Manju Jois TT pt 3 of 4 : Practice

The order of these posts is a bit mixed up, I should probably have written this practice post before the  earlier Adjustment/Assist post then the Q and A, oh well.

Bit rushed too this one, tidy it up later (sorry,  hope it scans OK) as I want to practice and get it in before the weekend and focus on going through my Q and A notes.

Thank you to Paris for some of the pictures below
 Picture by Paris Georgiou/ Vinyasa Yoga Studio, Limassol Cyprus

Kristina pointed out that she didn't really know Manju's schedule, it would depend on his mood each morning whether he had us do Mysore self practice or a Led class.

We met for practice in the beautiful Rethymno shala between 8 and 10 am then ran off for a shower and or breakfast before coming back for the second half of the workshop 10:30 - 1pm

That's me right at the frount on the Santorini blue mat- just worked out that way.

Here's how the practice element worked out....this time and for me personally.

Monday - Led Primary

Tuesday - Mysore self practice : I chose Primary

Wednesday - Mysore self practice : 2nd series

Thursday - Mysore self practice 2nd series

Friday - Led Primary series Repeating Sanskrit names of postures, vinyasas, drishti etc.

Saturday - Led Second series Repeating Sanskrit names of postures, vinyasas, drishti etc.

Sunday - (last day of course) Led Second series Repeating Sanskrit names of postures, vinyasas, drishti etc.

Monday - drop in : Mysore self practice :


Going through day by day....

So the week started with a Led Primary then we had a few days of Self practice, I went with Primary the first day of self practice and then thought it would be a missed opportunity not to have a go at 2nd series, though I'd hardly practiced it for a year. First time with 2nd series went well, Manju even came up to me and mentioned I had a 'good' second series : ) ....the following day less so. Somewhere along the way ( I think as we walked to Kristina's for dinner - Manju Cooked), I mentioned to Manju that I enjoyed practicing with his DVD, the whole listen and repeat of all the asana names, vinyasa count and even drishti. He seemed surprised at that but pleased and said he'd do it that way the following morning. I also asked him if he had plans for a 2nd series DVD and he said that he did. I think it was Tasha who asked for a led second series too, be careful what you wish for, he ended up doing it twice and there was a collective groan I think as we repeated 'pasasana' on the last day of the course 9'though wouldn't have missed it for the world).

Manju's led class consists of the standard sequence but finishes with Parvatasana. He then moves into pranayama while still in padmasana and then on to chanting peace chants, around ten of them. Ramaswami talks about chanting as a meditative practice, meditation with object in Patanjali terms. Manju refers to his practice as a traditional practice and speaks of himself as merely a messenger rather than a guru, just passing on the teaching his father had passed on to him

The pranayama and chanting seem to be just as important to Manju as the asana element, it's as if one doesn't make sense without the others, it's a complete, integrated, system of yoga, the yamas/niyamas coming as a direct result of the practice. The ideal for practice seems to be with the breath slow and steady, equal inhalation and exhalation (no retention) and with the jump back/vinyasas to keep a circular flow of energy. There's a structure of asana but it's also flexible, do less asana if your running short on time ( just the Sury's, Standing, pachimottanasana, purvottanasana finishing, pranayama, Chanting) and jump to finishing and the pranayama and chanting, and if a posture is causing you difficulty then you should move on to the next rather than being held back, but still continue to work on the problematic posture(s), don't skip them altogether.

Also after the chanting we lay in savasana, skipping utpluthi and back to standing for the closing chant altogether.

I'll expand on the above points in the Q and A post after reviewing my notes.

Monday - Led Primary


First time in a shala for me in years although we had met for an hour the night before with Kristina to discuss the course.  I came in quite early, three mats at the top of the room with a space in between right in frount of the altar/shrine, somebody beckoned me over to lay down my mat right there.... had planned on somewhere more discrete.

So we're warming up all in our own way and the you hear Manju's unmistakable, jokingly, "Guru here, nothing to fear" (or something along those lines, it seemed to change daily ). As soon as he gets to the top of the room, just to the left of me he begins the opening chant and then Ekam - inhale..... So it's Led.

