Behind the scenes - Giving a Krishnamacharya Yoga Workshop in Leon

Originally Oscar and I had thought that perhaps only a handful of students might sign up but within days the workshop was all booked up, that gives an idea of the love and trust the students of Yoga Centro Victoria Leon have for Oscar, their teacher. 

As it began to sunk in I admit to feeling a little dread but then saw a nice video of Oscar taking a Vinyasa Krama class, there were the movements that Ramaswami had taught me and that Krishnamacharya had taught him. I was so excited by that video that I sent it to Ramaswami, thought he'd be delighted too.

Felt happier after that, started to get a clearer idea of what I wanted to share. I went through Krishnamacharya's Yoga Makranda asana instructions again and again, trimming them down to the essentials, to how I could most clearly communicate them.... throughout my practice I would find myself imagining I was teaching the asana I was practicing.

In preparing the workshop I wanted a mixture of elements, Slide shows, a lecture/talk, a discussion/Q andA. I wanted to demonstrate and then practice along with the students, modelling the breath, the pace of the movements. I wanted to mix in some workshop elements, areas that would be useful for the Ashtangi's as well as the Vinyasa Krama students. And I wanted one session to be clearly based on Krishnamacharya's Yoga Makaranda of 1938 and the other session on the Vinyasa Krama that Ramaswami teaches, the idea was that the two sessions would seep into each other and that it would be clear how consistent Krishnamacharya's teaching was.  I wanted a significant amount of time for pranayama practice as well as a little Pratyahara and Meditation. A lot of elements but the idea was that each would re enforce the focus on the breath, the long slow breathing, the kumbhaka's, the linking of breath and movement and more than anything ground the practice in Krishnamacharya himself who in turn I hoped to show was grounded in his own culture and traditions.

That was the rough idea.

A week before the workshop an article appeared in the Leon Newspaper, El Guru coming to town. Bit uncomfortable with the 'Guru' idea but it was softened somewhat by the El, felt like I was about to be in a spaghetti western

I expected to be nervous but for some reason never was, a little shy chanting but not nervous. Perhaps that had something to do with the warmth of the welcome from Oscar and the students, I felt among friends right from the beginning..... we all practice.

Oscar sent through the tickets, an early flight so M. and I travelled to Stanstead the night before and stayed in a hotel by the Airport. In Leon I picked up the wrong backpack from the overhead locker and when I realised after passport control I had to turn myself in to the police. No harm done, lots of apologies on my part, very happy to see Oscar though.

Nice surprise, there are mountains between Asturias (airport) and Leon, big ones, snow capped, would have come just for the mountains.

We stopped off at the Studio, beautiful space, perhaps it still hadn't sunk in that I would be teaching there that evening. We set up the projector for the iPad, the plan was to show a slideshow of images from the recent yoga exhibition in new york followed by the 1938 black and White movie of Krishnamacharya practicing in Mysore, very cool seeing Krishnamacharya on the big screen.

We went back to Oscar's to meet his charming family, Maria is lovely by the way and I came to love the kids, Martin and Vilma. I was staying in the building opposite in Oscar's sister-in- laws apartment who was away for a few weeks, very kind of her to let me stay there.

And then it was showtime.

Did I say above that it hadn't sunk in, perhaps it never sunk in.

The studio was dark for the slide show and movie as everyone came in, a couple of people came up and said hi, I was already being asked about jumping back.

I still have no idea what I said that evening, i had a general idea of what i wanted to say, how Krishnamacharya had been born into a yoga family, how his superheros were the great yogis' and Rishi's of the past, those were probably his bedtime stories. I spoke about how his father had taught him yoga at five but had died when Krishnamacharya was ten and speculated on the impact that must have had on him. I spoke about how he he travelled throughout India studying everything he could about Yoga and how he he gone to the Himalayas. I spoke too about how he was the right person at the right time, this handsome scholar rather than the scarier image there was of the yogi in India at the time. 

Oscar did all the hard work of course, translating  my excited rambling and asides and turning it hopefully into something coherent.

I think the talk was two hours but then Q and A went on for another hour and a half, about Krishnamacharya, about practice in general, my practice, blogging, all kinds of things. that was helpful for me, felt a bit closer to the group, I'd been worried that being so large (thirty-three0 some of the intimacy would be lost. 

I loved how at the end of the workshop so many stayed behind to help lay out the mats for the following morning.

