Places of Interest in Gokulam
A few of my upcoming blogs are going to be simply photo blogs. Pictures speak a thousand words
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asana
Day 3 of Practicing Ashtanga in India
I woke up late this morning, but got to the shala at about 5:15. Saraswathi asked me to be there at 4:30, but she doesn’t care as long as I can find a space to practice.
I always start in child’s pose. Today I made a dedication, something I don’t normally do in my own practice. When I walk in to the Shala, this kind of trance comes over me, the breathing and ambient sounds are so soothing, so powerfully hypnotic. It’s not hard to find devotion amidst all of the hard work each yogi is putting into their practice and body.
I love the way that the practice moves inside. Every time I do the 10 Surya Namaskars (5 A, 5 B), I am exhausted afterwords. Every time, triangle poses feel like freedom. I can see why the primary series is structured the way that it is. Though it is definitely not a suitable practice for someone brand new to yoga. Even a few years could be rendered meaningless in the face of the sequence. Putting both feet behind your head is no easy task.
I only messed up one part before I came to the end of what Saraswathi has taught me. She allows me to practice on my own, make mistakes, then do it over with her guidance. It’s not that explicit, but that’s what is happening. She understands that I know a lot of yoga, but she respects the series enough to tell me to stop at certain points and I’m happy to do so. Today I received Ardha Bandha Paschimottanasana and Trianga Mukha Ekapada Paschimottanasana. Loved it. Half lotus is still very difficult for me, as I have extremely tight hips from football, rugby, and especially basketball. The lateral movement of defense really tightens hips to be able to move very quickly side to side and I am pretty sure this is the major culprit behind why it has taken so long for them to open up into external rotation. Plus, my ankles are weak from lots of sprains, which compounds the difficulty of moving into lotus postures.
I can grab my toe, but the pain in my ankle is just a bit much right now, so I do half-lotus without the bind. I finished trianga Mukha, then Saraswathi told me to go do Sirsasana.
For those of you who don’t know, I am passionate about being inverted and the mental effects of being upside down. I’m always a bit wary of head-stand, but it is time for me to step in and take the activation and full extension in the back of my neck and learn how my body wants to do Sirsasana. In other words, no more avoiding the pose for handstand. 10 breathes without Saraswathi, then she came and assisted me afterwards. I did the closing sequence, and called it a day.
I walked outside to the rising sun. It was beautiful and made me very happy. I had a coconut from the vendor outside of the Shala and enjoyed a 10 minute walk back to my room. Now I’m off to find some more Ayurvedic oils and maybe check out the zoo this afternoon. Maybe tomorrow. I have already bought oil that I want to talk about with you all, so make sure to look out for a post on Ayurveda in the near future.
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My Second Day of Practice
Today I woke up at 6:30 to move across town to Gokulam, a section of town in the Northwest of Mysore. It was an easy move and the place where I am staying is only about $100 a month. Pretty sweet deal, but no internet or TV. So I will be spending most of my time out in the local town and in the city.
I practiced after I moved in, at about 9, though I just found out that Shala time is 20 minutes ahead. So I was the last one out of the studio, since I forgot the order of the postures, specifically the side angle poses. Saraswathi made me do them again, it was really testing of my stamina. But I am teaching my body the series, which is necessary for me at this point because I have to think about every posture before I do it. Obviously, I was thinking about the wrong things. It will just take some time.
So it was a tough practice, I always stay a little extra in Savasana, past where I want to get up, because it feels amazing and honestly its pretty easy to just stay for 15-20 minutes. I am working on resetting all of my internal clocks, if that makes sense.
Afterwards, I wanted to find somewhere new for lunch, I spend a lot
of my time at the Sri Chakra Yoga house because they have free wi-fi and good food. But I took a little walk around town and found out that Osho’s method has teachers at the Mystic Yoga Shala, which is known as the second best shala around (According to an Ayurvedic oil distributor that I met. Osho died about a year after I was born, but his tradition and meditation practice was so powerful that it continues internationally, even today. I didn’t even realize he was dead because I have watched his YouTube videos and they are so powerful and current that I assumed he must have just made them in the last few years.
I signed a contract yesterday when I signed up with Saraswathi that I would only practice pranayama and asana with her. Osho teachers use meditation, so I am really hoping I can study at both because I won’t be working on pranayama at all. I ate at the Osho shala for lunch and it was one of the most relaxing places I have ever been. It had a nice little pool, a sauna, and of course, a hammock on a rooftop cafe. The Osho teacher comes back in March, so I can practice meditation with him. But I am going to make sure its cool with Saraswathi, I really don’t want to offend her or get kicked out of the shala.
I took a class on the yoga sutras of Patanjali. I got pretty lucky by bringing Iyengar’s ‘Light on the Yoga Sutras’, which has the original sutra texts.
