09 Markirtan this saturday

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As promised, I’ve been thinking about the connections between yoga and art. I’ve been thinking about it on and off for years, as so many of my friends, students, and peers are artists of one kind or another. I think that, for me, it has something to do with fearlessness and honesty of expression, an honesty we can easily hide from ourselves without something to keep us awake and disciplined. When a filmmaker student asked me about art and yoga in 2007, I shared this quote, which I’d read years earlier and written down.

I’m not going to tackle the subject now, but I want to share an event in NYC this Saturday. My friend and teacher, Peter, is leading a kirtan at ISHTA yoga near Union Square. Kirtan is “a bhakti (devotional) yoga practice that uses musical chanting to alter the yogis’ energy. The repeated use of a mantra combined with the energy of a group is a powerful tool for transformation and for bringing an immediate sense of well-being.” Peter is a photographer and musician, and has written the music for Saturday’s event (March 13). Good Kirtan can be hard to come by, so try to make it if you’re interested!

I love it. I’m looking at wordpress themes for artists (trying to find a better way to display photo essays), totally unrelated to this topic, and I come across a theme in which the main example is for an artist who has “yoga teaching schedule” as one of his main links, next to his work, CV, and artist statement. Now, you might say, of course artists would be into yoga. They’re loopy that way. But I have far more business and law school students than artists. And, heavens, do they need their yoga.

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02 Marart and yoga

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A number of sketches have been pasted to the wall of a tunnel that leads from street to subway in upper manhattan. I love this one especially (cell phone snap). It nags me, gently and beautifully, to write down my thoughts about the connections between art and yoga.

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26 Febways of knowing

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To address Ben’s comment in the last post (5,000 years?), I want to say that to some extent, I agree. But there is a difference between the “kinds of consciousness one accesses by practicing yoga” and yoga. They are not the same thing. Calling something yoga before yoga existed seems questionable, but perhaps I am being picky.

I like Ben’s assertion: “anything that brings one closer to the full embodiment and expression of oneself to be “yoga,” but it’s also very time and place specific. What the “self” means in rural China and what it means in New York City are two very different things in 2010, much less 5,000 years ago. The idea of being one’s true self is not universal. It doesn’t even hold the same meaning for everyone right now, 2010, in NYC.

But this wasn’t what I was speaking to in the last post. I was objecting to teachers and others stating that yoga is 5,000 years old without explaining what they mean by yoga, so students don’t think that hanumanasana (for example) is 5,000 years old. Even worse—teachers not knowing themselves that hanumanasana isn’t likely 5,000 years old.

That said, we don’t know definitively that hanumanasana isn’t 5,000 years old. We just don’t know that it is any older than a hundred or so years, which makes 5,000 quite a number to throw out casually. I agree with what Ben is getting at, which, I think, is that the practice of yoga is in some way eternal, and that yoga existed before it was known as such. Edwin Bryant, a scholar of Yoga and Hinduism at Rutgers, believes that, “The origins of yoga are in primordial and mythic times.” In saying this, I’m switching gears and appealing to a less quantitative way of understanding, which we often neglect and devalue, but the practice of yoga helps us cultivate and respect. Though Vedism and Tantrism are both textual traditions, text is not the only source of knowledge or knowing. Just because we haven’t proved something scientifically (in whatever discipline) or textually does not mean it’s untrue.

So, while I doubt that the Primary Series was hip in ancient Pakistan, I do think that the roots of yoga have been around since we have. Thanks for the interesting comment, Ben.

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29 Jan5,000 years?

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I have to admit, I sometimes ask myself if I’m part of this world. The yoga world, I mean. On Tuesday, the New York Times wrote a piece on foodies and yoga, and it seems to be popular, given its rank on their most emailed list: “When Chocolate and Chakras Collide.”

My favorite part of the piece was  a comment from Sadie Nardini about judgment in the yoga world, about being “yogier than thou.” I love it. What do I think about sampling food on a yoga mat? To each her own. Is it yoga? Does it matter?

