This month Lori Neumann is visiting RIMYI – the Iyengar Yoga Institute in Pune – our mothership! Lori is based in Mountain View where she teaches yoga and studies at the California Yoga Center. She also is a student at Adeline Yoga. We hope you enjoy her missives from India.
Hard to believe we’re more than half way done. It’s getting more intense as the weeks pass. It seems like the weeks all build upon each other yet Geeta teaches what she sees in front of her. Very tired today.
Prashant’s class was really intense. Went straight for the backbends at 7:30 am. Not my finest hour. He seemed to have less patience today and the poses were really difficult so it seemed more people were doing levels of backbends. Geeta also has little patience for students who don’t follow her exact instructions. I’m glad I mentioned my back before because a 15 minute headstand with all the variations wasn’t in the cards for me so I was able to hang in the ropes which was challenging enough.
I’m able to capture the essence of the classes as the weeks progress as she does expect us to remember what she taught before. I’m feeling stronger and meeting wonderful people. There really isn’t any experience that comes close for a student of Iyengar yoga. Even coming half way around the world is worth it. And Pune isn’t half bad either! Great food. Shopping is serious! And it’s been raining so the air is clean, the streets are clean, and we’ve really been seeing a lot thanks to Amin, our wonderful rickshaw driver and Iyaz, our fellow yogi from Mountain View who grew up here. Nothing like hanging out with a local who speaks 4 languages to really get a Feel for the place.