John Scott and his wife Lucy organized the workshop in London and they did a splendid job! The workshop took place at the beautiful Cecil Rhodes music conservatory near Camden Town. The floor was wooden, perfect for practice, and the sun shone through the huge windows when it was not raining. There were two led Primary Series led classes each morning, one from 6 to 7:45 am and the other from 8 to 10 am. Even though the room was enormous, we were mat to mat as each class had more than a hundred people.

The energy of a hundred dedicated yogis gathered in the pre dawn hours was electric, enough to shake off any remnants of sleepiness left over the excesses of the prior night, spent soaking up London's nightlife. Some students came each morning from as far away as Bristol and Brighton, which required a 3:00am wake up call. Rumor has it that Sharat rose before 2 am to do his own practice.

Class always started on time, with Guruji walking in about 5 minutes before class, taking off his coat and calling out "Samastithi!". He would call out each posture, and count each breath, mostly in Sanskrit (ekam, dwe, trini...). The only other directives from Guruji were an occasional "Head up!", "Look nose center!" or a chastisement of "Bad man!" or "Bad lady!" when a student moved out of sync with his count. Although the majority of students knew the series well, occasionally someone would inadvertently stretch forward into upward dog before the count during a vinyasa. If Guruji saw that, he made us all wait in chattaranga dandasana until that person returned to that posture.

One of new friends I made at the workshop, Gili from Israel, commented that Guruji was teaching focus, concentration and rhythm. Even though we flew through the full primary series in one hour and forty minutes, it was very demanding. The steadiness of Guruji's counting of each breath day in day out highlighted all the parts and transitions I usually dawdle in, or go over too fast. A prime example was kurmasana and supta kurmasana, where Guruji did not count much more than one breath to allow us to get into it. Now that's a challenge!

A number of yoga luminaries (see photos) attended the workshop. Amongst those were David Swenson, Hamish Hendry, John Scott, Gili & Miri Harouvi. On the penultimate day of the workshop, cameras filmed our practice for a documentary Trudy Styler is shooting on Guruji's life. There was added excitement when her husband Sting showed up to practice with us during the shoot. Apparently he is an advanced practioner studying with John Scott.

Thank you Guruji, Sharat, Saraswati, John and Lucy, Gili and Miri, Mariella and everyone else who contributed to make this an unforgettable experience!