It was a great day even though I didn’t learn new asanas.
I went to sleep around 9 for my 4am practice, staying in my new place. check out the pictures:
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The Different Styles of Yoga
The origins of yoga date back to the beginning of civilization (read my article here)
We live in a world that is highly evolved and diversified; yoga is no exception. Yoga has evolved rather quickly, since Krishnamacharya trained Iyegnar and Jois in the 1930s and 40s. With the astounding rise of the popularity of yoga, combined with the lack of organization, clear history, and methodologies, many individuals and groups of people have developed methods for specific purposes, or to target certain systems in the body.
Patthabi Jois and Iyengar were two students of Krishnamacharya that developed their own specific styles. Jois developed a gymnastic, cardiovascular and demanding practice with strict guidelines called Ashtanga; Iyengar deviated from his teacher, Krishnamacharya’s demanding practice and developed a softer, knowledge and alignment based style of yoga named after him. Ashtanga, in particular, is the building block for all vinyasa yoga in the west; but Hatha yoga shares many of Ashtanga’s principles and esoteric philosophy. There is even more overlap as the yoga becomes more diversified and dispersed throughout the globe.
This list is very short compared to the amount of styles that have been developed to practice yoga. Yoga is something that is personal, so multiple interpretations of the same truths was inevitable. There is no one style that is better than another, though there are definitely discrepancies in difficulty, objectives, anatomical focuses, and mental effects. The things to remember is that yoga is not dogmatic, or canonical; there are only guidelines and yoga is a technology for unlocking the mind and body through control of the nervous system with breath and respiratory manipulation and it should be personalized.
I think this is the biggest reason why yoga is so challenging for many people to wrap their heads around. 30 million in the US people practice yoga now, but that is only 10% of the total population and in reality, everyone can benefit from meditation, stretching, and movement based breathing exercises. I am absolutely missing some styles (let me know in the comments!), but these are the styles of yoga that are most popular and used in the US right now.
Ashtanga
Ashtanga vinyasa yoga is the system of yoga developed by Pattabhi Jois that is thought of as a lineage of classical indian yoga. The eight limbs refer to Patanjali and the 8 limbs of yoga which are spiritual yogic practices. There are six sequences designed to be practiced over 6 days, with Saturday off and a day off for the full moon. This is a controversial form of yoga that tends to have high injury rates, but also many highly dedicated yogis. Kino MacGregor is a modern teacher of the system with more of a inspirational view on her own practice to emphasize the incredible intensity and reward of the daily Ashtanga practice.
Hatha
Supposedly founded by Shiva, the Hatha yoga asanas are the basis for yoga in the world today. Usually, it refers to the text written by Yogi Swatmarama written in the 15th century that expounds details of yoga philosophy and physical aspects of the postures. Hatha yoga is often used to mean physically oriented and static yoga postures. Hatha tends to be a broad category and oriented towards mostly physically oriented asana.
Yin
Yin yoga has an extremely interesting lineage, grounded in Taoism and founded by Paulie Zink, but is popularized because of Sarah Powers and Paul Grilley. Yin yoga emphasizes longer stretching and the connections of joints through ligaments and tendons and a more passive side of yoga. The flow of qi through the meridian centers is increased according to the Chinese philosophy of the practice and the practice is more focused on regeneration and acceptance into the union of the universe. Yin yoga is traditionally meant to compliment traditional yang yoga, though there is a lot of work being done to widen the spectrum between the extreme lows of 15 minute stretches and then adding more and more movement. Bernie Clark is an excellent propagator of the practice and I highly recommend his videos for beginning a Yin oriented practice. It is a great way to wake up and fall asleep.
Bikram
This style is named after Bikram Choudhury and 26 poses that he developed at the yoga college of India, where he was also the world champion for 3 straight years. Bikram yoga has concepts taken from Hatha yoga, which Bikram used as an influence to create his 26 postures. One of the great additions Bikram has made to the yoga community is the heat of the room; this heat can help to remove toxins from the body and the increase the metabolic speed and rate at which the body replenished tissue. The Bikram practice is powerful, each posture is done twice and there are two great breathing exercises as well as a lot of balancing work. However, you won’t find many arm balances, or inversions, which are a cornerstone of many of the more traditional systems of yoga. Tony Sanchez is a teacher to pay attention to, though I don’t have any personal experiences with his asana practice, though he trained with Bikram for 20+ years.
Vinyasa
Vinayasa yoga is oriented around the practice that was propagated by Patthabhi Jois as classical Indian yoga, involving sun salutations, jumping through arms, gymnastic oriented exercises such as handstand, forearm stands, and arm balances. All vinyasa yoga is adapted from his method, because of the foundation of sun salutations in the West, but movement aligned with breath is a far older meditational practice than Jois’ practice based on Krishnamacharya’s teachings. Vinyasa is now a broader category, and emphasizes cardiovascular and single breath movements.
