March Observation #1

Observation record of an All-levels class taught at Whole Life by Suzette on Wednesday, March 4, in the a.m.

My main objective for this observation was to closely watch the asana sequence and compare it to the one I observed a month earlier. My secondary objective was to discern the linkage of respiration with movement in and out of postures.

But detailed observation was challenging. I was the only male in the room among 11 students and the teacher, and felt out of place. I didn't want to stare at anybody, as that might be threatening and inappropriate.

Today's class began with a period of attention to the breath, then moved into cakravakasana, combining it with vajrasana after a couple of cycles. Vajrasana is an adaptable pose that seems to have about 10,000 variations. This combination of postures looks to be a Viniyoga staple, and I've seen it repeated both early and late in any given practice session.

It's easy to see abdominal breathing coordinated with arm lifts during vajrasana; all but impossible to see anything but slight movement of the exhaling back during child's pose/tabletop.

Deb's class also had cakravakasana early in the sequence, but combined it with leg and arm lifts performed from tabletop I haven't seen in Viniyoga classes before or since.

After a down dog/up dog alternation, Suzette led the group through a sequence of arm and leg lifts whose core was bhujangasana (I think). This mirrored the sequence I saw a month earlier, and in both cases the teachers pointedly reminded students to keep attending to their breath during this series of moves, which requires no small expenditure of muscular concentration. Suzanne did so by saying "Listen to your breath, and try not to let it get ragged."

Good advice. I've caught myself trying to go too fast and gasping during bhujangasana more than once.

Then came the standing poses, tadasana and the standard forward bend, then warrior I, with the class inhaling into the arm lift and chest pop and exhaling into a relaxed self-hug I hadn't seen before. The coordination of breathing with movement in this latter pose was very easy to see from both front and back.

Every Viniyoga class I've observed or participated in seems to start with simple and easy movement, then slowly build to a sort of crescendo, which for this session was reached with Trikonasana of the Parvrtti kind. That transitioned into a low back stretch I've only seen before in non-Viniyoga classes, a forward bend with feet spread.

Then came a period of decrescendo as the session moved toward closing, with an on-the-back sequence consisting of knees to chest, then jatthara Parvrtti (during which I not only saw, but heard students breathing in and out of the open/closed position of the pose), dvipada pitham bridges, supta badha konasana spreadeagle, in this session incorporating a novel series of slow leg closures and openings closely coordinated with the breath, apanasana, and savasana, supported by bolsters which the students used to prop up their lumbar arches.

What I'm seeing is that there seems to be a basic, fundamental Viniyoga sequence incorporating half a dozen postures arranged in a specific order that all the teachers use as a point of departure, along with a disciplined approach to coordinating breath and movement.