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29th February - Abhi

Tamara Hockey

Updated: 3 days ago

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It’s 5am and we’re sat in Mumbai airport waiting for our 7am flight to Heathrow. It’s been a loong day. Managed to get some sleep last night and enjoyed our last ‘holiday’ morning – practice, swim and breakfast by the pool. We had booked an air conditioned sleeper bus back to Pune with Swami Travel and I was feeling increasingly nervous about this plan. The timetable said it would get us to Pune for 3.30pm in plenty of time for Abhi’s class, but somehow I doubted that the bus would live up to it’s timetabled claim of being quicker than the car we had got on the way out.

Still it turned up only 15 minutes late – not a bad start, especially since in India if you are late for the bus and you are booked on, it waits for you to turn up. The sleeper bus

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is fun! You have a curtained bunk instead of a seat and I’d booked the top bunk at the front to maximise the view, which was both a blessing and a curse, as you could see in full detail just how close you were getting to the edge of the precipice as the driver made his way cautiously (Yes cautiously!!) down the long, curved mountain descent. We made innumerable stops, which seemed to involve someone flagging the bus down followed by a long argument in Hindi as the would-be passenger tried to secure a place on the bus and then the door would slam shut and the bus would drive off without allowing them to board. By the fifth or sixth time I couldn’t help but wonder WHY STOP? As we approached our supposed arrival time, we swung into a rest area for a 30 minute stop. Feeling increasingly frustrated, I flagged down a likely looking English speaker and managed to ascertain we were about 45 minutes from Pune and that we would be dropped at Chandi Chowk about 8km from Model Colony. We were dumped unceremoniously in the central reservation of a busy multi lane carriageway, where luckily a few rickshaws were waiting – not exactly in a strong position to bargain, we took their first offer and heaved a sigh of relief as the scenery became more familiar. I managed to pick up my bolsters from Dimpex and make it back just in time for Abhi’s class, hot and harrassed and not exactly in the right state for a pranayama class.

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Well, being Abhi, who likes to keep you guessing, although she started with supta virasana she deviated completely and we ended up doing a class of parivrrta’s ; parivrtta trikonasana, parivrrta ardha chandrasana, parivrrta utthita hasta padasana, supta padangusthasana 3, parvrrta eka pada sarvangasana – working on lengthening the top outer thighs to bring about an improvement in Garudasana (full sequence link at bottom of page). As usual it was lively and varied and there were plenty of laughs. We sat in virasana with our knees and shins down and the toes pinned up on a pranayama pillow, bringing about a strong opening of the front ankle and lengthening of the metatarsel. Particularly her local students really struggled with this and were wriggling about and groaning so she relayed her experience when Guruji gave her this, only instead of a pranayama pillow he gave her a wooden rod for the toes. He asked “What is happening?” and she replied “It is painful!!” his response was “Why are you telling me about pain? when did I ask you about pain? I asked you what was happening!”.

At the end of the class I waited to speak to Abhi and thanked her for her teaching over the month. She smiled brightly and we said until next time…..

I somehow managed to stuff 3 great big bolsters, a new pressure cooker and all the little gifts I had bought for my family into my very big and heavy suitcases and am extremely relieved to be on the other side of check-in, having somehow got away with it again. Air India aren’t perfect, but they do offer a very generous check in allowance (twice as much as British Airways) and they’re also a bit more flexible if you’re a little over here and there. For those of you planning to visit Pune for the first time I’ll finish with a few words of advice.

By far the worst mosquitoes I’ve come across on this trip are at Mumbai Airport – I’d been bitten before I even made it through immigration. With Dengue Fever a very real risk, remember to put on some repellent before you leave the aircraft. It’s actually

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quite a challenge to stay well for a month in Pune, with stomach upsets and chest infections being the main culprits. I’m sure everyone knows about washing hands and not drinking tap water etc. bit sometimes despite precautions stomach upsets occur. It’s well worth bringing some grapefruit seed extract with you (the tablets are more expensive, but you avoid having to taste the vile stuff). It’s very effective and much better than taking pointless pills from the Doctor. If you’re going to maintain your lung health it’s a good idea to bring a pollution mask for rickshaw rides and above all a thorough practice (don’t just rely on classes which won’t always give you what you need) – I felt my daily sarvangasana was what kept my lungs happy.

If you’ve enjoyed reading the blogs and are interested in coming to some classes, I am teaching a yoga holiday later in the year, details at tamarayoga.wixsite.com/maldivesholiday. Until next time …..

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February 29th – Abhi

Supta Virasana – everybody’s knees were turning in. She gave a series of adjustments.

  • Observe one foot is closer to the body than the other – move that foot further away.

  • Come up onto knees, lengthen outer knee to inner knee

  • Lift up the buttocks and put forehead on the floor, cross over hands to inner thighs just above the knees and draw that skin out and roll that skin up away from the floor as you lift the head up and sit

  • Skin into the back of the knee as you sit AND roll the groins in. As you sit the two actions simultaneously knees forward, groins down.

  • Once sitting to get more length in the thigh, first observe the position of the foot relative to the hip joint. Pick up each knee individually and move it forward, so that foot has shifted in relation to the hip and then repeat. Thigh longer?

Then we lay in supta virasana for a few minutes. Release legs slowly.

Virasana variations:

  • Toes tucked under, heels extending, plenty of height (I took thin end of bolster and blanket) – Good for flat arches

  • Feet stacked one on top the other, in tight bowl shape, bottom foot like ardha matsyendrasana.

  • Pranayama Pillow – only toes up rest of foot down – this really lengthens front ankle and metatarsal. She referred to when Guruji taught this to her with a wooden pole instead of the pranayama pillow and asked her what happened. She said “It pains” and Guruji replied “Who asked you about pain? I asked you what happened!”. When we released this you could visibly see how the metatarsal had lengthened and the instep was less bulgy.

  • Vajarasana

AMS – now can you REALLY press the front ankle back and find out what access you get to your top thighs. UTT.

Gomukhasana – we used the wall for the top leg side so if it was right leg, wall was on left side and we brought the lower leg and foot alongside the wall to bring the feet much closer together. A very compact pose – if you were working at the wall this way she didn’t make you do the arm work.

Garudasana – Compact crossing of the legs.

Garudasana – supine

Parivrrta Trikonasana – First time stepping one forward , one foot back, making sure feet were in line. Draw back and grip in the front leg hip and turn. Compress the hips and turn. Press the big toe mound of the front foot and turn.

Repeat Parivrrta Trikonasana  this time from utthita hasta padasana, not overturning the back foot.

Parivrrta Ardha Chandrasana – Lift the back leg, grips the hips and rotate.

Parivrrta Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana, leg straight forward, turning the body. Using rope wall or grille. ‘Young ones’ in centre of room free standing.

Supta Padangusthasana 3 – catching with opposite hand, leg across the body straight, trying to keep down legs toes upright. Then she came to me and said let the bottom foot rolla little , take the leg more and then see if you can bring down leg foot upright again.

Repeat Garudasana – better? Because we have worked on lengthening the outer thigh. Gave talk about how we have to move our spheres of awareness – not just stick with what we can do but move into the unknown.

She was going to do sirsasana here but realised time was against her, so gave us full arm balance instead. She didn’t want us to just climb the heels up, we had to grip the hips and lengthen the outer thighs upward, so the heels may climb higher but the action originated from the outer hip / outer thigh.

Sarvangasana – parsva halasana, repeat and go into parsva karnapidasna. Back up to sarvangasana, parivrrta eka pada sarvangasana (as is usually done in sirsasana), then the young ones can bring the front leg to join the back and go into parsva sarvangasana.


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