Counted practice. Not so much.

Posted in ashtanga yoga on 01/29/2008 10:32 am by karen

This morning I decided to use Sharath’s CD to count practice for The Cop and myself. Figured it’d be good to have him hear the names of poses and adjust to the metronome of a counted practice. Plus he could hear all of the “inhale” and “exhale” commands. I was concerned it might be too fast, but figured we’d see.

So Sharath starts in and say, “Hands up” on ekam. The Cop looks at me. “Did he say hands up?”

Oh, yes, I forgot about that.

The Cop is highly sensitive to commands that instruct what someone should do with their hands. And he does NOT like being the person on the receiving end of those commands.

Experiment results: murderous rage. Seriously, The Cop is very NOT ready for led practice. For one thing, he thought that we were going slower than we usually (silently) do. I think the real issue was just having things be different than usual.

Tomorrow, back to silent follow-along practice.

We’ll try the led experiment again sometime in the future… You know, once the yoga starts to work.

 

5 Comments

  1. LOL. Somehow, I can’t envision the Cop taking orders from Sharath.

  2. ha ha ha that’s a great story! I wonder how he’d react if he found himself in Mysore with Guruji yelling at him and pulling one of his limbs mercilessly. It does take some surrendering!

  3. Well, not to put too fine a point on it, but at the very end, as he was lying down for savasana, he said, “If he was here right now, I’d punch him in the face.”

    Seriously, I laughed again even just typing that.

  4. Ooooh I can feel the love. I have a friend who used to think poorly of the “Guruji-cult”, and she went to one of his led classes in London. He paid her some very personal attention (I still giggle when I remember him yelling “Catvari!!! Catvari!!!” at her and since then, she is a fan.

  5. I agree with the Cop. I think Sharath goes slow. I can keep up much more easily with him than I can with my own teacher in person.

    I hate led. HATE.

    Lauren

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