Living the Wisdom of Yoga in Modern Times

Happy Memorial Day: How To Find Freedom in Your Yoga Poses

Merriam Webster Dictionary Definition on Freedom: The absence of constraint in action;being released from something onerous;ease;boldness of conception or execution;unrestricted

To have freedom in your yoga practice means that you feel unconstrained,at ease & unrestricted. This allows you to be your boldest, brightest and best self on the mat and in the world. Below are tips on how to do this.

Learn Proper Alignment Then Play With Its Boundaries- When the body is in good alignment, it is safe for you to express your poses fully. When the bones are stacked & you are using the leverage and support of firmly engaged muscles, poses become available to you with very little effort.  The basics of alignment apply to all poses. When you know them, you can look at a pose in any book, magazine or yoga class and be able to figure out how to execute it. This gives you more options on the mat.

Muscle Engagement-Not engaging the muscles is like trying to make a wet noodle stand up. When there is no support in the poses your body looses its ability be stable. Without stability, many poses are not accessible and injuries frequently occur.

Practice 4-6 Days per week-"Doing something 3 days a week = maintenance, 5-6 days a week = transformation." Antonella. Think of your muscles like your favorite pair of jeans. The more you wear (use)them the softer & more pliable they get.  When you throw them in the washing machine, they tighten up and you have to start the process all over again.  The washing machine is equivalent to inconsistent and infrequent practice. The muscles tighten back up. When the muscles are tight, your movements are constricted which takes away from your freedom

Be in Good Health

• Eat healthy
• Stay Hydrated
• Keep Stress Low

When the body feels good & is in good health, it works more efficiently and you have more energy for your practice.

Body Weight-the lighter the body, the easier it is on your joints & the easier it is to get in an out of your yoga poses.  When the body is at a good weight, binds, floating, jump throughs, jump backs, and arm balances become more accessible. I have seen students practices transform by losing as little as 5 pounds. They can immediately do the deep binds in Ashtanga, their chest comes closer to their thighs in forward folds & their sun salutes have more of a floating quality. They have the freedom to move.

Deep Breathing-Your breath supports your practice and the poses in many ways

• Increased Stamina-many studies done on this
• Calm Mind-you don't battle your thoughts so you can be free to.....
• Focus- on your practice
• Supports movement in and out of poses-Many arm balances, floats, forward folds and twists are made accessible through proper breathing. Inhalation and exhalation have energetic and physical effects on the body. For example, if you exhale before forward folding, your belly pulls up and in created an inch or so or more space for you fold. 

Bandhas-engaging the muscles below the bellow button through the pelvic floor creates stability & strength in poses allowing you to move freely.

Consistency in Style-You don't necessarily have to practice only one style, but try not to chose too many and to consistently practice the styles you choose several times a week. Even though Ballet and Hip Hop are both styles of dance and there are transferable skills in both, they are so drastically different that in order to master them you have to practice each one with devotion. The same goes with many yoga styles.  For instance,  Power Yoga, &  Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga both use  similar poses, however they are drastically different in execution and many poses that are in one are not covered in the other. They are different enough that in order to feel freedom in both methods, they both would have to be practiced consistently. It is the only way for the body and mind to get used to the practice so that soreness and difficulty go away.

Consistency in Poses-I have students ask me how to do complex poses all the time and I always ask them, "how often do you practice them?" One of the negatives of Vinyasa's every changing sequences is that there is no consistency in poses. A teacher may work on handstand today and may not include it in the class for another 3 months which makes it incredibly hard to perfect it and find freedom in it. If there is a pose that you really wish to master and feel open in, I recommend practicing it every time you get on your mat. Many teachers are okay with you adding it somewhere in their sequence or you can stay after class and practice it. You can also adopt a home practice which insures that you work on everything you want.

 

Video of the Day: Here is a pose you would want to feel free in!

 

Why Becoming A Better Version of Yourself Is Not Always Good

I often hear that yoga will make you a better version of yourself. This is supposed to be positive but is becoming a better bitch, jerk,womanizer, racist etc a good thing? 

