Success for our John Scott workshop!

One of our students gives their account of the weekend

It has been a week since I had the opportunity to attend a workshop with John Scott and Yoga Base Brighton, where many fascinating things were discussed. For a whole week I have been trying to process it all … but mainly all I could think of was how great I felt when I came out of the workshop on both days.

I will be honest, I was bit nervous the night before the workshop.Sarah said we would be finishing at 6pm, so I didn’t know what they would have us do from 9am until then.

Thankfully, I had arranged to meet with a friend who practises with me to arrive together and simply meeting with her before arriving at the place made me feel more at ease.

The workshop began with an explanation of the counted method, which to my understanding, it entails counting each movement — which in itself is connected with a breath with the purpose of one day, being able of controlling our mind from it wandering off during the practice. When I heard this I was all ears — I do tend to drift away and suddenly not know if I did both sides of an asana…

We then did the Primary Series with John counting it in the background.

It had been a while since I had practised with everyone being at the same pace and it felt like we had done the whole series in 45 minutes –it had actually been two hours! I must say my legs did feel the two-hour practice after the lunch break.

John taught us to count in Sanskrit until number 12 and then explained a type of meditation that we can do while counting until 12 in Sanskrit, but there were so many things that he discussed during the workshop that I do not think I could possibly list them even if I tried and that is certainly not the point of me writing this.

What I would like to share is the way I felt when the first day of the workshop had ended, and that is that I felt privileged to have had the opportunity to listen to John’s experience of what he had learnt from being with Guruji and of his own practice. What made me feel privileged about this the most was that he had translated his experience in a way in which people with a Western upbringing could grasp and to me, dedicating a life to sharing knowledge is something worthy of gratitude specially in today’s competitive Western hemisphere.

I think it is important for me to mention that in all his recounts he made it clear that it was his opinion that he was giving.. In all honesty, I think this is what made me enjoy this workshop so much.

For those of us who never had the opportunity to practice with Guruji and thus come up with our own interpretations of what the practice is about, it is a privilege to have people like John (who not only wish to share the experience but also in such a humble manner).

I have now tried the counted method a few times. I find it funny that in some asanas I forget to count after Trini but I guess the more I try it, perhaps one day I will be able to keep focus for an extra couple of numbers or at least this is what “practise, practise, practise and all is coming” (Guruji) means to me at the moment.

Message from Yoga Base Brighton: Interested in finding out more about the Astanga count? Check out this link.