It is cold, it is dark for the first ten minutes, and the valley fills with light precisely during the second sequence.
There is no mystical reason for the hour. It is that at ten to six in these months the sun clears the far ridge about fourteen minutes into practice, and the room changes colour while people are in their first long hold.
The light does the teaching
Nobody needs to be told to pay attention when that happens. It is the single most reliable teaching aid we have, and it costs nothing.
For beginners
The morning class is not advanced. Roughly half of any given room has never held a mat before, and the sequence is built so that a first-timer and a teacher can do the same practice at different depths.
Chair practice
For guests with knee replacements, hypertension or simple reluctance about the floor, the same sequence runs from a chair at half past seven, and it is not a lesser class.
Hatha and restorative sequences, pranayama, yoga nidra and chair practice — open to every level, included in every stay.
Twelve years of Hatha and pranayama, trained in Rishikesh, teaches at 5:50 am without complaint.
1 comment
The chair class is the reason my father agreed to come at all. Thank you for not treating it as the consolation option.