The part that gets "better"  &  stronger is usually the ego. All our roles and titles are a part of an image that we have built for ourselves called the ego.  The screen on which the ego's movie is played is consciousness.  Consciousness does not get better or worse. It is what is hidden behind the self imposed roles & titles we have picked up. The real you watches all.  The purpose of yoga is to still the mind enough to make us aware of pure consciousness.

When we came into this existence, we essentially agreed to play dress up.  When a child plays pretend, they put on a pointy black hat and become a witch then a few minutes later they change into a pink poofy dress & becomes  a princess. The roles we choose and our self image are a sophisticated version of this game.   Branding ourselves like Oprah Winfrey or taking on the title of teacher, mother, bitch or jerk, opens us up to different opportunities and experiences.  Role playing is a fun, exciting, &  enjoyable part of human experience. It is how we play with life here on earth. It only becomes an issue when the game of pretend gets so complex and vivid that we soon forget that it is not real & that the princess costume can actually come off.

When a person is fully connected to their ego, they don't see the separation between the hand moving the chess pieces and the chess pieces themselves. They can only relate to their body and the roles. So when they become a better version of something, it is a better version of what they believe themselves to be which may not necessarily be good.

Yoga teaches us that who we think we are doesn't matter. Everyone is pure consciousness. Some people refer to it as the energy that cannot be destroyed. Some say the soul. Some say the God within us. If we can reconnect to the pure consiousness, all the roles that are destructive to ourselves and others will fall away. Our past no longer binds us and the future no longer concerns us. We can play dress up freely while knowing that it is not truly us and we can take off the custom with no fear of what is underneath.

 

Video of the Day

 

Is Ashtanga to Blame For Yoga's Movement to Complete Physicality?

Many yoga studios, classes and styles have been built on the belief that you don't have to study the spiritual side of yoga. That by physical practice, the student eventually will want to know more & will intrinsically turn inward.  This belief may have been birthed from Ashtanga. It is commonly believed that Pattabhi Jois taught this and many modern westernized forms of yoga are based on it. What if this is not true & just a misunderstanding birthed from Jois's limited English?

I have always postulated that Pattabhi Jois would have taught more philsophy and theory if his English would have been better. An interesting artcle released from one of his earlier students seems to suppor this. Below is an excerpt from, Reflections on "Guruji: A Portrait"-Interview with Elise Espat- Part I. 

When I arrived in Mysore in the early '90s Guruji used to give regular theory classes, but his ability to communicate was often thwarted by language problems. 

Guruji spoke a little English but he had a strong accent which was often hard for English speakers to understand and mostly impossible to understand for non-native English speakers when he started to talk about philosophy. 

In the first few years I was there, there were 15-20 students at his theory classes. We were French, German, English, American, Dutch, Swiss… a jumble of languages with varying limitations on the grasp of Guruji's broken English and Sanskrit. So his efforts were often mired in frustration. I felt for him (and for myself - I was also frustrated we were unable to learn more from him in this forum).

There were also increasing numbers of students who did not want to think too deeply. For them being in India with Guruji was perhaps a bit of a lark and not an opportunity to absorb the fullness of what he had to offer. Often they turned Guruji's theory classes into a bit of a circus.

Guruji was a scholar and had the desire to share the gems of the Upanishads or the Yoga Sutra with his students, but as time went by, the quality of the interest was often brought down to a lowest common denominator by questions such as "Guruji, what is the best kind of yoga clothing or mat to use?" or other perhaps important, yet mundane subjects. 

In the end Guruji would often shake his head in frustration and resignation and say "You don't understand! Just do your practice and all is coming!" This was accepted by increasing numbers as a motto, and for some, as an invitation not to question any deeper. But I felt it was said in the context of frustration that direct teaching through the mind was not possible.

According to this article, it was frustration that led Guruji to drop the philosophy. I have also taken workshops from Guruji's earlier students that support that he did have these types of conversations and they were dropped later. 

