THE JOURNEY: with Geeta Iyengar in Las Vegas, May 2007

What a Journey! From the layer, or sheath (kosha), of Body (annamayakosa) to Sheath of Bliss (anandamayakosa). This was the theme (logo below) for the Iyengar Yoga Convention, held in Las Vegas, Nevada , wow, so amazing! (and I love the heat...) Our conventions are held every 3 years. Last one in Estes Park with Mr. Iyengar during his Light on Life book tour, previous one was in St. Paul, Minn.; before that, in 2001, since I was living in the Seattle area, I just drove up to Vancouver and attended the Canadian conference.

I had the prerogative of attending the Certified Iyengar Yoga Teacher's Conference (about 400 attendees), followed by the General Conference (about 800 attendees), open to all Iyengar Yoga students (start planning for 2010). Then there was the specially unique opportunity to be on stage performing the asanas under Geeta's instruction, watchful eye, and magic touch (click on Getta and me for larger size view). A special thank you to Carrie Owerko for suggesting and urging me to volunteer on the stage as demonstrator of the poses.

The picture (right -click for larger size view) is me at Convention in supta padangustasana I (I still have some flexibility, it just takes a little more to maintain it these days).

It was wonderful to come back to my yoga students sharing some of the inspiring highlights from Geeta's teaching, especially from this pose baddha hastasana shown in the picture (which is in your Yoga in Action Preliminary Course books, p. 46!). As a cumulative result of the previous days exquisite instructions during other poses including Urdhva Hastasana and Pranayama, during this pose, I felt from deep behind the chest wall, that old bands of imbedded holding (and samskaras) were being (gently) shredded open.

I’m sure the hands-on from Geeta in Las Vegas had more impact than I can even describe, but all timely for my new life at 50.