Learning about your body through Iyengar yoga

Yesterday, I tried Iyengar yoga for the first time. Even though I've been doing vinyasa flow yoga for some time, I felt out of place. First of all, everyone in class faced a different wall. The teacher looked like a woman in tiny cotton shorts and white limber legs. And he spoke gibberish. At first I thought he was English, then Irish, and then he started barking commands in German so by the end of the class, I thought he is for sure German. Except his last name is Cabanis. Doesn't sound German to me.

He was part Nazi, part Hindu, part nymph, part leprechaun yoga instructor. He started us off with Hindu chants and then said, "This is Iyengar yoga. Welcome to the third circle of hell." Insert evil laugh.

He marched around with a stick and would point at your leg or abs or something that was too low or too high and tell you to move it down or up or sideways. He loved whipping that stick around. If he was giving a demonstration and the class didn't move fast enough over to look, he would start talking really fast and hard like a German nanny. Git over here! Git over here! Git over here!
Iyengar yoga is intense about the exact way to hold a pose. Once you learn exactly what all your muscles are supposed to be doing, your chest lifted high, the skin of your hip bone stretching one way, while your back inner leg pulls up, and your organs are held in place, then you hold it for a few long minutes. When I listened carefully and tried to do everything he asked of us, I was surprised to find myself breaking up in a sweat over my entire body while I held my body still. Something about those poses release heat like nobody's business.

I learned that when I do a shoulder stand, I put all my weight on my left shoulder. Cabanis walked over and took my vertical legs with both arms and lifted it...but couldn't. He said, Oh stubborn body! That's when I realized, damn, my body is heavy! He said, that is your problem. Your body really does not want to go up. And you are on one shoulder. Do you feel that?

I did. Wow, my left shoulder was hurting and I didn't even notice it. The instructor in all his idiosyncracies was very good about understanding each student's weaknesses and the ways their bodies compensated in unhealthy ways. It made me feel self conscious and suddenly aware of how my left shoulder hangs lower and how I walk kind of crooked. Oh dear.

Overall I had fun. It was a nice change of pace from the sensitive heart opening yoga I've become so accustomed to. And learning how to hold a pose correctly would definitely help your Vinyasa practice. But it was intense. Surrounded by all those fit no fat people, getting my buttocks and legs lifted into the year by my German instructor, and trying to stretch the skin of my hip when i don't even know what that means and realizing my body balance is completely off...woweeee. It was interesting. I'm gonna give it some time before I do it again.