an observation of it being harder to describe taste. And then “granny biscuits” - indicating the shape and home made nature of the biscuit but perhaps also an emotional flavour, an intangible “feel”, I wondered, (without voicing that). Sometimes the most perfect looking biscuits are missing something important and sometimes the less complete looking biscuits have it all at another level and the taste stays with you for days. So it is with our practice. We need to explore varieties of the same asana or the same asana group, guided by the shape and form but exploring at a deeper level, looking for threads of similarities and different resonances. For the teens we stuck with learning the shape that goes with the name but maybe the chat sowed some seeds for thought to be stored until ready to ripen. Who learns more in an Iyengar yoga class - the student or the teacher?!