And it went well, Manju has a nice pace to his Led that I'm familiar with from his DVD. He leaves a space during the asana , no 1, 2, 3, 4, 5... this means you can breathe at your own rate, I tend to do three longer slower breaths rather than five short ones.

Manju ends his Led  primary slightly differently with Parvatasana after Yoga Mudra before settling into padmasana for pranayama and chanting

Here are some notes on Parvatasana from the excellent Absolute Ashtanga

Parvatasana -- Parvata = mountain.  Manju Jois says: "Parvata is
symbolically the mountain where Shiva lives. It's Kailasa. You don't see
people even practicing Parvatasana in Ashtanga these days. Sitting in
Parvatasana is an important meditation and visualization. When you
draw the arms down [in this pose] you draw the energy in."

variation A– From downdog, jump through on an inhale, fold into lotus
on an exhale. Inhale as you interlace the fingers and stretch the palms
up toward the ceiling. Take 5 breaths. Drishti = hands.

variation B– With an exhale, fold forward with arms stretched out in
front, palms facing forward. Take another 5 breaths. Drishti = hands.
Inhale up to exit. Plant the hands beside the hips and lift. Exhale as you
swing the lotus back through the arms and a vinyasa to downdog..


We would be taught pranayama later in the week so for this Led Manju moved straight to chanting, around eight or so peace chants. As I mentioned Chanting can be seen as a meditative practice, meditation with an object ( the object being the mantra). Here's Manju discussing Chanting from a previous workshop but he said pretty much the same thing in Q and A on this one. One thing that did stand out for me was that he stresses the rhythm of the Vedic chant as setting up vibrations in the brain, this made more sense to me than just saying that it was important to pronounce the mantra correctly. I'd assumed it was the pronunciation of the words, the syllables but it seems to be more a case of getting the stress of the syllables right and thus setting up the rhythm.... I liked that but no doubt it's both.



And here's a link to a track from Manju's chanting CD, the first ten tracks are taken slowly like this one http://youtu.be/4kyKY3cUyLE

There still seem to be five tickets available for the drop-in Sunday of Manju's course at StillPoint Yoga in London ( London bridge). I highly recommend this, led primary, pranayama and chanting. Dont worry about the chanting, you can mumble along and just sing out the more familiar bits. Manju calls this traditional practice, don't miss it. Here's the link, I booked mine (paypal), see you there.

Mysore Self Practice, Led Vinyasa Count, Pranayama, Traditional Vedic Chanting

Sunday 8th September,

9am – 11am 

£32 drop in

Manju is in the UK in September, Five day intensive at Still point, a TT in Manchester and another intensive in Brighton. Check his schedule.

Update:

This just came through from Manchester

Manju & his Father, Sri.K Pattabhi Jois, brought Yoga to America in 1975, Manju has travelled worldwide continuing to teach this tradition. 

30th August                 Friday Evening     6.30-8.30pm

 

2nd September            Monday Evening     6.30/8.30pm

Tuesday - Mysore self practice : I chose Primary


Tuesday was self-practice, I went with primary, straight forward, took it slow but not as slow as at home, noticed the breathing around me in the shala was generally quite slow all round. Did notice that several people were adding in hanumanasana, frount and side splits in fact after Prasaritta Padonttanasana.

At the end of my practice I included a little Pranayama and as I heard some under-the-breath chanting around me included a couple of shanti mantras also. Nice practice.

If you've kept an eye on this blog recently you'll know I've been sick for the last three months, one thing after another, the most recent being kidney stones. It begin to clear up a couple of weeks before I left for Crete and I had two weeks of half decent Primary series before arriving in Crete. Cant tell you what a relief it was to get those first two Primary series under my belt. It was hot in the shala, I was sweating gallons but felt flexible and able to do almost anything....began to consider 2nd series.

