Development of our theme for the year
I am truly grateful for our time together on Zoom and for your continued commitment to our Iyengar Yoga community in Sarasota.
Thanks to you ~
We matriculated to Zoom. Think of how proficient we’ve become in setting up our technology equipment, camera, finding links, selecting space at home for practice (!), and being receptive to the video interchanges to support learning, practice, and connection to each other.
In philosophy class, we completed all 4 padas of the sutras; and enthusiastically dove into the Bhagavad Gita. Our discussions wrapped ageless philosophy with contemporary issues, music, movies, and culture. Insightful, funny, challenging, it became another way connect yoga practice to daily life. Newcomers are welcome to drop in.
The space at 312 N Osprey remains open. Many of you have commented how wonderful it is when I teach from the studio. Every time I step through the door I am both grateful and optimistic that we will once more resume classes in person – respecting the health and safety of our classmates and their families.
And my thanks to and appreciation for Deborah and Marilyn for working with me around the mechanics of the Zoom/WL interface; name changes, and schedule flubs to bring their teaching excellence and commitment to your well-being through the Zoom medium.
Last year’s theme centered around sutra 1.33.
maitri karuna mudita upeksanam sukha duhkha punya apunya visayanam bhavanatah cittaprasadanam
“Through cultivation of friendliness, compassion, joy, and indifference to pleasure and pain, virtue and vice respectively, the consciousness becomes favourably disposed, serene and benevolent.”
Maitri (friendliness) and mudita (happiness) are reminders of how we can co-exist, rather than divide. I am sure the new year will bring new opportunities for us to practice these qualities.
Kuruna (compassion for those who are suffering). For those of you who became ill and who may be still recovering, for those of you with family and friends who became ill and who may be still recovering, for those of you who have lost family and friends, I hope that the new year brings healing in body, breath, mind and spirit.
Upeksha (equanimity towards those who are non-virtuous) is the reminder that the cultivation of equanimity takes practice, particularly during these challenging times. As my first yoga teacher said, “being on the path is noticing when you are off the path”.
To practice these qualities is to move towards the experience of cittaprasadanam, a “graceful diffusion of the consciousness”.
Which brings me to our theme for 2021: Samasthiti.
You may have run across this word when studying the very first pose we teach: tadasana. Often, samasthiti and tadasana are used interchangeably. But for this year’s theme I want to make a distinction.
Tadasana translates into “steady and erect like a mountain”. In almost every class this pose is taught, and re-taught, and re-taught. Why?
The process of coming to stand in an erect position means we take stock of imbalances we have carried all our lives (the past); we detach ourselves from the thoughts of “what next” (the future); and we pay attention to EXACTLY where we are in the present moment.
Tadasana lives in every pose – standing, sitting, bending forwards and back, twisting, inverting – and in every breath.
Samasthiti comes from the Sanskrit root words sama, meaning “same,” “equal” or “upright,” and sthiti, meaning “to establish” or “to stand.”
An asana is not a posture which you assume mechanically. It involves thought, at the end of which a balance is achieved between movement and resistance.
~ B.K.S. Iyengar
Samasthiti is the experience of balanced stillness; of being present, unencumbered by past or future; it is the consequence of moving from the external to the internal; and the experience of cittaprasadanam, the “graceful diffusion of the consciousness”.
So, this year, we’ll explore samasthiti, in all 8 limbs of yoga practice. We’ll play with movement and stillness – and together find a firm place to stand and take on this new year’s challenges and joys.
Namaste,
Sue