Immersion Weekend #5

Can you believe it? We are more than half way through the Immersion program? I can believe it because something had really shifted this weekend. I could see people making connections, getting the principles, articulating the philosophy, enjoying one another more fully. During Saturday's asana practice I looked up and everyone was so focused, attentive and in such good form- it was really incredible to see. Like I exclaimed during the practice, everyone looked like Anusara Yoga practitioners. It was very cool.


So we started the weekend with some questions and review about the previous weekend. People asked good, thoughtful, clear questions and as I listened to the group input in repsonse I was really struck by how people are assimliating the principles for themselves and making them their own. So that was fun. We did some experiential analysis of cobra and down dog which proved radically transformational. Just watching the effects of those efforts in the asana class later was stunning.

Then we had a sutra discussion, which was really cool because once people dove into the text and the discussion in their small groups a real momentum took ahold and I couldn't get people to stop talking about Patanjlai's sutras! So that was cool. Like I told the group, the point is, that each one if us is qualified for scriptural study. How you do it, at least in part, is you dive in. Question, think, struggle, suffer and chew on it all and hoefully our understnading keeps gorwing and changing.

Then we had an asana class with some arm balances and some rousing backbends before calling it a day. So that was Saturday. One other inportant thing that came up on Saturday had to do with the question of where the lines between "yoga philosophy" and our own beliefs and teaching yoga all are. Really my opinion is that Anusara Yoga, while not a religion as such, is certainly informed by traditions that are most certainly religious in nature. So we have to walk a kind of razor's edge at times in order to navigate that edge and remain authentic. We need to learn to study a philosphy without feeling that we need to be converted to it and we need to be able to present a philosophy as teachers without feeling that we need to convert anyone to it.

I had hoped to get through more of this but the plane is beginning to board. Stay tuned I will try to continue with some of these thoughts tomorrow. I think my hotel has a wireless connection. Let's hope. Love.