I′m not terribly troubled by what people choose to call yoga, as most of what is practiced now bears little resemblance to its history, and why should it? Traditions need to evolve to be relevant. I do have a pet peeve about the “5000-year-old practice” line (which appeared in that NYT article), stated as if yogis were hopping through sun salutations in 2990 b.c.e. They weren’t.

a

I suppose I should say, I’m not terribly troubled by what people
choose to call yoga, as long as it isn’t this 5,000+ year old seal.

a

The philosophy of yoga is fairly old and can be dated back to at least the mid-first century b.c.e. Some of the asansas (postures) can be definitively dated back to the 15th century, as described in the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, but most date back only a century or two. Years ago I read Joseph Alter’s Yoga in Modern India (recommended if you′re interested). He asserts that the sun salutations are adapted from Indian martial tradition in the late 1800s, when the Hindu masculinity movement was strong (I wax on about this in another post), and ever since it’s grated on me when people boast that yoga is 5,000 years old. The date of 5,000 b.c.e. comes from an ancient seal found in Mohenjo-daro with Shiva sitting in a seated position (wait, I thought Shiva was not quite Shiva until around 200 b.c.e?). All around, the argument is pretty weak. A picture of someone sitting = yoga? You can imagine the fun academics have pulling that apart. Many agree that not only is it not yoga, but not Shiva, or even necessarily male. It’s important to note as well that the seal was found in a series of seals with figures depicted in other less formal, less yogic-looking seats (see Doris Srinivasan, “The So-Called Proto-śiva Seal from Mohenjo-Daro: An Iconological Assessment,”Archives of Asian Art, Vol. 29, (1975/1976), pp. 47-58).

Looking around the web, I’m glad to see that others seek historical accuracy as well. Waylon Lewis at elephantjournal, Kate Churchill and Nick Rosen on yogadork, and Sadie Nardini at huffpo all have interesting posts about how old yoga might be. Hopefully, word will get out that we should be a bit more knowledgeable and, dare I say, humble, about our tradition’s beginnings.

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19 Janteaching in january

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I’m back! Australia was brilliant. We covered about 5881 miles (9465 km) of amazing land. Cannot wait to go back.

I’m teaching pre-session Vinyasa 2-3pm at CU starting Thurs, Jan 21st, which will then run through the semester. I’ll update the other Spring class info soon.

BTW, I was hardly online at all, which was fantastic, but I’m very behind on correspondence. If you’ve emailed, I’ll reply in the next week or two.

thanks & be well! ~Anastasia

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19 Novyoga in australia

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ausOooh, I’m off to summertime. Heading down under to investigate the yoga scene, which of what I’ve seen so far, is heavily ashtanga and iyengar based. I’ll be starting in  Perth, then driving and camping across the southern coast and Nullarbor to Adelaide, Melbourne, Canberra, and Sydney. I’ll be back in time for Spring semester, but will be missing you in the interim. If you have any advice on Australia, yoga or otherwise, send it my way.

I look forward to sharing my experiences in Aussie classes as well as taking my yoga practice on the road. I once heard a teacher say that yoga is like Chinese food, it adapts to the culture it enters. It should be an interesting trip.

Be well.  ~A

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30 Sepbikram yoga: good or bad?

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I’ve a number of posts in the works, including how to start and cultivate a personal practice, the self in yoga, and yoga and calories (oh yeah). But Ann has hijacked my attention by asking how I feel about Bikram yoga in the comments on the last post. She suggested that she was trying to start something, as Ann is wont to do.

bikramBikram is thought of by many yogis as “not real yoga,” whatever that means. Why? Well, it’s incredibly body oriented, and most people attracted to it (it seems to me) are primarily interested in their bodies lookin’ good, as there isn’t much attention to anything but forcing yourself, asana, and some heating pranayama.

What’s wrong with that? Nothing. It is what it is. A bikram yoga studio is heated to a recommended 105° F/40.5° C to assist flexiblity (warm bodies are more flexible than cold) and sweat, with the hope of detoxifying the body. Bikram Choudhury (the founder) has gained attention for claiming trademark and copyright on his sequence of 26 yoga asanas (poses) and threatening to sue anyone who teaches them without his approval. “This is enlightenment?” many ask, including Nora Isaacs at salon.com. Apparently so, as Bikram has compared his speedoed self to the Buddha (photo above, sans speedo but no less awesome, care of his website).

How do I feel about Bikram yoga? Mixed. I tried it at Funky Door Yoga every day for a week while visiting a friend in San Francisco in 2005 and I liked it a lot. I liked it most, probably, because I love to be warm. It felt great to sweat. I personally think Bikram might be trying to recreate the climate of India in those heated rooms, which makes sense in a certain way. I didn’t find it that hard—it wasn’t a vigorous vinyasa, but 26 poses performed one after another. Maybe some are repeated. I’ve forgotten.

My concerns about Bikram concern safety and health. Some of the asanas aren’t for every body, and there were people in the room trying to do poses that could be downright dangerous. One of the poses, supta virasana, is a standard pose that most western bodies just don’t manage without props (there are no props in Bikram). Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen once said that this asana sends more people to the emergency room than any other (blows out the knee) and yogajournal even issues a caution before explaining the pose on its site.

