"While today on the one hand we face the problem of meditators who do not adequately prepare the body for meditation, on the other hand we have Hatha yogis who get stuck in the meaningless drudgery of mere physical yoga. If the yogi does not go beyond the practice of posture and breath work, and does not graduate to and include formal meditation, then Hatha Yoga is not what it purports to be. It is then mere body-building, body-beautifying and gymnastics. There is nothing wrong with those, as long as the label clearly states we are doing only that. The problem with today's physical yoga is that it pretends to be more. And it is so only if it merges into the mental and spiritual disciplines of yoga."
From Yoga Meditation by Gregor Maehle.
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I have never been a fan of the Sun Salute, Surya Namaskara (blasphemy, I know!), what many consider to be a foundational element to modern yoga. I have never felt particularly comfortable or profound when practicing it, even when I could execute it proficiently. I have always felt like it was a bit athletic, an idea that was reinforced when I read that it was an exercise in the early 1900s practiced by wrestlers and adopted later by yogis (Yoga Body by Mark Singleton). It seems more like a wrestling exercise than a yogic one.
It doesn't help that my tradition, Ghosh, doesn't really incorporate the Sun Salute. So I have never practiced it with much devotion, and I have never been taught it with any precision or inspiration. I have practiced it thousands of times, been guided through it (with questionable guidance) on many occasions, but still can't find its resonance. It's hard to deny that the Sun Salute is an important part of modern yoga. As far as I know, it dates to Krishnamacharya in the 1930s, trickling down to us (alongside the idea of vinyasa) through his students Pattabhi Jois, Iyengar and Desikachar. Now it is the backbone of every "power flow" class that draws its inspiration from Jois' Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga (AVY), and that is most of them. I am curious about it now, though. My respect for Krishnamacharya's teachings has grown tremendously in the past year, and I am beginning to see great depth in Jois' system of AVY. So there must be something to this Sun Salute thing. I am going to study Krishnamacharya's writings and descriptions of the purpose and execution of the Sun Salute alongside the writings of Pattabhi Jois and some of his senior students (namely Gregor Maehle, Richard Freeman, David Swenson and Kino MacGregor). I will also look into Iyengar's writings and Desikachar's. Same for Srivatsa Ramaswami, one of Krishnamacharya's longest standing students. I will post my findings and comparisons, trying to shake out the source and purpose of this commonplace exercise. Oh, and I will practice Sun Salutes with devotion as I try to understand them. "In good yoga in general, we are working asana in direct relationship to balancing and cleansing of the nadis, the proper practice of bhanda, mudra and pranayama. More and more practice reveals that these things are the purpose and primary focus of asana, and when done well lead directly into Raja yoga and deep contemplative practice."
From Richard Freeman's response to a question on yogaworkshop.com The posture pictured to the right is called Short Man (or Short Person). It is normally done with the hands in prayer at the chest, but I have taken to extending it with the arms stretched overhead. There are a few different reasons to lift the arms overhead with the hands-in-prayer. Some are physical and some are spiritual.
1) Strengthen the shoulders. The most simple reason to lift the arms overhead is to strengthen the shoulders. Straightening the arms is one step further, especially if the hands are in prayer and not interlaced which can allow the stronger arm to support the weaker. 2) Lengthen the chest, abdomen and hips. Stretching the arms overhead draws the chest muscles tight, stretching them and drawing the ribcage upward. This has a chain reaction down the front of the body, stretching the abdomen and even the hips. It is especially valuable in backbends, hip openers like Short Man, and even front-of-leg stretches like Fixed Firm. 3) Raise the center of gravity. When we lift the arms overhead, it becomes harder to balance because we raise our center of gravity. This means that, all things being equal, arms up demands a little more stillness, awareness and control. 4) Dedication to God. Much like the well-known hands-at-prayer in front of the chest, hands-at-prayer raised overhead is a traditional form of dedication to God. Ancient ascetics would sit or stand for hours with their arms raised overhead. So raising the arms is a powerful and traditional spiritual component. With the Regional Competition behind me and the National Competition about two months away, I consider the pros and cons of competing at yoga or asana or whatever it is that we are demonstrating when we get up on stage in a competition.
