Category: yoga practice | Page 2

You are the Guru

Leave a Comment / asana, hinduism, mindfulness, patanjali, yoga philosophy, yoga practice, Yoga Teachers

Over the past few months of practicing in a traditional ashtanga setting, in what many people consider to be ‘classical yoga’ with a guru, I have come to the conclusion that the idea of having a ‘guru’ or single appointed teacher is outdated.

This is not to say that the old method of learning spiritual ritualistic techniques for calming the nervous system should be ignored, but in today’s age we are spoiled. We have the internet, multiple sources of information on everything from the endocrine system, to fluid cavities and storages annexes in the body, to advanced mechanical movement analysis from people like Leslie Karminoff (http://www.yogaanatomy.org/) and Ray Long (http://www.bandhayoga.com/).

It is important to have someone supervising you when you first start practicing yoga simply because it is going to be awkward. You’re going to feel weird and use muscles you normally don’t use. It’s also good to have someone who can observe your postures over time, so teachers, in general, are still very useful. But the idea of “having a guru” can be a limiting belief, can be an excuse to shove off responsibility, and can detract from your self knowledge about your humanity. When you write a solid research paper, you don’t use only one source, right? Though, there may be one source that stands out above the others, especially for the individual sub-topics you are interested in. You use the collective data as a whole to inform yourself so you can critically argue your point of view.

In other words, you are going to have favorites, teachers you like more or less than other because that is simply the way diversity and your brain works. But its an illusion. A part of the maya we are born into when we arrive. But the variety of teaching methods and different perspectives add accumulatively to the whole of your knowledge, especially with proper discernment and decision-making for what is important to you. No one else can decide this for you, not even a guru. You have to make those decisions.

Guru’s have been incredibly useful in the past. Think about the relationship between Socrates, Plato, then Aristotle. Transfering knowledge in the student to teacher fashion, 1 on 1, seems to be the most effective form of learning, for anyone. Being able to imitate makes doing things so much easier and it is essentially how we learn from each other. Have you ever had a friend with a different vocabulary that you pick a few words from and then notice yourself using? Our brains are always trying to copy, to compete, it is simply the way the brain functions. It helps to keep us alive.

So knowing this 1 to 1 relationship is key to learning, why can’t you have multiple teachers? Obviously, you will get some conflicting information, but that is a good thing! You want to be able to sort through things yourself and arrive at your own conclusion.

Maybe you want it easy so you decide to only learn from one teacher. Don’t you see how this can be limiting? Every instructor is going to have very different life experiences that you can learn from, different experiences in yoga that you can learn from, and definitely experiences that can teach you. In fact, you should consider everyone to be your teacher, in one way or another.

So in this way, we are all gurus and at the same time none of us are. This doesn’t mean everyone is going to be amazing at teaching yoga, but everyone knows things that we can learn from.

So we can consider individuals as one part of the collective guru, that is really inside of you and could probably be equated with Jung’s unconscious mind (yes, things are happening in your brain right now that you are not aware of). And with this comes a need for intense discernment, in the same way that you choose the food that will taste/feel best you have to choose the sources of information that have the most truth in them. This is how you gain valid knowledge, rather than running in circles choosing one person after another to think is the right one.

It’s up to you. It’s all in your head anyways, so use your intuition to feel what is right. Balancing between delving into a teachers system and maintaining your personal practice is always great, as is balancing between practicing by yourself and with some friends. Do what you want. your teacher doesn’t add validity to your yoga practice, because it’s all on you! With that said, if you have a great teacher, enjoy it cause that shit is the bomb too!

