Moving from posture to posture with a partner, as soon as your name was called out, you had to leap to action.
Run as fast as you can down the stairs, across the street, and run around the perimeter of the park next to the studio.
No time to change footwear or anything, move as fast as you can.
Once you circled the park, back across the street and up the stairs.
Not done yet.
Assume shirshasana until you name was called out again, if the posture was difficult you could use the wall to assist or brace yourself.
You could tell who was new to the studio by how they took to running.
New members, full of enthusiasm and not knowing what was coming next would put 100% in the movement of running.
Those who had been around for a while, held back a bit, maybe going 80% or so.
Myself and the other seniors in the group learned this.
With a class lasting three hours, once we started one of these drills, there was a good chance you might be running around the park a few times in a night, which when combined with some of the other postures would tap you out.
Always hold a little reserve in reserve.
The only time I would do otherwise, on principal, was when my name and my rival's name was called out at the same time to start running- there was no way I was not going to be first one out and first one back.
What could I say?
I was a much younger person.
Over time one would notice that when this exercise was done in class we always finished class with some mediation.
Not every class finished with mediation, but every class running down the stairs and around the park ended with a mediation.
When the mediation started, you just meditated.
Where was the instruction?
It was natural instruction, one that you had to have the ability to see and feel in order to learn. The postures, exercises, and lessons of the class would put you in a natural state of how to meditate.
Once that clicked, that was all you needed to exist in that state.
A natural state.
Sitting naturally, whatever that was for our culture, eyes open, breathing calm, thinking about nothing of any real importance.
Just *sitting* still and existing in the creation.
By just sitting- the body energy exhausted from all the running around, the mind exhausted by the postures, there was nothing else but to just sit and listen to the creation.
That was how I was *taught* to meditate.
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