From the Arcives: July 19, 2016 What is Ashtanga?

What is Ashtanga? 

Have you ever practiced Ashtanga Yoga? No? Have you ever practiced vinyasa, flow, or power? These methods are all very closely related. What exactly is the relationship among these yoga asana modalities? Let’s take a look … but to do so we have to go back, way back, back in time and to a place called India. Heard of it? 

In 1888 a man named Sri T. Krishnamacharya was born. Read more about him on krishnamacharya.net We now refer to him as the father of modern yoga and he was responsible for the revival of yoga asana practice as we know it today. Legend tells that he learned the method from ancient papyrus scrolls of unknown age provided by his teacher, Ramamohan Brahmachari, in a cave in the Himalayas. Intriguing, isn’t it? The method he taught was Vinyasa Yoga. Vinyasa refers to the interconnection of breath and movement and dynamic sequencing where each asana or posture is linked by specific transitions, creating a constant flow where from the first breath and movement to the last there is steadiness and continuity, allowing for elements of moving meditation and pranayama practice. It was a method of therapy and healing and a way to integrate the physical body into spiritual practices of the modern (at that time) yogi. His many students spread out into the world teaching methods based on their personal experiences as students and as teachers. We won’t go into all of those divergent methods - that’s a topic for a much longer article - but I will drop some names right here: B.K.S. Iyengar, Sri Desikachar, Indra Devi (a woman!), B.N.S. Iyengar, and Sri K. Pattabhi Jois. 

Sri K. Pattabhi Jois took over Krishnamacharya’s teachings in Mysore, India when the master moved away (and continued to teach, by the way). The method that Jois inherited from his teacher and then further developed came to be known as Ashtanga Yoga. Ashtanga is set sequences of postures, the same poses done in the same order, every time. The organization is progressive so that each asana prepares the body, nervous system, mind, and personality for what follows. It is very structured and intentional and has been practiced very much the same way - with some changes dictated by experience and time and thousands of students - since the early 20th century. So, like … a hundred years or so. Ashtanga is traditionally practiced in the Mysore method (named after the city in India that is the heart and home of the lineage). Mysore is a self-practice approach in which each student moves through the Ashtanga sequence as they have been taught, in their own time, to their own breath. The teacher is available to provide guidance, instruct, and introduce new postures as is appropriate for each student’s individual journey.

It is only since the 1970’s and 80’s that Ashtanga began to spread in the west and specifically America. In the 90’s, some students of Ashtanga began to imagine other approaches to yoga asana and the Vinyasa method. Particularly they wanted to alter the sequencing, be more creative and free from the structure that was Ashtanga. These new methods came to be known by the more general term Vinyasa as they maintained the dynamic linking nature of movement, and focus on breath, but could not be called Ashtanga as they did not maintain the set sequence. The term “Vinyasa” became westernized into “Flow” meaning basically the same thing in a non-sanskrit kinda way. Other students of Ashtanga focused on the dynamic, athleticism of the Ashtanga practice and chose to organize their sequences in a way that prioritized power and endurance, hence “Power” yoga was born. Others blended what they knew from Ashtanga with other lineages entirely, like Sivananda (again, a topic for another time) which is how Jivamukti was born, among others. 

Even today students of the “traditional” methods, those with a strong lineage and tradition of parampara (receiving transference of knowledge directly from a master teacher), are creating their own approach to this ancient practice of self discovery and transformation. At its purest, yoga is a spiritual practice that leads us to awareness and experience of our true nature as divine beings. But whatever your reason for choosing to get on your mat, yoga has benefit for that as well. And whether you choose power, flow, Vinyasa, Iyengar, or Ashtanga, you can offer thanks to the father, Krishnamacharya.