It’s probable that Patanjali was actually multiple people who worked together to create a common knowledge of yoga. This sounds more realistic than what the sacred texts say about Patanjali, being one man and inventing tons of yoga poses and ayurveda and all that other stuff one person was supposed to have done. If you ask me, sacred texts are all big marketing schemes for organizations to grow their influence (governments, churches, nobility, etc). You don’t see Jesus writing shit down in the bible stories. If you look at every major cultural movement in history, there are lots of people involved, not just one person leading it. Where would Dr. King be without Malcolm X and Rosa Parks? They happen in waves, with lots of groups of people involved, that’s why they are so enormous. If you’ve ever read Malcolm Gladwell, he has a great book called the Tipping Point that talk a lot about cultural movements.

So yoga is a cultural movement just like anything else. Just do what feels right and don’t put too much stock into one person. Who knows whats going to happen with them anyways? Who knows what their life is like? Yoga teaches you to take responsibility for your self so you can self-manage. Take advantage 😉

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Practicing Ashtanga with Saraswathi Jois

Leave a Comment / asana, Ashtanga, ashtanga institute, India, Mysore, philosophy, Saraswathi Jois, yoga history, yoga practice, yoga reviews, Yoga Teachers

Last day of practice with Saraswathi was a sweet one. Can’t believe I’ve been in India over 2 month, holy shit! So grateful for an amazing experience! #guruselfie #ashtanga #yoga #india #saraswathi

A photo posted by Elliot (@pada_yogi) on Mar 31, 2015 at 5:35am PDT

Tuesday marked the final day of my practice at the Pattabhi Jois yoga shala (kpjayi) with Saraswathi Jois. I feel extremely lucky to have been able to spend the last couple of months practicing with her and exploring the lineage of Ashtanga yoga.

Learning there was a bit of a unique challenge in my case because I have practiced for five years before I even got to India. There were certain asanas that I hadn’t done regularly and certain asanas that I was very proficient at in the advanced and intermediate series, but didn’t practice because of how late they are in the series. Even the first day was weird. Saraswathi belted out some commands to me, which I tried to enact (her english is not amazing) and we got up to the Maricyasanas. I worked through them for a while then a couple weeks later moved into kurmasana and supta kurmasana and Bhujangasana and was able to work on the finishing sequence since the beginning of practice. Eventually, 25 breaths of headstand are pretty much effortless.

My daily practice has completely transformed and now I have something to work from. I deviate into variations and stretches that I am craving and work in back bends and some of the intermediate series at the end. Soon, I will start working on the first few poses of the sequence (I’ve been working on Pasasana for over a year, except while in Mysore). And as much as I want to say that I do not care about progression, I do care about deepening my Samadhi and I find that new poses and deepening certain existing postures is a part of that. Supta Kurmasana taught by itself has deepened my practice in many ways, same with the Maricyasanas, so I am grateful for having the opportunity to learn them.

I didn’t get to drop backs or Setu Bandhasana, but that is fine with me. I will work on the intermediate series and the primary series, maybe I will even come back. I enjoyed the alone time and the doing nothing but writing a little, making some music, and making room to practice yoga every morning and meditate during the days. Having experienced the atmosphere of India I can really understand how yoga came about and why it is so powerful for the human body. History I’ve been reading makes a lot more sense now after seeing the environment that Indians live in.

Saraswathi is traditional and you really can’t blame her for that. She teaches the sequence the way it was taught to her and she is a powerful voice for many things, but ultimately you have to regulate your own injuries if the (re)occur. So with the Ashtanga practice in general comes an enormous responsibility to know your own anatomy and to increase your awareness for the functioning of your body. Without a heightened awareness, you can easily injury your knees, shoulders can get used to being hyper-extended in down dog(this happens a lot), and muscles can be easily strained. In doing yoga, you are increasing your sensitivity to your body, especially in a practice as intense as Ashtanga. This allows your to better manage your body, which increases the steadiness of your mind, because your are more aware of the consequences of your actions and of the actions of your environment, which have direct effects upon your body.