Yoga itself is not about competition; it's not about being the best. Yoga is not even about perfection, whatever that may mean. It is also not really about the postures, the asana. In those ways, yoga competition goes against the essence of the practice: spiritual awakening and connection. What is the competition about, if it's not about yoga? Confidence, courage, self-improvement, refinement, attention to detail, to name a few. BEING OBJECTIVE Preparing for competition has made me assess my practice objectively. What am I capable of at this moment in time? What can I do well and consistently? In addition, what can I improve sufficiently in a relatively short amount of time? This has changed the focus of my practice. Usually I play the long game, practicing what feels right for the day, striving for slow, balanced progress. With the pressure of competition, I have also started "pushing" a small handful of postures, deepening and refining them more than usual. This focus has improved my postures and honed my attention to detail in my practice. NERVES The most surprising element of competing thus far has been the sheer terror of getting up in front of judges and an audience and demonstrating my practice. What if I fall? What will they think? Am I deep enough? Am I still enough? Some postures can be challenging enough even when no one is watching. Add a room full of strangers and judges critiquing your every breath... you get the picture. So, to put it lightly, I was nervous when I got up on stage. I knew I would be. The challenge for me was not to remove or even diminish the nerves. The challenge was to get on stage and do my best anyway. Stand, fall, tight, sweaty, terrified - no matter what I was going to give it a shot. I don't deny that there are confusing and negative aspects to yoga competition. I try to focus on the positives and the benefits and not get wrapped up in the weirdness and negativity. I try to avoid letting it turn into a ego contest or an "I win, you lose" situation. I stay focused on the improvement to myself and my practice, and the tackling of my fears. Yesterday, Ida and I competed in USA Yoga's Midwest Regional Asana Championship. It was a long road to get to the competition, both mentally and physically. I wrote about it a little bit back in November and also last year when we were considering competition but decided against it.
Last week, in the days preceding the competition, both Ida and I had significant cases of nerves. Always feeling tired and ornery, strange appetites and falling a lot while practicing our postures. It was frustrating and terrifying; I fell out of Standing Head to Knee more times than I care to admit. As competition day approached, we prepared ourselves for the worst. We would be happy if we survived our routines without toppling over. Come competition day, we were confronted with the new challenge of warming up our bodies and staying warm without overdoing it and compromising strength, especially being worried about balance as we were. Luckily we were both near the top of the competing order, so we didn't have too long to wait. There were competitors from a handful of midwestern states, and everyone was proudly wearing shirts from their home city and yoga studio. In the Bikram world it sometimes seems like everyone knows everyone else. Standing "on deck" waiting as the next competitor up was among the most stressful moments of my life. My heart was racing, my breath short, my mind going crazy. I tried to stand perfectly still and take deep, slow breaths. It helped a little, but only a little. Perhaps the adrenaline helped us focus, because I didn't fall and neither did Ida. We both did our postures about as well as we could have expected to. I was a little wobbly in Fingerstand, and Ida was a bit wobbly in Lifting Lotus, but all in all we made it through unscathed. At the end of the day we were both Wisconsin champs and, more importantly, we were invited to the national competition. Exciting and terrifying! So last night after all the day's events we discussed how to improve our postures and routines and even practiced a little bit. I will post photos and video in a day or two once I have it all together. For the past few months Ida and I have been working alongside fellow yogi and all-around beautiful guy Jerome Armstrong on an exciting project. We discovered the lost manuscript of Buddha Bose, written in 1938 but never published, in which he describes and demonstrates the complete 84 asanas in the Ghosh Lineage. The book contains 84 asanas and 10 mudras, with more than 90 photos. It will contain a new introduction by Bose's grandson Pavitra Shekhar Bose. Everyone that has practiced the Bikram sequences, both his 26+2 and the 84 advanced sequence, will see familiar postures and also new postures and instruction from Bose. The album is presented in sequential sets of Padmasana, Sitting, Lying Down, Standing, and an advanced Kurmasana set, plus 10 Mudras. "Key to the Kingdom of Health: The Buddha Bose Collection of 84 Asanas" is set to be published and made available to all yoga scholars and practitioners in June 2015. Sign up for updates or contact for more information at www.buddhabose.com. "The practice of asana invites us to embody all of life's greatest and most enduring qualities, including courage, willpower, self-awareness, concentration, surrender or letting go, the pursuit of excellence, the empowerment that comes from overcoming resistance (both internal and external), and skillful action."
From The Four Desires by Rod Stryker. As discussed in The Purpose of Yoga, Part 1, the goal of yoga is the transformation of our perception of ourselves and the world around us to see things as they truly are. Physical Postures/Asana is one of the steps on that path, often the first and generally considered to be the simplest.