From the Archives: July 12, 2009 A Gift From India

From the Archives: July 12, 2009

“A Gift from India” 

We have all come to the yoga practice for a myriad of reasons, each of us with different intentions. At some point when you have practiced long enough with consistency you realize that the practice of yoga is about going inward and learning about the Self.  Who am I?  That is the question and yoga has the answer.   Within the experiences of the body we come to our first road blocks or obstructions and learn that these can be overcome.  Yoga shows us our habits over and over again until we learn new methods to retrain our bodies and develop a deeper awareness of how the body moves.  While recently spending a month in India I realized that India herself offers the same lessons.  She shows you to yourself without sugar-coating or perfume.  Any patterns or habits become clear and unavoidable giving you the opportunity to react differently and to learn something new.  

Our ego, which is only a distraction though a strong one, is a way of identifying ourselves with things outside of the Self.  The true Self is beyond labels or competition and it is present only in the moment of the experience.  Doing an asana practice, we learn that we have the strength and awareness to work through physical pain and resistance.  Through consistent asana practice over a long period of time we work from places of tension, stiffness, weakness and fatigue into places of freedom, release, strength and stability.  As we overcome the obstacles of asana we learn that the negative voice of ego resistance can be silenced or at least turned down significantly and we can keep moving.  The way we look at our bodies and our practice begins to change without our even trying.  No matter the pose we are working on or our abilities regarding that pose, the real lessons are about how we react to the challenge.    

In the same way spending time in India has been for me a magnifying glass that puts my tendencies into glaring perspective.  Mysore, India is home to Ashtanga yoga and Guruji, Sri K. Pattabhi Jois.  It is the base of operations that is the heart and soul of the Ashtanga practice and a location of pilgrimage for those that practice the Ashtanga yoga method.  Mysore is a place apart from the real world and as a yoga student preparing and planning for practice in Mysore you detach and isolate yourself from your life back at home.  Leaving behind your job, family, obligations, routines and schedules you land in this community where the only thing you have to do and be responsible for is your yoga.  In a culture so different from what we know here in the west the only thing that has any familiarity is yourself or at least who you know yourself to be.  

Like being on your yoga mat, while in Mysore, India you are given the freedom to be completely self-focused and directed inward.  When the only thing you have to do each day is get up and practice the rest of your time becomes an opportunity to do only that which you choose to do.  You learn about how much time you need alone to feel comfortable socializing with people you hardly know.  You learn of your tolerance, acceptance and compassion for anything different from what you are familiar with just by interactions with your surroundings while walking to breakfast or going to the nearby chai (Indian tea) stand.    You begin to see the patterns of what you are drawn to and discover where your pleasure and your inspiration lie. It is an enlightening process to see what you choose when you have complete freedom.  If you find you are making choices out of some sense of obligation this becomes crystal clear.  There is no boss, parent or spouse watching over you, no child to create a model for, and no one to judge you but yourself.  When you look deeply inside you will see what you truly value, what behavior feels right, what behavior feels wrong but that you choose to do anyway and the reasons for your actions.

With no one having expectations of who you are beyond your presence and earnestness on the mat, there is freedom to do, be and live differently.  You learn what you expect of yourself and you learn compassion.  Just as the truth of your bind in Marichyasana D is not something you can fake, the truth of who you are in the world is not easy to fake when presented with the conditions of Mysore.  There is no hiding.  Negative or unhealthy patterns become obvious as well as those you simply no longer need.  Now you are faced with the choice to change or not.   Our thoughts extend into new worlds of possibility and we accept the challenges that come our way as opportunities for growth.

When the ego identifies falsely with things outside of the Self it might be useful to notice what it attaches to when you are alone in a foreign land focusing on your yoga. Simply seeing where the ego tries to find its strength when it is cast adrift will be a powerful learning process. Without the patterns and habits for the ego to fall back on you are able to identify with what is more immediate to your experience and to what is more proximal to your center.  When you can release the world of the familiar where your attachments breed expectation and judgement, whether by stepping onto your mat or by traveling across the planet to Mysore, India, you can find the truth of who you are.  You identify with what is more true to the purest Self.  That is a gift of this practice and a gift of going to Mysore, to Guruji, and to the source of Ashtanga yoga.

From the Archives: Jan 8, 2009 What Is Yoga?

From the Archives: January 8, 2009

What is Yoga?