Recently Gregor Maehle, arthor of two popular Asthanga books, 

broached this subject on his Facebook Page.  

"much of todays Ashtanga Vinyasa culture is lost in physical prowess, acrobatics and athleticism. Don’t get me wrong, I do practice asana (posture) daily (including Advanced A if my body let’s me) but after practising one form or aspect of yoga or another for over three decades I feel that asana makes up about only 20% of yoga total. Now the belief that you actually get to the other 80% merely by practising asana I consider a myth. In my practice life I found that you get to the other 80% by practising them. 

 
Another myth of Ashtanga Vinyasa yoga that I would like to dissect is the belief that any practitioner, if they only would practise enough, could progress through to the Intermediate and Advanced series and from there straight into yoga heaven. After having taught thousands of students including being able to observe their progress I have to say that the single greatest determinant factor of your progress is your genetic make-up (including shape and articulation of your bones) followed by the age with which you start (the younger the faster the progress). Only after those two factors come things like the frequency of your practise and your ability to technically improving your practise either through your own insight or input from your teacher. Additionally the practitioners that look the most flexible are often not even the most healthy as there flexibility is often linked to ligamentous laxity deriving from a liver and metabolic imbalance. Often these very flexible people have greater instability problems later on and their flexibility represents imbalance.

Through my 10 years of practicing and my 4 years of teaching, I am starting to see this as so. As more and more people come to studio just for a workout, I have been discouraged from speaking about the higher limbs of yoga in my classes. I am told that, "The students just want to move. They are not there to hear you talk. They will naturally progress to the other limbs on their own." I bought into it because I am an Ashtangi and Ashtanga classes are not about theory. After all, I did started to study yoga philosophy on my own, so it must be true, right?

However when I started to look back on my years of practice, my most influential teachers managed to get some philsophy into a highly physical practice. My first Ashtanga teacher, Adele Gail, used to always so "Yoga chitti Vrritti Nirodha, yoga is the cessations of the fluctuations of the mind".  While I was attempting to bind or stand on my head, these words were sinking into my mind. If it wasn't for her and many other teachers, giving little nuggets of yoga philosophy throughout class, I am not sure if I ever would have seen my practice as more then exercises that help me with stress and focus. 

For this conversation, over the years,  I have taught two different classes.  These are Strictly physical & Physical with philosophy thrown in. The Strictly Physical group usually stays that way. Their yoga evolution usually takes them to harder more intense forms of physical yoga. The group that gets a little bit of philosophy either heads down the intensely more physical path because the philosophy is not for them or they continue wanting classes that include philosophy and eschew classes based on physicality alone. 

Don't get me wrong, if people want to teach and take yoga just from a physical standpoint, it is fine. There are still alot of benefits to be gained. I am also not saying that I will starting incorporating sutras into all my current classes either. However, the argument that a strictly physical class will take you into the spiritual realms of yoga is a little flawed.  I know yoga teachers who just call out poses and talk about anatomy and alignment.  They barely talk about breath & they would never quote from the sutras. It is hard for me to believe that if the average student looking for a good workout only took from that person, that they would eventually start asking questions about the other limbs.

 The idea that Guruji felt that physical practice is enough, which actually may not be true, may have set the foundations for our strong physical yoga culture today. It let teachers, studios and wanna be yoga Gurus off the hook. Filling up a studio or class  with the same rhetoric you would use to fill a gym aerobics class  is much easier then getting  students to listen to you talk about the sutras. Is it a coincidence that once Guruji went more towards the physical side that Ashtanga took off? Reading the book, Guruji or talking to his older students will reveal that his classes were extremely small in the beginnings. Now Mysore is so packed that people are now doubting if there is any real benefit to going.  I am no Ashtanga scholar. As a matter of fact, I have never been to Mysore to study with him, Sharath or Saraswati. I am however an avid scholar of yoga. What do you think? Weigh in below.

 

Video of The Day