How can we practice asana to aid our progress in that direction? What does asana offer that transforms and purifies our perceptions? Does physical health have anything to do with it? What about strength, flexibility and balance? What role does cardiovascular health play? What role does stress play? The most challenging element of Physical Practice is that it is easily clouded by the many peripheral benefits like strength, flexibility, weight loss, reduced stress, etc. These benefits are real and they are wonderful, but they are side-effects of the yoga practice. Or rather they are sign-posts that we will pass on our journey. If we make these the goal of our yoga practice - if we exercise to lose weight or reduce stress - we are missing the forest for the trees. We are losing track of the bigger picture to focus on one small element within. We will attain the benefit we seek, but we lose out on the much greater possibilities that are available in a yoga practice. We are like a child who uses the pages of a textbook to make paper airplanes. The paper airplanes might be wonderful, but there is so much more available if the child were to look a little deeper. In Asana practice we use the body as a tool of awareness, presence, control. We start externally, farthest from the mind, bringing the physical elements of the body under control and understanding. It is control and understanding in the broadest sense; control of the muscles, limbs and body, external elements. Motion, tightness, strength, balance, pain, will-power. We use the body to develop the mind, learn about the mind and our preconceptions through the lens of the body. STRENGTH We build strength simply through using the body, by challenging it. Strength is not necessarily a goal of the practice except that it allows proper usage and function of the body. If we have areas of extreme weakness, like in the lower back, our spines and intestines will suffer and deteriorate. Building functional strength is therefore valuable in promoting full-body health. FLEXIBILITY Flexibility is another product of asana practice. We challenge the body and our perception of it. You know that creepy, uncomfortable feeling you get when you stretch a tight area? That feeling is closer to the true yoga than the flexibility it creates. The discomfort of the mind and body facilitate change - our minds relax and focus, our bodies relax and "stretch". This promotes mind-body connection and gradually creates a change in perspective. We once thought of ourselves as "tight" or "inflexible" and so we were. Over time we grow to think of ourselves as "relaxed," "present" and "open" so we are. BALANCE Balance is the element of asana that is closest to the true goals of yoga practice. Because it is difficult to balance on one leg or upside down with a wandering mind, the practice of balance encourages mental stillness, complete presence of mind, and mind-body unity. It is very simple in concept but very powerful. Practicing balance is the most powerful thing we can do with our asana. STRESS Most physical practices reduce stress in the mind and body, and yoga is no exception. By putting the body under stress and learning to relax the mind and body, we become skillful at responding to challenging situations. We become mindful and present and it becomes hard to shake us or wind us up. HEALTH My teacher, Tony Sanchez, has said that yoga is all about creating health. If we practice the right postures we can improve our physical health: our digestion, metabolism, sleep, endocrine, circulatory and nervous systems. Asana can massage the internal organs and glands, enhancing blood flow and therefore promoting healing of our tissues. Improved health facilitates the ultimate goal of yoga by freeing the mind and body from concern with physical issues. It is hard to do more advanced yoga, like meditating, if our body is full of pain and our mind is restless. ENERGY In the grander scheme, asana puts us in touch with the greater forces that lie within us. We become aware of the energy that runs through us; we learn how to recognize it and focus it. We begin to control and quiet the mind which will lead us to the next area of yoga, Pranayama, which is a dedicated focus on recognizing, focusing and controlling the energy of the body and mind, usually using the breath as a tool. The Purpose of Yoga, Part 1: Introduction The Purpose of Yoga, Part 3: Energy Control/Pranayama There are a lot of positions we can will ourselves into. We can pull harder in stretching postures, we can dig a little deeper in strength postures. But as I get deeper into the pursuit of yoga, I find that many elements are about patience, perseverance, humility and surrender. A few of these elements are balance, backbending and pranayama (breath, energy and the nervous system). Today I am thinking about Backbending.
Backbending can not be forced. It is incredibly difficult to push ourselves deeper into backward bends as it usually results in shortness of breath, panic and lightheadedness. We must relax and surrender into backward bends like Camel, Bow and Half Moon. When we Backbend, the front side of the body is stretched. We don't have a lot of big muscle groups on the front side, only the abdominals (which should be relaxed as much as possible when Backbending). Mostly we have complex nerve centers at our solar plexus, chest and throat along with connective tissues. When stretched, these elements are tough and intense, far more resistant than the muscles on the backside like the hamstrings or erectors. When we stretch the nerve centers of the front side by backbending, we experience panic and distress. I continue to be lightheaded often when practicing backbends. A couple years ago I even blacked out in Camel pose. To get through this physical and psychological distress, we need to enter backbends slowly, letting the panic arise bit by bit, calming ourselves with breath and concentration, then deepening slightly and repeating the process. In this way we can gradually deepen our backbends. And by refining our ability to sense our own distress and calm it, our entire yoga practice and life benefits. We become more aware, more controlled, and more relaxed. |
This journal honors my ongoing experience with the practice, study and teaching of yoga.
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