Wednesday - Mysore self practice : 2nd series


Manju called out self practice again after the chant and I was still trying to decide all the way through standing whether to do 2nd. I went into pasasana but then forgot to fold the leg back for Krounchasana wondered if anyone would notice if I switched back to Primary. As it happened 2nd went relatively well, felt nice and flexible, again,  like I could do anything in that shala. Later that day Manju came up to me and said I'd done a 'good' second, that was very kind, perhaps he just happened to look over at the good bits. Still was over the moon with that, practicing at home you really have no idea how your practice is, it might feel pretty much OK but you don't really know.

Thursday - Mysore self practice 2nd series


Self-practice again and I felt committed to continue with 2nd at least until Friday when I imagined it would be led Primary again. This time it didn't go as well and i felt uncomfortable with flipping up form pinca mayurasana and karandavasana without a wall there as a security blanket. I moved over to a wall but Kristina called me back. I don't like the adjust, felt she was doing all the work but then I'm just not used to being adjusted/assisted and I have no idea of shala etiquette.

Oh in supta vajrasana Niko casme over and helped me with Supta vajrasana. This was a first as I'd only done it with a bolster before. WOW, this is an INTENSE posture. thank you to Niko for leading me through it and then allowing me to return the favour on him, was paranoid I'd drop him on his head but it went well.

Also by now I felt comfortable to warm up just as I do at home with a little Vinyasa Krama tadasana sequence.

Friday - Led Primary series Repeating Sanskrit names of postures, vinyasas, drishti etc.


This was the best, just like Manju's DVD, he calls out the posture in Sanskrit (of course) and which version it is, first second etc, and the whole class repeats, he calls out the Vinyasa the class repeats, he calls out the drishti, the class repeats.


Saturday - Led Second series Repeating Sanskrit names of postures, vinyasas, drishti etc.

Kind of wanted to get a picture with Manju at the end of the course but went too English and awkward about asking : )

And it gets better, Manju did the same as yesterday but with second series up to Karandavasana. Wasn't comfortable flipping up still for pinca mayurasa so just went down on my forearms and lifted first one leg and then the other. For karandavasana I went into lotus and hopped up onto my forearms, bit of a cheat.

Sunday - (last day of course) Led Second series Repeating Sanskrit names of postures, vinyasas, drishti etc.

Oh and you get a Certificate, 25 hours of attendance on a Manju TT, wonder how many of these certificates some of the others have on the course, many seem to have taken it several times.

This was a surprise as we were expecting I think something gentle, instead Manju did the same as yesterday, led second with listen and repeat. Manju curiously goes into paschimottanasana and purvottanasana after standing so you assume it's Primary and then he calls out pasasana (same thing yesterday). We weren't expecting this and it's a tough practice... when the class repeated pasasana it sounded like a collective groan plus some nervous giggles.

We got through it of course and there's such a relaxed no drama atmosphere with Manju that you feel happy to give anything a go. Practice is serious in that you take your practice seriously but it's also light, enjoyable...even fun, just as it should be.

And that was the practice element of the course, 3 x primary, 3 x 2nd series. in Q and A (see next post) Manju seems less interested in Advanced series, primary and 2nd series is where it's at and it's good once you've learned 2nd to balance the series out, alternate them perhaps rather than just doing Primary on Friday and 2nd series the rest of the week. But more on that later.


Monday - drop in : Mysore self practice : Primary.

We were flying out Tuesday. Couldn't resist raiding M's purse and her souvenir fund for a last practice at the shala, a drop-in. I had no idea how such things work, how much it costs (and nothing on the website) or how you pay, before after? I really don;t know much about shala etiquette. But it was wonderful. I arrived early, nice warm welcome from Nikos. I began my practice in the half light, just one other mat, Nikos and the incense. As the light  gradually came in so did the other Ashtangi's until it got pretty full. I practiced with the whole course in mind, each asana bringing back memories of the adjustments I'd received that week and those I'd given, informing my practice.


See my previous post for the Adjustment/ assist element of the workshop

Manju Jois TT pt 2 of 4 : Ashtanga Adjustments ?

Next post

Manju Jois TT pt 4 of 4 Q and A.