So ultimately Saraswathi wakes up early and facilitates the yoga of her students and is very committed and so are her assistants, but the Ashtanga yoga method is usually not suitable for beginners. Especially when you are older, you should have pretty much mastered sun salutations and at least practiced most of the postures. Also knowing and using yin yoga can be a great addition to an Ashtanga yoga, even though it isn’t prescribed by the KPJAYI.

If you want to take a couple of months off, practice a yoga practice that you conform to and focus on those postures for a few months while quieting your mind, the Ashtanga Institute is a great resource and so is Mysore, more specifically Gokulam.

Gokulam is an amazing place, a quiet repose in the midst of a semi-busy city that supposedly is a prototype for southern India. I didn’t get to visit too much else, but Mysore itself is an amazing city, full of animals and wildlife and scooters. The pollution there is bad as well, but I am told that as far as India goes, the pollution in Mysore is minimal. Basically I didn’t have to wear a mask every day and the streets were walkable, though just barely.

The yoga institutes are hidden away from the city in much quieter Gokulam, with plenty of facilities to practice yoga quietly. It was an experience I will remember as having quieted my mind, as well as given me some great experience with yoga’s history.

So if you are looking to come to the source to practice yoga as it has been taught for the last five decades or so, Saraswathi is great. Ensure you know the sequence, at least the beginning and end, when you arrive. You can also take your time to learn, they are very accepting at the shala, but keep in mind that personal attention from the teachers isn’t something you should rely on. But if you need more, Saraswathi is the one to go to simply because she has fewer students and you are learning the method and not a teacher.

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Day 18 of Practice

Leave a Comment / asana, ashtanga institute, blogging, journal, meditation, philosophy, yoga, yoga poses, yoga practice

Today’s practice was very rewarding. Not for any particular reason, the Maricyasana postures, mostly C and D were as challenging as ever to get the bind, and supta kurmasana is always a lot like being put underwater, then resurfacing in a different world. A powerful pose, one of my new favorites. I also am enjoying working on the jump back from budjapidasana, which is a transition out of the arm-balance, into titibasana, then into crow and a jump back. I am also really getting the hang of jump-throughs, quite fun to execute with control.

Saraswathi is really fun to practice with. She has a strict demeanor but is really quite flexible with everything, kind of puts her foot down when necessary, but mostly stays aloof and asks about binds, which poses you did, and focuses on assisting and cueing individuals. The room is a powerful place, when you walk in you can feel the intensity of the energy. I can see myself learning all of the sequences with her, I like the way she sings sometimes and has a balance of intensity and detachment.

I’ve had a couple of rough patches with my knees, but its taught me a lot about how to open my hips safely. It’s pretty easy for me to overdo it on the knees, especially because I think I have a pretty high tolerance for pain. So it’s been a challenge in patience, because of course, I want to move on to the next poses, which are the hardest in the series. And I don’t love waiting for lotus, Padmasana. Setu Bandhasana and Garba Pindasana are the only two poses left in the series that I haven’t done before, mostly because I don’t quite have lotus pose yet. I think it’s just a question of time, it will happen when my body is ready. And it’s pretty great to watch unfold, because it is really such a challenge in patience for me.

The lesson I am really learning is to be where I am. I spent extra time in most of the poses, especially the twists to get my spine mobile for the Maricyasana series. I enjoy spending extra time in Urdhva Danurasana, Sirsasana, and Sarvangasana, all three make my mornings pretty unbeatable. The intensity of the practice lends itself to a blissful day, especially when I have no obligation. I get to practice existing. It’s that simple.

I have spending more and more time in meditation, letting thoughts simply pass through, not attaching to anything. It’s getting easier and easier to drop in, like a stream I am becoming more and more familiar with. Thoughts still don’t really stop, but sometimes they do. I think it’s a question of letting my brain run out of fuel and its hard with all of the stimulation I am getting. The stream changes in countless small ways each time I drop in so it takes time to re-adjust and melt back in. It is getting to be quite the reward in and of itself. I have also been spending an inordinate amount of time listening to talks about eastern religion, mostly Taoism, Hinduism, and Buddhism by Alan Watts, Osho, and a few more random dudes. I find Jainism to be absolutely fascinating, same with Sikkhism, but they aren’t quite as well-known in the west so I don’t concentrate on them. I might have to do more digging into Indian culture to find more of the different practices within the spiritual traditions.