Another concern is that imbalanced people (most of us) tend toward what we don’t need. Bikram tends to attract hot-headed, aggressive, type-A people. In yogic thought, the last thing such people need to do is hop into a 105° room and sweat it up. Instead, they need to learn how to chill out. And I must say that the few people I’ve known to do Bikram regularly aren’t particularly relaxed or present (not that, ah, I judge). Even if this strikes you as hogwash, the question of how healthy it is to work out in that kind of heat does present itself, especially if the student has health issues.

I’m not so much into good or bad. If you like Bikram and it’s working for you, great. I think it might even be good for people who tend to be cold (physically), retiring, or in need of a boost.

Bikram yoga? Not good, not bad. Let our work with yoga help us transcend these dualities (tee). Wow. I never thought I’d have so much to say about the matter.

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13 Sepwhat are the different types of yoga? what is hatha?

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The styles of yoga on offer are endless. Teachers often blend different practices to suit their needs, and give it a name that ends up on a class schedule, familiar only to those who frequent the studio. Most types of yoga stem from a few different schools, which have splintered into countless directions.

Yoga as we know it in the West—physical yoga—is a very small branch of one system of classical Indian philosophy called Yoga. This small branch is called hatha yoga. Our appropriation of the term hatha to describe a style of physical yoga strays from the traditional Indian usage of the term. For most Indians, the term yoga is most closely associated with rajayoga philosophy, or with dhyana, meditation. Unlike the general western concept of meditation, dhyana is not specifically body-oriented. It doesn’t necessarily mean seated meditation, nor does it necessarily exclude the body or hatha yoga.

When reading about types of western yoga, keep in mind that any physical yoga is hatha yoga (I won’t italicize when speaking in western terms), but it is also used to describe a style of yoga. More on that in the schools section.

Yoga developed in India as one of six traditions of astika (orthodox) classical philosophy. Only a small branch of the classical yoga tradition called hatha yoga focuses on the physical body. The branches of yoga are:

raja yoga: cultivation of the mind/meditation
karma yoga: discipline of action
bhakti yoga: blissful devotion to the divine
jnana yoga: path of knowledge

Hatha yoga was originally an offshoot of raja yoga, rather than its own branch. In the West, we are best acquainted with hatha (physical) yoga, and usually use the term loosely to describe yoga that is fairly basic, slow, and relaxing. If you are new to yoga, a beginner’s hatha class is a good place to start, especially if you are out of touch with your body.

Because “hatha” is used so generally, ask what the class is like before you show up.

Viniyoga developed from the teachings of T. Krishnamacharya and his of Madras-based student-son T.K.V. Desikachar. It stresses the adaptation of yoga practice to the needs of each person.

Sivananda, Integral, and Kripalu are all traditions of hatha yoga, founded by Indian guru-émigrés. They all stress the spiritual aspects of yoga and include chanting, as well as short periods of meditation.

ISHTA yoga was developed by Mani Finger and his son Alan, who hosted Indian yogis of various traditions in their South African home. Meaning individual in Sanskrit, ISTHA is also an acronym for “Integrated Sciences of Tantra, Hatha, and Ayurveda.” Meditation, alignment, and flow of body and breath are stressed.

Keep in mind, these styles of yoga are hatha yoga by both the Indian and Western definition. Viniyoga, Kripalu, and ISTHA would also consider themselves to be styles of vinyasa as well. While other types of yoga, e.g. Iyengar, Ashtanga, Power Yoga, Bikram, etc. are not generally thought of as hatha in the west, they are hatha yoga in the traditional sense and may be thought of as such.

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28 Aughow to do headstand (sirsasana)

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In comments past, Merka asked:  “My vinyasa instructor LOVES inversions and headstands. However, I am slightly terrified of headstands because my arms are quite shaky when I do them. Do you recommend any arm exercises, in addition to downward dog, that would help build muscle? How do I encourage my body to relax when I’m in this position?”

I’m going to backtrack on this, because it also relates to M’s comment on virtual yoga, and because it seems to me that there is a lot of mystique and self-worth tied up with sirsasana in a yoga practice. For some reason, many people seem to feel that if they can’t or don’t do headstand, they aren’t really doing yoga. I’m not suggesting this is you, Merka. It just reminds me that I know so many students who are fixated on it to the point of taking away from their overall practice. Yes, it’s cool to go upside down and there are many benefits. But it’s also very dangerous to do improperly because it can put so much weight on the neck, and those dangers can far exeed the benefits.

Sirsasana1

BKS Iyengar in headstand. Photo from haxoyoga.com

When I started doing yoga, I was quite weak. I did yoga because it relaxed me, and I had no designs on ever doing headstand, armstand, or anything I deemed fancy. But over the years (two?), a regular, well-balanced yoga practice gave me the strength and balance to do them easily. It was a natural progression that felt neither dramatic nor effortful.  And while I do practice headstead, I know much more accomplished practioners than myself who don’t do headstand because of neck issues or other concerns. My point: if you don’t feel solid and safe in headstand, don’t do it. In this case, not doing headstand is being kind to yourself, and much more yogic.