BKS Iyengar
Bellur Krishnamachar Sundararaja Iyengar played a huge role in bringing yoga to the West.
This is the man to learn from, he was one of the original students of Krishnamacharya along with Patthabhi Jois. Practiced, knowledgable, but unfortunately, he passed in 2014, right before I was able to make it to India in 2015. However, his source book is incredible and I have used it for literally hundreds of hours of asana. He describes poses with full depictions where he demonstrates the hardest and most dedicated of yoga postures. He is an incredible teacher who split from Patthabhi Jois’ Ashtanga method, instead creating his own style after deciding to go solo when Krishnamacharya would not help him to customize his own practice to suit his body type and needs. His practice is personal, fulfilling, gentle, mentally brutal, and extraordinarily fulfilling. His softer, gentle, and customized approach will continue to spread throughout North American for the next decade.
Anusara
Anusara is classified as a type of Hatha yoga, originally started by John Friend in 1997 who was heavily influenced by Iyengar. The practice emphasizes universal principles of alignment and is grounded in tantric tradition. Friend explained the name of the practice as “flowing from grace”. John was involved in a scandal in 2012 that led to him stepping down from Anusara after admitting affairs with teachers and allegedly founding a wicca coven where he would engage with the women of the coven sexually. Suffice to say I don’t practice Anusara, but I do take significant influence from Iyengar, who influenced friend. Anusara has some great concepts of alignment, but the practice doesn’t resonate with me personally.
Jivamukti
This is a style of yoga developed by David Life and Sharon Gannon in 1984. It combines elements of Hatha, Ashtanga with emphasis on moral alignment in tune with vegetarianism, animal rights, social activism, and adherence to five central tenets: shastra, bhakti, ahimsa, nada, and dhyana. I am not at all familiar with the method, but each month there is a new theme with new chanting and practices, with an emphasis on progression in the yoga practice. This type of yoga tends to be popular among celebrities and can have focuses on having a personal teacher that massages during Savasana and a whole host of other assistant type activities.
Kripalu
Kripalu is a non-profit based retreat center in Massachusetts. The 16,000 square foot building in Stockbridge is the largest holistic center in the country and can hold up to 650 people for a single night. This style of yoga concentrates on inner focus, meditation, breath work, and development of a quiet mind. Amrit Desai is the founder of the method and center and began it to provide yoga classes and teacher trainings. He named the Kripalu system after Swami Kripalvananda whom Desai met in India. However, in 1994 Desai resigned after admitting to sexual intercourse with followers.
Kundalini
Kundalini is based on a 1935 treatise with Sivananda Saraswati and is heavily influenced by tantra and Shakta schools of Hinduism. The practice combines prana-yama, asana, meditation, chanting, and meditation to excite the nervous system to extraordinary levels. This is a type of yoga that you should absolutely try if you are at a good level of health. It is called the yoga of awareness and aims to cultivate the creative and spiritual potential of the yoga by focusing on truth-speaking, karma, and spirituality.
Power
Power yoga is the adapted version of Ashtanga to fit the Western practice of yoga, Bryan Kest is currently advertised as the founder, though I am really not sure who is. I like to think that Kest is, because he practiced with David West in Hawaii and was a student of Patthabhi Jois, which Baptiste was not. Though I honestly have no idea where it came from, but today it is a popular term for intense vinyasa yoga, sometimes occurring in a heated room. The primary propagators of this practice are Bryan Kest, Baron Baptiste, Larry Schultz, though it really refers to the style of yoga propagated by Bryan Kest and Baron Baptiste focusing on Ashtanga based meditational yoga. Bryan Kest is far and away my favorite teacher of this type of yoga, though the practice is certainly rewarding in and of itself.
Bhakti
Bhakti yoga is traditional and devotional by tradition, but is being grown into a specific type of vinyasa (power yoga) by Rusty Wells with a focus on spirituality, love of god, and devotion. It is also described as a path of yoga, different from Raja yoga from which Ashtanga is derived and doesn’t necessarily involved asana, but incredible amounts of time in prayer and meditation. This type of yoga focuses on a personal god and aspires to unify each step along the path of Dharma with the divine. practices include chanting and meditation with an emphasis on love. This is a growing style that I have really only seen on the West coast, but has ancient traditions in Hinduism.
Mysore Style
Mysore style is personal practice of the Ashtanga primary series, with a focus on individual asana performance and the warm-up of the primary series. Daily practice with a day of rest on Saturdays and for the full and new moon. This is the practice I will be learning a lot more about in India when I travel to Mysore, with an emphasis on the Ashtanga method.