Hinduism is alive and thriving in Mysore, especially Gokulam.

Temples are everywhere and the gods are visible in the lives of the people. The philosophy behind Hinduism is ingenious, it really allows the people to live together harmoniously. There’s always talk about Shakti, or the movement of energy working itself out. You could probably stand in the middle of most streets during rush hour and be avoided by the cars, they are really mindful of everything around them when they drive around here. You have to be, everyone is on a scooter. India has a certain type of organized chaos that I have never experienced anywhere else and that I am really going to miss when I leave.

I am mentally preparing myself for a vipasana, I think I’ll start at the beginning of April when I arrive in Kathmandu. 10 days, only silence, meditation, no human contact. I am really expecting that to change the way I talk and think.

Tonight, I am going to be loud and make tons of noise. I get to DJ at a resort in the outskirts of the city, for a club that wants EDM mostly electro house. I have really been getting heavy into music ever since I began teaching yoga, so this is a great opportunity for me. I think of the two professions as completely complimentary, representing the yin/yang relationship of silence and meaning to letting go and simply being. I could see myself teaching a couple of classes in the morning, practicing before, then doing a set in the evening at a club. I think that lifestyle would suite me well, I enjoy a thorough change in pace quite often.

My set is already created, I used Ableton to create the mix and transitions beforehand, so I can focus on effects and managing the crowd. Should have some great pictures and hopefully a couple of videos afterwards. I will also release my set (if I can find the bandwidth) on my music site: alienmusique.wordpress.com. I’ll also release all the song names.

Wish me luck, it’s a moon day (day off for new moon) so I can just focus on music all day.

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Keeping Knees safe in Hip Openers

Leave a Comment / Anatomy, asana, knee, muscles, muscles, yoga practice

Over the past few months, I have been working diligently toward lotus pose. This has led me to some very stark realizations about how the knees need to be protected while opening the hips, at least for those of us with tight hips. This is an anatomy article geared at learning how to appropriately safely stretch with the ligaments of the knees, and how the opening of your hips is largely affected by your feet.

We can start with an overview of the anatomy of the outside of the leg. Lets start at the bottom and work our way up.

There are a few major tendons in the ankle that need to be protected while opening the hip. If these tendons are not flexed during the stretching of the hips, stress will accumulate in the lateral portion of the knee, specifically in the lateral meniscus and the lateral collateral ligament.

Now we know the basic ligaments of the ankle and the outside of the knee that are being affected. Now let’s talk about the fibula, one of the most slender bones in the body.

There is a tremendous amount of connective ligamentation on the outsides of the ankles, especially back towards the calcaneus where there are three ligaments to stabilize the ankle on the heel. The heel is a crucial point of stress when the hip is being opened and right on the lateral portion, or outside of the heel is where the most important flexion lies for the opening of the hips. This activation, which should continue up through the plantar and dorsal ligaments to the pinky toe of the foot. This will keep the ankle safe and properly aligned to allow the hip to open while the knee opens laterally.

Once the fibula is aligned properly, the outer knee ligaments and inner cushions can do their job and keep the interior knee ligaments from over stretching. You can see a great view of the knee’s mixture of interior and exterior ligamentation, which in reality overlap and interweave.

http://classroom.sdmesa.edu/eschmid/F07.11.L.150.jpg — knee ligamentation

The fibular collateral ligament is the most important ligament on the outside of the knee and is a thin sheath. This is the ligament that you really want to keep safe and relaxed while stretching the hip, which will ensure that the meniscus is not over-stressed. If it is, the ACL and PCL, the interior crossing ligaments of the knee could be overextended. Also keep in mind the moving the stretch further back into the hip will take time, so be patient with your bodies process. After all, yoga is all process, there is no completed pose or perfect posture. There are always possible improvements, different variations, alternate alignments.