  The body, mind, and heart are inseparable.  What happens in one has an effect in the others.  They are all aspects of a whole, but we are more than a sum of these parts.  We exist in a physical world.  Our most obvious environment is that which we can touch and see.  With a yoga practice, we begin our intimate journey at the surface, the most gross level, the body.  Yoga is a journey within.  Over time, through a systematized process, and with the guidance of a qualified instructor, we move from what we know “is possible” through what we think “might be possible” and into what “certainly no human being is really capable of!”   It is a process that takes us across the terrain of the body, through the tossings and turnings of the mind, and past the foggy depths of emotion.  We come to the center, beyond these obstacles and distractions to discover ourselves in our purest, truest form.

Through asana we open and strengthen our body, mind, and heart.  Asana is the physical application of yoga.  Moving our bodies into and through various postures,  holding these living sculptures for several breaths or minutes before releasing and moving on to the next.  I myself practice the Ashtanga method as taught by Sri K. Pattabhi Jois and his grandson Sharath Rangaswamy.  This process, an intimate journey inward, moves from the gross to the most subtle.  In our asana practice, particularly in Ashtanga, the breath is incorporated.    It is synchronized to our movement, there to facilitate our effort or release of effort, our expanding or contracting.  The process of inhaling and exhaling moves energy, moves our awareness and draws us yet deeper inward.  The breath is a natural link between the awareness of the mind and the sensations of the body.  It is something that happens without our thinking of it, but also, we can override this automatic process and move the breath as we choose to, expanding our lungs more deeply with each inhale, lengthening the exhales, strengthening our diaphragm.  The whole time we can feel the breath passing the nostrils, the throat, filling the lungs. You may already notice that the breath changes depending on how much exertion is required of our physical body, our state of mind, and also our emotional state.  This relationship can be reversed.  As we learn to control and manipulate the path of the breath we also manipulate the reactions of the nervous system.  As we steady, lengthen, and calm the breath, our nervous system responds, relaxing the body, steadying the mind and bringing peace to our heart.  This is the pranayama practice. 

Yoga is traditionally undertaken only with the guidance of a Guru or qualified teacher.  Their job is to lead you through the process of self-discovery.  They have been there and done it.      It is not possible for you to anticipate the lessons you will face or what you will need to absorb them and grow.  A teacher is there to recognize the patterns that resist you, to show you what is possible and also to help you find your humility.  Through consistent asana practice over a long period of time we work from places of tension and stiffness or weakness and fatigue to places of freedom and release, to strength and stability.  While the asana practice has many health benefits that could be in and of themselves the purpose, there is more to it than that.   Within the experiences of the body we come to our first road blocks, our first uncrossable obstructions and learn that these can be overcome.  No matter the pose we are working on or our abilities regarding that pose, the real lessons are about how we react to the challenge.  When faced with resistance we learn what we need to move beyond.  Maybe our tendency is to retreat when actually more effort is required.  Or possibly the opposite, we use too much physical effort when we really need to just relax.  Without a teacher, we can become stuck without realizing we’ve retreated into habit.  In some cases we can actually cause injury by approaching something incorrectly.    Yoga shows us our habits, over and over again, until we learn new methods, retraining our bodies and developing a deeper awareness of how the body moves.  The challenges though are yours to face, a guru only gives you the tools to forge your path through the tangled brush that bars your way, to help you find your yoga for yourself.  The body transforms and how we perceive of the body transforms.  The body is, in a way, a training ground for more subtle challenges of the mind and emotions, and as we work through asana we are already beginning to incorporate these other aspects into our adventure.