So what do you do in class if everyone else is going up, and you feel inferior because you aren’t? Or feel like your being a wimp because you could, but…? Find your breath and let it go. It’s much better to feel comfortable where you are then to hurt yourself. Headstand does not make you a better yogi or a better person. Practice dolphin to forearm plank, which most instructors teach as a strengthening option for students not going up. If you are going up, use a wall. If the teacher doesn’t provide that option, and you don’t feel comfortable going to the wall anyway, then skip it and practice at home.

I often skip headstand in class if the teacher doesn’t know me well (or vice versa) and it’s taught in the middle of the room because I have a subtle twist through my body (because of dominant sight in one eye since birth. It’s been there through development) that often isn’t noticed until headstand, and I’m not interested in having that conversation or being misguided while upside down and unsupported in the middle of a stranger’s class.  So instead I do dolphin or whatever feels appropriate to me. And no one cares.

dwipadascorpionIf you fixate on headstand without looking at why you so desire to master it, as soon as you have, you’ll forget that accomplishment and chase after the next impressive pose.  Image from dharmayogacenter.com.

Different schools have different ideas about how headstand should be done. Where I first trained, it was said that students shouldn’t be near the wall because they’d come to depend on it. I thought that was silly (training wheels, anyone?) and never tried headstand there for that reason. No way was I trying that in the middle on the floor. Other schools, like Iyengar, believe that it’s fine to have the wall behind you and come up one leg at a time when you are learning, as long is it is slow and careful, the abs are engaged, the forearms press down, and there’s no hopping. (I don’t mean press your body against the wall. I mean the wall is a few inches a way in case you fall back.) This is how I learned. Then I switched to a school that insists on coming up two legs at a time to protect the neck (which took some acclimation) but walls are fine. Yoga Journal advocates the two leg method, but suggests that hopping is okay: “Take both feet up at the same time, even if it means bending your knees and hopping lightly off the floor.” After years of safely lifting on leg at a time, I hurt my neck by “hopping lightly” with both legs. I don’t think it’s a good idea. Neither is throwing one leg up at a time, of course, or letting your head and neck take the weight.

I’m not interested in saying one way is right and another is wrong. All schools and methods are valid for their own reasons. Find one (one) that works for you and a good teacher who can guide you. Personal issues and injuries aside, you will progress to headstand when you have the strength, and you will move that into the middle of the room with the confidence and grace that come from a regular yoga practice. As they say, “Chit happens.”

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16 Auggrammar for yoga teachers

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When looking for a studio to complete my advanced training, I admit that somewhere in the process of choosing ISHTA, a deciding factor was that most of their teachers had a basic command of grammar. Perhaps I could be less judgmental, but it’s a matter of elegance. If you want your students to respect you and trust the knowledge you have to impart, it doesn’t hurt to know a few basics about words and phrases that are commonly used in yoga.

When to say “lay” and when to say “lie.” This is quite easy, as it’s generally used in present tense. The issue is not the action or the subject, it’s simply whether the verb takes a direct object. “Lay” takes a direct object, “lie” does not. Huh?

Lay your head down on the mat. Lay what? If you can answer that with a word in your sentence (your head, your hand, your iphone, yourself), use “lay.”

Lie down on the mat. Lie what? If there’s no word there to explain what (a direct object), then it’s “lie.” Lie over the bolster, not lay over the bolster.

(Note that “bolster” does not answer the question of what is to be moved.)

Fairly easy, if you quickly ask yourself if what is to be moved is in the sentence before you choose your words.

spine

Another frequent problem is vertebra vs. vertebrae. The first is singular, the second plural. We have 33 vertebrae, each one a vertebra. “Roll up to the top of your spine, stacking the vertebrae as you go.” “Roll up the spine, one vertebra at a time.” Same goes for scapula and scapulae, though scapulas is also correct plural form. Scapula is not.

I’ll refrain from some pet peeves, which aren’t exactly grammatical errors, such as suggesting the class enjoy a “juicy” hip opener. For the visual student, this is quite distracting. When not pertaining to food or weather, juicy connotes:

a. Rich in wealth, fit to be ‘sucked’ (quot. 1621); or  c. Suggestive, esp. in a sexual way; piquant, racy, sensational. colloq.

Is this really what we want to imbibe? (Definitions care of OED.)

Feel free to share your favorite yoga pet peeves. Perhaps we can learn something from them!

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