Let’s move up into the thigh, and where you should be feeling the stretch. The IT band is a completely necessary activation, but it is really controlled by the flexion of the outer portion of the foot.

You can see here the muscles that should be receiving the stretch while the hips are externally rotated. The gluteus minimus, piriformis, gemellus muscles, obturator muscles, adductors, and quadratus femoris muscles. The medial gluteus also twists and stretches fairly significantly. There are also a lot of muscles at the front of the thighs that are receiving significant stress from the hip opening postures.

The Satorius muscle, Vastus Lateralis, and Tensor Fascia Latae stabilize the outsides of the knee. The pectineus and adductor longus muscles, adductor magnus, and gracilis muscles.

Armed with this information, you can now see how the foot and ankle have intricate connections all the way up the leg. Keeping the knee stable while opening the hip will allow you to practice more often, with less stress on our knees, something that I think we could all use a little bit less of. In addition, this article should allow you to know how the muscles that open your hip are stretched during external rotation. Any questions are greatly appreciated.

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Day 3 of Practicing Ashtanga in India

Leave a Comment / asana, Ashtanga, ashtanga institute, Mysore, philosophy, yoga practice

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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The Application Process for the Ashtanga Institute

Leave a Comment / ashtanga institute, blogging, India, yoga practice, Yoga Teachers

This article was specifically written for people applying to the Ashtanga Institute in Mysore (http://kpjayi.org), directed by Sharath Jois and Saraswathi Jois. This was a bit of a difficult process for me and because there is not a lot of information about the application process on the internet, I figured I would write about it.

Here are some of the general guidelines for applying:

Apply 3 months in advanced. For Sharath’s class, this means midnight, Indian Time, on the first of the month for three months in the future. Saraswathi’s class seems to be less full so you can actually up until 2 months before you want to start practicing.
For Sharath, you should apply to start in the first five days of the month, Saraswathi you can apply to start on any day of the month.
If you are new to the institute, you would be wise to simply apply for Saraswathi’s class, Sharath’s fills up extraordinarily quickly and he almost certainly chooses yogis that are returning before new people.
You must stay to practice for at least one month, but cannot stay for more than 3.
The Institute closes on March 31st for a few months, but I am not sure when they re-open.

I first sent my application in at noon on October 1st, to start practicing with Sharath on January 1st. It took about four weeks to get my email with an unfortunate rejection due to being full, I re-applied to Sharath’s class two days later, this time at 1pm on October 31st for a February 1st start date. I was rejected again, but this time the rejection letter came only two weeks later. At this point, I became pretty frustrated and started to do some research.

I joined the Mysore Ashtanga community in Mysore and asked about the institute. Someone actually recommended that I give Saraswathi a call from the number on her website, so I did.

She answered in a quiet tone, and almost immediately asked, ‘where are you now?’, ‘when you want to come?’, ‘Did you send in an application?’ and I responded. After my response she simply said, ‘okay, you come. Come…come to Mysore, we’ll do yoga.’ It was that simple, and I got to start near the end of January, as opposed to February because her class isn’t as full as Sharath’s. She was very kind and I am excited to practice with her.

So I got a confirmation letter about a week later which was perfect, right on time to get my VISA, multiple entry for 6 months.

