World Tour Intermediate Series, an Awe-Inspiring Class
This year the World Tour’s only Intermediate Series class took place in the San Francisco leg of the tour during the second week of practice.
First, a little context.
Sharath demonstrates Kapotasana (part two)
Intermediate is a bit of misnomer for this remarkably challenging series of postures - it starts with a deep twist in pasasana, then off to deeper and deeper backbends culminating in kapotasana, followed by several leg-behind-the-head postures (note the sequencing - straight after the backbends), a strength intensive section including the near impossible karandavasana, and concludes with 7 difficult headstands. You can see a detailed description in David Swenson’s book, or on Arjuna’s site.
In and of itself, it is many handfuls. The way the class is taught though takes this series to another level:
- You are stopped at the posture which the teacher deems too much of a challenge for you
- The more difficult poses are often held for much longer counts that the usual 5 breaths
- The Who’s Who of the Asthanga World (West Coast Chapter) is there practicing along merrily with you
How and when Guruji holds postures really demonstrates his complete mastery of the inner psychological states of the students. In postures such as kapotasana, I often felt as if I was hanging on to a cliff by the edge of my fingernails. It sometimes feels like a miracle not to have fallen off.
Guruji smiles even more after Intermediate
World Tour 2006 in San Francisco
As you go through the class, there is always the worry that this will be your last posture. One thing I did not mention was that there is no prior requirement to attending this class - anyone is welcome. This does not imply you will last through the end, though. During the first class, we started off 60 optimistic yogis. Some uber-optimists were gone by the first posture of the Intermediate series, pasasana. By the end only about 30 were left for the 7 headstands, with the rest watching in stillness.
Guruji also took to visiting the bathroom during headstand. He would count “One! Two!” then you would hear footsteps and a door closing. Quite a few breaths later, he would re-emerge with a booming “Three!” at which point the whole inverted class burst out laughing.
This alone was worth the price of admission.
Lauren said,
March 23, 2006 @ 7:39 pm
I just discovered this blog, and it is AWESOME!! I love your description of the Intermediate Series and how people get “tagged” out (glad I got to witness it firsthand in New York last year…). I wish you guys would join the Ashtangi.net blogroll - in order to make it easier for us Ashtanga fanatics to see when you publish, as soon as you publish. Think about it at least?
Namaste,
Lauren (Yoga Chickie)