NEW: Manju Jois TT course Part 4C of 4 : Questions and Answers - Friday, final Q and A day. Woman and Ashtanga, Advanced series? Watching his father practice etc...

MJ: Led second is actually easier than the first one because there are less jump backs and jump throughs.

So maybe we can introduce that... perhaps tomorrow. We'll do a led class, intermediate, tomorrow.

MJ: Yeah, that's why I'm trying to keep it as traditional as possible. That's the problem, everybody starts there own styles and that, it's quite dangerous actually because they don't know what they're doing. Even all the asana we do are sacred mudras actually, all the mudras we do in the posture are supposed to be accurate otherwise we don't get any benefit from it, so...I try my best to keep the way the original. Then I look at how many people are practicing and that's how it grows.

MJ: You don't have to use the mudra in that one but if you use it no problem.

MJ: When you start getting into more and more meditative yoga then automatically the mudra will go by itself, you don't have to do anything you see. So that's what happens ....there are so many mudras. (Manju shows a few different mudras here).

So all these mudras we can learn but as I say asana is a mudra, that's why you have to be a more traditional way to practice it, to get the complete benefit. It should not be like a circus. It's supposed to be a work of the physical and spiritual, they both merge there. If your practicing yoga you get the benefit.

MJ: Not really important...because it is there people do it (laughs). I think the first and the second part(series) is perfect practice. It's not really that you have to do it (advanced series), It's not important. But it's just about balancing, all about balancing. 

MJ: Yes

MJ: Once you know all the second part (of primary) you just do all the standing postures, then paschimottanasana, purvottanasana then go to passasana , krounchasana.. If you know only a few 2nd series then you just go up to navasana and then you change it to pasasana, krounchasana.

MJ: Once you know then one day you do Primary, one day Intermediate. And if your practicing 3rd series so you do only Primary plus a little bit of 2nd and then you add... but you don't do all the second, then, again you go back... you see you should never stop doing Primary and the Intermediate because people are doing only the 3rd part ( series), different muscles will start developing and then they'll come back to the pasasana and they can't do it.... because they're not using the muscles. Everything has to be managed (balanced?).

(pause) That's my own personal experience as I found out. Because I was not a fan of the first part of Intermediate and then when I started 3rd I loved it. I even did not do three or five salutations sometimes, I just wanted to jump in. So I'd do three or four salutations and then start doing vasisthasana viswamitrasana... And then one day my father would say today... we are doing 2nd series today. Because he used to do a led class for us every other day. So when he said pasasana I would go like this...couldn't do it. Then he said pasasana PASASANA! " OK Dad, I'm trying you know.."I pulled my back muscles. So then I had to quit doing it  for a while. So that's what happens when you do the handstands like this..., these muscles take a lot of pressure and start developing and then when you want to twist your lower muscles lock up... so that's why it's not a balanced. You have to balance it.

So if your doing 3rd series you can stop anywhere (anytime?) you want.

MJ: Oh a lot of memories about my father, first he like to teach us then he wants to practice as well, sometimes I used to practice with him. he had a really nice body, the strength he had, amazing. that why I started getting impressed with this practice...sometimes he would stop his practice and help me with mine... but his help was pretty... hard (laughs). He just yanks you wild like sometimes.
It was actually very very nice to watch him do that (practice).

MJ: Just like we did today actuall.... inhale, exhale. Everything has to be a full, filled up to here and push everything out... and so we used to do about fifteen salutations and no carpet or anything just a cement floor. And it was hot but every time you got to chatwari it was like, "Oh it feels so good"(cool cement floor). Then we would start sweating and the sweat was running all over the floor because every Indian house has a hole, a water hole all the sweat would go down that..

MJ: I'd seen my mother doing yoga too, she had a good practice.

Me: How did she used to practice?

MJ: She used to do Advanced postures and everything my mother, yeah she was pretty good at that. But the only problem was they had to do all their practice with their sari's on, Leotards hadn't been invented then.

Q: What was the reason guruji stopped practicing... in his 50s, I don't know if it's true?

MJ: Oh no he did not stop practicing in his 50s, no he practiced until 75, 76. Then he got real busy but he still practiced. he used to do pranayama, chanting for almost an hour and a half everyday and early morning chanting, which drove my mother crazy. Until 90 years he was great and then he hit 90 and actually I think the car destroyed him. Buying the car was the biggest mistake because once he got the car he never walked.

OK thank you everybody.

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