Just a few notes about the actual application submission:

make sure your pictures are under 500KB, there are image resizers out there that will do the trick
Make sure the passport picture is legible
Apply for Sharath’s class close to midnight Indian time
If you are new to the Shala, you probably want to start learning from Saraswathi
Once you get the confirmation email, forget about the application cause you’re going to have to wait a while. India seems to move much slower than the US

Of course every case is a little different, but I figure this was pretty typical for someone new the to Institute. If you have questions, or are applying yourself and want some more details, ask in the comments 🙂

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The Different Styles of Yoga

Leave a Comment / asana, Ashtanga, iyengar, yoga, yoga history, yoga philosophy, yoga practice, Yoga Teachers

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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3 reasons why you should start practicing yoga

1 Comment / breathing, health, philosophy, yoga, yoga practice

Yoga has changed western lifestyles for a reason. It is a powerful healing and rejuvenation system that cleanses the nervous system, cardiovascular and circulatory systems, the respiratory system, and the digestive system of the human body. With new techniques of Yin yoga, originally brought to the West by Paul Grilley, the development of the Ashtanga series by Patthabi Jois brought to the West by David West, and the spread of yoga through systems created by modern-day teachers like Bikram and Baptiste in the Americas, yoga has become a powerful tool for mastering the body and mind. The West has gotten some potent and powerful exposure to the healing art that originated in India, but we are in the infancy of using yogic techniques to target and heal different parts of the body.

I once heard yoga described as the most advanced form of physical rehabilitation. I like that. Yoga takes the body beyond its current limits by enhancing neurological, muscular-skeletal, and circulatory efficiency. Essentially, yoga heals disruptions and stagnation in the circulation of the bodily systems through alignment. This creates more efficient pathways for the body to recycle energy and to operate at full efficiency, especially the muscular-skeletal system.

Most yogic theoreticians would tell you that a large amount of the benefits of yoga actually come from the alignment of the respiratory system with the rest of the body; in the vast majority of studies breathing effects are shown to have profound effects upon the mind and body, in many cases even greater effects that the practice of asana by itself. However, all of the studies I have read included a ‘light’ form of yoga; as far as I know there hasn’t been an incredible amount of research on the primary series of Ashtanga and how the more advanced yoga postures effect the nervous system, or the true benefits of a rigorous yoga practice.

All yogis and yoginis will admit to the tremendous mental benefits of yoga: clarity, focus, calm, patience, rejuvenation, energy; Brian Kest is famous for describing the tremendous release of endorphins that yoga causes as a yoga ‘high’. It gets you kind of stoned. But with more clarity and focus. So if you like feeling good, yoga is probably for you. Think of being able to dive into the deepest muscles of your body and release tension after a long race; to be able to slow your breathing and take time to calm yourself after an intense discussion with a significant other; or just being calmer and less reactive during the course of your day. Reducing anxiety, stress, and depression are just a few of the clinically proven mental benefits of yoga; on top of that you can add more efficient sleep cycles, and major improvements in osteoporosis and arthritis. But those aren’t even the most beneficial reasons why you should start a yoga practice. Here are my top 3 reasons why everyone should practice yoga.

Reason #1 why you should start yoga now: Cardiovascular Benefits

Guess what the top killer in North America is? Heart disease. Stress. Yoga continues to be proven to contribute to a healthy heart and cardiovascular system and we are learning more as the studies surrounding the science become more and more regimented.

Reason #2: Respiratory benefits

Have you ever had a hard time breathing? Breathing is something that I don’t think the majority of people think about on a daily basis, but they should. Breathing affects both the heart and the mind in very integral ways: the heart is encased by the lungs and can absolutely contribute to accelerating or decelerating your heart rate (listen to the breath of someone in a panic attack, or after large dosages of stress; their breathing tends to be more shallow). Scientists also say that lifespan tends to be measured in terms of breaths rather than heartbeats or time. This is not new information, in Science News in 1981 you can find this quote on page 74:

“Findings resulting from a 5,200 clinical study group observed over a 30 year span showed that pulmonary function measurement is an indicator of general health and vigor and literally the primary measure of potential life span.”

I’m not sure if you know, but Science News is kind of big deal. Breathing also has enormous unexplored and unproven mental benefits; the peace, appreciation, and tranquility that a yoga practice can bring to your life are nothing short of miraculous.