It will be interesting to see how this article might change over the next few months and years, I will likely rewrite it later.
Notable Yogis: Krishnamacharya, Patthabi Jois, BKS Iyengar, TKV Desikachar, Tony Sanchez, Bikram Choudhury, John Friend, David Life, Bryan Kest, Baron Baptiste, Rusty Wells, Kino MacGregor
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Teaching 5 Days Straight
For the last five days I’ve taught an hour and a half class at the studio. It’s been a great experience, one where I’ve really gotten to know myself as a teacher in a new way.
I’ve realized that I like to practice before I teach. It puts me into my body so that I can journey with other people through theirs as they practice. When I teach every morning, its easy to wake up before 9 and start my practice. I can see myself waking up a lot earlier in the future to practice before I teach. Its important to me to respect the practice and teach from my own mat.
As a teacher, coming up with sequencing is something that is personal to you and no doubt driven by your own practice. I am getting better at sequencing classes because of the repetition; it forces me to think a lot about why we are doing what we are doing. A daily practice has always been what resonates with me. Honestly, I’m really excited to go to India because I love the practice so much. I could hide away in a mountain with other yogis and a teacher and practice for hours every day. No problem.
I think the part of yoga that I like the most is building the awareness of my body. That kind of awareness spreads far beyond the yoga mat; eventually it seems to creep into everything. Its interesting how awareness of yourself grows so much in the first stages of yoga. But then the awareness seems to branch out, to envelope everything. Spirituality is something that grows in harmony with the environment, in fact, it is the very definition of spirituality.
Anyways, it’s been fun putting together the playlists and seeing all the awesome yoga people. Getting into sequencing on a deeper level has been really rewarding as well; I’m really excited to continue getting better at moving people through their bodies.
Teaching is draining, more emotionally than physically in my opinion. Especially when you put a lot into preparing and being present during the entire class. But I’m happy to flex those brain muscles, I’m sure I’ll take it to new heights soon. But I am stoked that I got the opportunity to grow, big thanks to Marilyn and Usha for allowing me to hold the space. Still waiting on my response from Mysore, I sent my application in to the Ashtanga Institute on October 1st.
Now its time to relax and enjoy my weekend; you should do the same! (but remember we are at war right now, I’m reading the news on BBC because they seem to be the least biased. Its important not to forget!)
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A Morning Yoga Practice
http://youtu.be/ZUcLbl1K7vg
I put together a video two days ago that I thought was pretty cool. I just wanted to record about 20 minutes of video, and honestly kind of forgot about the camera. But apparently, 18 minutes of video is a lot of data so I had to compress the video down to 15. I wish I had video editing software…so I am working on a couple things to improve the quality of my videos: 1 get a GoPRO and 2 get video-editing software to speed up the videos. Hope to have both done within the month.
I am also working on some instructional videos. If you have any requests for poses, post a comment and I’ll do a video on it. Let me know what you think of my post-yoga practice and stay tuned for more…
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Vrschikasana
This is one of my favorite poses, also known as the Scorpion pose. In Sanskrit, this pose is Vrschikasana, literally meaning scorpion posture.
This pose begins in Pincha Mayurasana, or peacock posture, then the legs extend over the head until eventually, they connect with the top of the head. I have only been doing this posture for about 6 months, so I have a lot of progress yet to make before my feet touch my head.
This pose vigorously tones the muscles surrounding the spine, including the abdominals, serratus muscles, and latimus dorsi. The spinal erectors, internal/external obliques, the muscles of the psoas, and the quadriceps are all at work here. Not to mention the lift of the pelvic floor and inversion of the breathing system. The benefits are enormous.
The psychological benefits of the pose are also mentioned by Iyengar in his book, Light on Yoga. He talks about the feet reaching towards the head as development of humility, which is something that I resonate with. There is a long path for the yogi to reach such a destination and it is not something to brag about, but simply to enjoy for yourself. I am looking forward to a long journey with Scorpion pose because honestly, it feels amazing on the lower back and frees my hips and spine. Control of the breath is key in the posture, leading to a pure and enjoyable relaxation as one rejoins the normal flow of gravity in the body.
The things I remind myself while in the posture are to create length in the front of the body and to reach up and over my head with my feet. It’s a pretty awesome experience, but took about 4 years of practice to get to that point. Its requires a tremendous amount of breath control to breath normally while inverted and hold the posture, so activate a strong Ujjayi before going into peacock. I use the hands to press into the floor and activate my shoulders and triceps which cascades up into my back and hips. Everything lifts in unison as you kick up and then internal muscles stabilize to keep the entire body lifted. The majority of my focus is on my hands, and when I feel completely stable, I begin to move my legs and attend to the tightening of my abdominals around my spine so that they can lift my legs up and over.