'Have you done yoga before', the new teacher asks - or new to me, as I've just come to the community centre to see if I like her classes. I'm fussy, you see - years of yoga has taught me what is good instruction, and what amounts to a mere 200 hours of yoga training and a teacher who thinks she knows yoga.
'A bit', I say, not wanting to reveal years of study and practicing, dating back to when I was 16 and going to Iyengar yoga with this guy - my Dad. Here's him rocking a forward fold, uttanasana.
I'd include the others too but when I uploaded they all, funnily enough, went upside down, like a yoga inversion. My sister had taken these in the '80's , because Dad was enamoured with Iyengar's black and white yogi poses in 'Light on Yoga'. There's a fabulous one of him strong in trikonasana, triangle post, and extended side angle.
Dad did a lot of Iyengar back then. I remember the teacher well. She was strict and disciplined and expected the same of you. There was no laughing in one of her classes. Though she softened over the years, we were all a bit scared of her. We kept going though. Even as a teenager I was aware of how much space yoga offered, both head, heart and between the joints.
Whilst I would stop practicing for a while, travelling and generally doing life, I'd return to it with Dad years later. My practice with him was beautiful, even then, and not just in my memory. He'd loan me strength with his mere presence, and we could practice the poses outside of class, giving each other tips and competing a little.
Then it was the Bikram years - intense, hot and powerful, Dad and I right up against the front mirrors, never hitting the floor, sweating buckets, setting examples for others behind us. Then when Bikram hit the news for sexual abuse and studios started shutting we did years of vinyasa together, even when he had cancer.
There was many a savasana, breathing quietly next to each other, and the rain hitting the tin roof of the studio, and that stretched out space afterwards.
I thought of this when I was in this new class, enjoying the older teacher's experience and clear, informed dialogue. I certainly wasn't feeling very strong or fit, given I'm much older now, but my body remembered, and her careful choreography and verbal cues got me where I needed to be. My palms remembered to touch the floor in forward fold, my heels invisible in adho mukha Śvānāsana.
Dad was there too, of course, folding himself into my utthita parsvakonasana, my virabhadrasanas. I had missed him. Missed the yoga.
In sadahasana, the rain came down on the roof.
Afterwards she said that she could tell I had a strong practice. It had been a while, I acknowledged, but you don't forget.
Cycling home, I heard Dad chastise me for not keeping up my practice. It felt good to feel that kind of yogic space again.