Reason #3: Mental Benefits

This is the final reason to practice yoga, and probably the most important. Internal peace can change the world, creating non-reactivity allows cycles of anger, violence, discrimination, and intolerance to end. Even in your own life, turning down the volume of stressful situations will help you to live longer.

Many people consider the brain to be the regulator of the body and this is absolutely the case; the entire body is mapped to different areas of the brain and all proprioceptive information flows through the spinal cord (which yoga also focuses on and is also intricately linked to breathing). Many scientists are uncovering that the origins of the vast majority of disease, some estimate as high as 95%, originate in the mind. By disciplining the body, the mind unveils itself and lends itself to be forged by meditation. The body creates consciousness (the brain is a part of the body) and the mind is not necessarily limited to the brain so tempering the body through breath leads to freedom from fluctuations in the mind (high and lows). With yoga, you can obtain a constant bliss, that bring awareness and appreciation to even the hard and crappy parts of life. But you can also do all of that without yoga, but it’s probably quite a bit harder.

When you consider the increased length of time for high-focus activity, freedom from distraction, calmness in the midst of high pressure situations, most high performance athletes and thinkers should consider and intensely personalized yoga practice. The benefits seem to be unending.

I’ve never participated in anything so physically and mentally challenging. Yoga will take you to places inside that don’t exist outside of your consciousness. It places you closer to your humanity and gives a holistic perspective of the world, society, and subjective consciousness’ place in the universe. Give it a chance, you won’t regret it.

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Take Days Off

Leave a Comment / Ashtanga, detachment, yoga, yoga practice

I am continually finding that days detached from my yoga studio lead to improvements in my teaching and my practice. I’m not talking about more than a couple of days, but taking 1 or 2 days off is extraordinarily beneficial to my practice. It allows the joints to rest, reset, and relax and the muscles to re-hydrate, re-oxygenate, and recuperate. I also find that when you come back it makes the enjoyment of the practice sweeter, almost like a friend that you haven’t seen in a while. Traditional Ashtanga yogis take Saturday and the new and full moon days off, which I am getting more and more inclined to do. The gravitational and magnetic effects of the moon definitely have a weird effect on the human circulatory system (being 70% water and all).

In college one of my psychology professors was avid about the incubation process for ideas. It is a great concept and definitely seems to hold true; the idea is that the more you sit with an idea, the more connections you allow for and the more robust you allow that idea to become. Coming back to the idea over and over after forgetting about it will lead to strengthening the concept and creating more supporting ideas and connections for that concept. It’s essentially saying that giving an idea time to grow allows the idea to become more robust.

I interpret this as needing to give your unconscious mind some time to process information and create new connections. This is where the popular saying “sleep on it” comes into play; sleeping is where neurogenesis (the brain creates new brain cells and maintains old brain cells) happens and the unconscious is given time to integrate new information, events, etc. Then as the decision maker wakes up, they can re-assess the situation with fresh eyes for a new day, detached from their prior preconceptions.

So days off the yoga mat are important. You need to give certain joints days of rest if you work them every day (*cough* lower back *cough*). It’s great to have a six-pack; it’s better to have a strong and healthy spine. Your mind takes time to integrate what it has learned, and yes, Savasana really is important. It integrates your proprioceptive learning (feeling the individual muscles and ligaments used and integrating the new information into the peripheral nervous system). Savasana is similar to a sleep state and tons of neurogenesis is occurring in the pose. In fact, meditation and especially yoga generally bring up sleeping-state brain waves; this is part of the reason that yoga is so beneficial and healing.

So take a day off here and there. But daily practice is the way to deepen the yoga practice, so try to go multiple days in a row complimented by one day of rest; it will lead to the greatest results. Even 5-10 sun salutations in the morning can change your body and daily practice will help you to get deeper into the muscles, joints, and ligaments that you desire to be stronger and more flexible. Yoga, I find, is all about balance. So allow yourself that freedom

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