The goal is to feel and control
Each element of the body and mind. Each muscle contracts or relaxes intentionally. Each breath enters and exits on purpose. Each thought... the thoughts are few and far between, Focused on stillness and awareness.
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Here are some things that Tony said during our week of Advanced Practice.
ON PERSONAL PRACTICE: The positions need to be cultivated in a gradual way. In the 3rd set you will be able to reach the maximum of your ability. You will get a lot more benefit when you find that place of stability and hold it motionless. When you have reached your limit [in a posture], it is important that you learn how to stop the world. The only way to make your practice simple is by practicing a lot. It's not just doing the practice, but also studying; increasing your knowledge. The mind can be very, very effective. But for most people the mind is very, very lazy. We are like carbon. We can become diamonds, but it takes a lot of time and a lot of work. The idea is to keep practicing no matter if you achieve those things (like samadhi) or not. Devotion to your practice. A yogi becomes transparent, almost invisible. ON HIS PERSONAL APPROACH: I'm so happy just doing my own practice and ignoring the world. To me, sustainability is everything. The power that I want is not human power. It is divine power. For me, the hands and the feet are assisting the position; that is my spine. When people do things a certain way because "this is how Tony teaches it," then it becomes dogmatic. I don't want it to be dogmatic. ON BEING A TEACHER: You have the responsibility to stay healthy. You are the role models. At least half of your class needs to be the standing positions. Your objective should be to cultivate what is missing in [your students'] bodies. (strength or flexibility) ON THE PRESENT AND FUTURE OF YOGA: The standing positions are the most important for our society right now. It is like practicing yoga in hell. (during a discussion of heated yoga studios) Scientific yoga has to rely on all the other sciences. We're in a big rush to get somewhere, but we don't know where we're trying to get. Savasana is the most important posture in the whole class. The dual forces are starting to reveal themselves: 1)pure energetic strength and relaxation from practicing so much asana and mindfulness, and 2)physical exhaustion from practicing so much asana. My body is at once tired and energized. My mind craves both practice and release. I need to sleep and also I am too energized to sleep.
My right knee is sore. It is my medial collateral ligament, and I keep irritating it every time I do a hip opening posture. So my challenge is to back off of those postures to let my knee heal. Luckily (and frustratingly) Tony is attentive and constantly offering modifications for me, telling me to back off and chiding me for my ego. "Is it hard to let go of the postures?" he asks. Yes and no. I am here to practice the advanced postures with him. I want to be pushing myself physically. Instead I struggle mentally, trying to protect my knee from my own desire to progress. He goes over all of the Lotus positions in detail. It is a thing of beauty to see someone execute the positions with such ease and precision. But we have to be careful with these postures. They are generally not good for the knees, especially if we do them frequently and for long periods of time. In the morning's 'short series', Tony does everything starting with the left. He is determined to show us how flexible yoga can be. All the things that we think are rigid, the things we have done thousands of times, can be changed. In this afternoon's class he does something different. He omits some postures, does 2 sets of other postures, does the whole Cobra series as mudras, and then includes all the inversions. It is enlightening to experience Tony's freedom and control over the yoga. These days when I attend a yoga class, I make a point to enter the room a few minutes early. I sit silently on my mat, usually in Firm Posture (Vajrasana), bring my hands together in front of my chest and close my eyes. I commit myself to paying attention to my own practice with humility. Whether it is mental or physical, I commit to noticing my body and mind and honoring it as I practice.
Since I have begun this pre-class intention, my practices have become more peaceful and focused. I no longer notice the other bodies moving around me. All of my attention and energy is contained within myself. Thinking about a still mind
Is like talking about being quiet. How should a yogi relate to food and eating?