Maria had prepared us some rice and Oscar and I sat up talking Yoga until quite late polishing off a bottle of wine, that we kept telling ourselves was fine as it was only 9%, still, a whole bottle.

I had a hot sweaty Ashtanga practice that morning to get over it.

The first session was at 10Am until 1:30pm, nice moment after the opening chant that first raising of the arms with the breath, Ramaswami Style, and seeing all these other arms come up and then lower, felt on a roll after that.

I wanted to start with part of Ramaswami's tadasana sequence as it's such an ideal way to slow the breath down by slowing down the raising and lowering of the arms. Then we were on to Krishnamacharya's Yoga Makaranda, how each posture that makes up a sun salutation seems to be practiced as a stand alone posture in Yoga Makaranda, right from the start we find kumbhaka, the way Krishnamacharya would lift up on an inhalation before lowering back into the fold in uttanasana say. We also looked at bandhas.

It turns out that Indra Devi claimed Krishnamacharya was teaching the sun salutation with mantras back in 1938. I'd been taught it by Ramaswami so we explored that for a little while before moving on through Krishnamacharya's Primary asana from Yoga Makaranda. 

After the standing sequence we had a mini workshop on jumping back and through,a three stages approach, leading us into paschimottanasana,

Time was running away and so we spent a little time on pranayama without kumbhaka and that was pretty much the first session.

Oscar had suggested people bought in something light for lunch. Blankets were laid out and we sat in a circle eating and chatting together, another nice moment.

 After lunch a group walk along the river. Nice talking about krishnamacharya and how one of the participants on the course had had similar discussions with her own Ashtanga teacher about the long slow breath, about Kumbhaka's, interesting.

The second session was Vinyasa Krama.

We'd finished the Yoga Makaranda asana section with Paschimottanasana and purvottanasana, in the Vinyasa krama class we continued on with Asymmetric postures, long stays in maha mudra with bandhas and kumbhakas for example. We had a mini workshop on twisting and binding, using the whole body to bind rather than just part of our arm. Another mini workshop was on backbends, ( fell over in a leg together lagu vajrasana demo). This was followed by perhaps half an hour of bow sequence. I wanted to model this sections everyone practiced, at first I was giving the instructions and Oscar translating but he knows the sequence well enough so decided to just shut up, breath loudly and allow him to describe what i was doing and try to keep the slow pace that way.

After forward bending we moved on to the inversions, the preparatory postures, five minute shoulder stand without movements followed by heads tan and then shoulder stand with movements. After demonstrating I was able to walk around helping a little here and there with peoples headstands but mostly just enjoy watching everyone trying to breath and move so slowly in their head and shoulder stands, a highlight of the workshop for me.

And then we were into pranayama with the pranayama mantra, building it up slowly, adding in the kumbhakas and then gradually lengthening the kumbhakas. We finished with pratyahara and a little meditation.

Not quite finished though another two hours or so of Q and A and then we finally called it a night.

Sunday was spent with Oscar and his family walking around Leon, nice day. Lunch was spent visiting the bars of Leon where when you order a drink you get a free tapas, nice system. 

I think it was Sunday that I had an interview with Pilar who had written the 'El Guru' article, strange chatting with the press, one minute your just chatting but the next you realise that this is going to be written down so you want to clarify what it is you are and aren't saying, curious experience but Pilar is wonderful and has a hell of a lot more important stories to write than one about somebody coming to town to share some Yoga, kind of her to take the time.

Monday was a lot of practice. I did a mini practice in the flat on my own then at 10am Oscar and I went to the studio to practice together, nice to practice in that beautiful space, just the two of Us. Oscar practiced Vinyasa krama, I practiced the Yoga Makaranda primary I've been exploring. Watching back the video of a part of it I'm still stunned by how slow the practice is, I'm still coming to terms with that and what it means.

I spent the afternoon walking around Leon, taking lots of photos and then headed back to the studio to take Oscar's Vinyasa krama/Integral class followed by his Ashtanga class, think I'll write a separate post one that. Enough to say it was just a joy practicing with some of those I'd been working with in the workshop, little strange as the instructions were in Spanish and a few changes here and there in sequences from what I'm used to but good fun. Lovely too having so many come up to me and thank me afterwards for the workshop.

Tuesday Morning Oscar drove me the two hours back to the airport and that was that, only a few days but felt like I'd been there weeks. I How do teachers do these long tours where they teach one workshop after another, I was wreaked physically and mentally after just the one.

Thank you once again to Oscar and his family for making me so welcome and to everyone who participated on the course.