Manju Jois arrived in town on Sunday. Around 40 of us turned up to his workshop. This meant very little space! In the morning he did a lead taught primary. The heat was intense; it was the most sweaty practice I have ever done. Some people actually had steam coming off of their heads! My arms went into Gaba Pindasana in two swift moves, a first for me as usually I have to spend time with the water spray. I can now understand that if you were doing this practice in these conditions every day you would go through a very fast and deep cleansing and detoxification process. It was kind of a no messing practice, just get with the (gentle) count and keep going if you can. There is something that seems quite “matter of fact” about this style of teaching. Just kind of get on with it, stops thinking about it, and you will reap the benefits, end of. Although there was no tyranny in Manju at all, rather a soft presence and gentle touch that felt hardly there at times.

The first part of the afternoon I found hilarious, but maybe I was just a bit delirious by then. Manju said that he we were going to do some chanting, pranayama and some asanas to help with back problems. Great I thought nice and easy after the morning sauna. Except he lead us all through the second series. The class was roughly split between maybe half who had done the second series before and half who had never touched it (me included). It was quite a funny moment when all of a sudden I found myself pacing through the second series. It got to the asanas half way through when I just had to stop and have a look around at the expressions on people’s faces. It was sweaty mayhem!

This was yoga of a certain something about his style. I don’t believe that anything can necessarily be classed as ‘authentic’, but I felt it had a certain attitude, on the surface less serious, more playful maybe, but really just more unspoken. I feel sometimes I have a great need to talk and analyse my yoga (often along with others!), but I sensed from Manju that a lot of this analysis is unnecessary. This was relfected in the Q&A sessions where he was very to the point, giving very common sense and practical answers.

I really enjoyed the week, many thanks to Manju for visiting us and to the the BNHC organisers and to my teacher for all the hard work that must have gone on behind the scenes.

Namaste.