CALORIE COUNTING Sometimes people do yoga and exercise so they can eat more and eat more unhealthy foods. This mentality only works if you treat the body as a zero sum equation, where as long as you use more than you put in you will be healthy. The body is certainly more complex than that. Its response to 100 calories of blueberries is different from its response to 100 calories of cake. Nutrition (and health) is far more complex than just calorie counting. DOWNWARD ENERGY & FASTING Our body has strong natural digestive energy. It is a downward energy in the body that helps us digest, absorb and eliminate the food we eat. It also causes us to crave eating. One of the major goals of yoga is to turn this digestive energy into intellectual energy, redirecting the strength and vitality into our minds and spirituality. This is one reason why fasting is such a powerful spiritual tool. By halting digestion it greatly diminished the downward nature of the body's energy, making it easier to turn the energy upward. WITHDRAWING THE SENSES The sense of taste and the physical sensation of eating are powerful distractors of the mind. This is why we eat when we are stressed and when we are tired. The mind seeks comfort and distraction. An important practice in yoga is the Withdrawal of the Senses, well known as the 5th limb Pratyahara. Withdrawing the senses means not letting them dominate the attention of the mind. We see something and our mind goes there, we hear music or conversation and our mind goes there, we stroke our face and our mind goes there, we eat and our mind goes there. We need to explore our taste and hunger when we practice Withdrawal of the Senses. Try not to let the mind be dominated and distracted by the sensations or thoughts of the sensations of eating. I just finished reading A.G. Mohan's book Krishnamacharya: His Life and Teachings. Mohan was a longtime student of Krishnamacharya and his book benefits from first-hand stories and a deep understanding of yoga. It is by far the best book I have read about Krishnamacharya. Here are some of my favorite parts:
"The purity of truth is often lost in unnecessary speech. To speak the truth, we would be wise to begin by practicing moderation in speech: to speak less and, when we speak, to do so clearly." "He would say, 'What is this "boring" you all say? Nowadays even children say everything is "boring"! Nothing is "boring." None of you have control over your senses and so your mind becomes restless. Now some activity seems pleasing to the senses, and a little while later, another activity seems more pleasing. Because your mind is not able to stay steady and the senses pull the mind to different things, you want to keep on changing what you are doing. If you have sense control, there is never any question of "boring."'" "In an interview, Krishnamacharya once said...'Group teaching is not good. When teaching asana we have to take into account the individual bodies since each body is different. One person may easily practice uttanasana while another cannot.'" "Krishnamacharya used these broad categories to define purposes for the practice of yoga: 1. siksha: fitness - yoga for people who are healthy, to maintain their health or increase their wellness 2. cikitsa: treatment - yoga as therapy 3. upasana: spiritual practice or discipline - yoga for personal transformation All quotes are from Mohan's book Krishnamacharya. Mohan's website is here. For a couple of weeks I have been at 21 counts in my Samavrtti Pranayama,the even-counted breath. Unlike all the previous counts it has been pretty effortless from day 1. I continued at 21 counts for several days to allow my body and mind adjust instead of just moving forward right away. In doing so I learned a little bit about the state of my mind and body.
This has been the first count that was long enough to challenge my mind, at least for the first few minutes of each session. My mind expected to breathe faster and shorter. I had to consciously slow it and extend the inhales and exhales. This was the first time it felt like territory beyond "breathing deeply and slowly." I expect this challenge to continue for a few more weeks or months - my mind will be uncomfortable with the slowing of the breath. But eventually I expect it to settle and even crave the slow controlled breathing of Pranayama practice. Because the count is starting to get long my lung capacity is being challenged, a big reason to progress slowly and patiently. I want to allow the lungs time to develop. I notice my upper lungs starting to come into play, a whole new world of breath capacity that is yet untapped. Along with this is muscular control of my upper ribcage to expand and draw air into the upper lungs. Occasionally it happens spontaneously to accommodate a huge breath, but I need to develop more consistency and control. Tomorrow I will increase the count to 22. Today I figured out how to focus on the sound of my breath during Pranayama practice. My complete attention became directed to to the thin, quiet evenness of the air coming in then going out. The count became easy, my lungs became full and then empty and my mind was still. I think I may be on to something.
This is quoted from Gregor Maehle's site Chintamani Yoga. A great site.
"There is a widespread misconception that postures should be painful. As a rule of thumb, postures should not be painful, which is something that even the ancient masters pointed out. Patanjali states in Yoga Sutra, “heyam duhkham anagatam,” which means that new suffering needs to be avoided (Yoga Sutra II.16). The reasoning behind this injunction is simple. Every experience you have forms a subconscious imprint (samskara). Every subconscious imprint, whatever its content, calls for its own repetition." "Practitioners should analyze the postures and continually correct their performance of them until awareness is spread all over the body. When that happens, the body is hardly felt anymore. This sounds paradoxical, but you feel the body mainly when something is wrong. The absence of negative feedback means that everything is okay. When the body is correctly aligned, a feeling of stillness and firmness yet vibrant lightness arises. The mind becomes luminous, still, and free from ambition and egoic tendencies. This is the state that you are looking for. It is conducive to meditation. When this quality is achieved in a posture, that posture is fit as a platform for the higher limbs of yoga." Read the whole article here. |
This journal honors my ongoing experience with the practice, study and teaching of yoga.
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