So, as we struggle with a particular posture we not only feel our muscles straining, joints aching but we come to notice the dialogue dancing loudly in our mind.  What is that dialogue and is it really truth?  “This is too hard!”  “I’ll never get through this.”  “My arms are just too short for this pose.”  “I ate too much chocolate last night.”   Our ego, lovely companion on our journey, and only a distraction, though a strong one, is a way of identifying ourselves with things outside of the Self.  It is the ego that says, “I am too lazy to do yoga.”  or “If she can do this posture, I can certainly do it!”  It is the nature of the mind to do this.  Don't try to fight it or stop the chatter, only avoid attaching to those thoughts, send them into the background and shift your focus into the here and now.  The true Self is beyond labels or competition, it is present only in the moment of the experience.  A pose that is easy today may not be accessible tomorrow and we have to learn to accept that, to release expectation and be with the pose, be with the breath and our thoughts in that moment.  As we overcome one obstacle, then another, and then another, we learn that this negative voice of resistance can be silenced or at least turned down significantly, and we can keep moving.  The way we look at ourselves and perceive of the world around us begins to change without our even trying.  We stop the internal judgments and expectation and this expands beyond our skin to include those around us.    Just as the body was changeable, the mind is too.  Our thoughts extend into new worlds of possibility and we accept the challenges that come our way as opportunities for growth.  In a posture where the body is screaming for release and the mind is begging for escape we gain the strength to stay, one more moment, one more breath and let go of the fight.  In this moment, there is silence.

Beyond the body, beyond the mind, there is another dirty window through which we look at life, putting a haze over truth.  Emotion.   We store emotional experience in our bodies and we give stories to it with our minds.  As we open our bodies, as we open our minds we also open our hearts, often with very intense results.  When we go to new depths in a physical posture, overcoming self-doubt and judgment of the mind we reach that place of inner silence, and what we may find there is raw emotional experience.  Pain, fear, love, pity, anger, joy.  Whatever it is, it is brought to the forefront of our awareness to be released.  Sometimes we need to do further work, with assistance or with personal internal processing.  Sometimes the practice itself is enough to release the stored emotion.  A teacher once said to me that it is like a clog in a drainpipe.  When you’ve pulled out the clog, it may be necessary to examine it.  You discover that, “Oh, this is a hand towel.  I probably shouldn’t send that down the drain again, it will get stuck.”  Yet, other times it is simply enough that you’ve removed the obstacle and the passage is clear.  Toss the offensive thing away and move on.  Doing an asana practice, we have already learned that we have the strength and awareness to work through physical pain and resistance.  We have also learned how to discern the difference between self defeating thought patterns and our true beliefs.  Here, now, is the opportunity to work through emotional pain and resistance, to move past emotional patterns that have been unhealthy or that we simply no longer need.  

If the heart is opened through this process of yoga,  it is also, like the body and mind, strengthened.  We come to learn that we are affected only as we choose to be.  That it is the Self beyond the body, mind, and heart that is truly experiencing and can receive without reaction, can give without loss, can simply BE within the storms occurring around it.  Through the yoga practice, its struggles as well as triumphs, we gain compassion for ourselves and extend that compassion to those around us.  After all, we all hurt, we all have patterns that keep us stuck and expectations that lead to disappointment.  We learn to honestly, purely love ourselves and from that place we can offer love to others, allowing love to be an abundant flowing through.  The ego, sitting there in the passenger seat, becomes more and more sleepy and we begin to forget he is there.  He is no longer trying to control our choices, no longer shouting directions or attempting to grab the wheel.

On this road called yoga we make our way past physical challenges, mental distraction, and emotional blocks.  We discover the interconnectedness of body, mind and spirit.  Whatever happens within the realm of one, also has an effect in all the others.  It is not possible to isolate or categorize our human experience.    One event is intricately woven into and throughout the Self.  Through the process of a yoga practice we come to understand these connections.  Actually we come to understand that it is less a matter of separate things linked together and rather that it is one entity, the Self, the purest truest form of the Self that simply experiences its world through these differing filters.  It is this Self that yoga leads us to, introduces us to, makes us familiar with. The process itself is teaching us about ourselves.  That is it really, what this yoga stuff is all about.  It is a process of learning who we are, that we are not our bodies, we are not our minds or our emotions.  Who we are is something beyond all of that.  If at our core, in our most pure form we are an expression of tolerance, acceptance, compassion and peace, then we can see that expression at the core of all beings.  Beyond their own filters of physical abilities or inabilities, distracting and deceptive mental dialogue, and emotional wounds and protection mechanisms, the person is the same.  We are each of us the same.  When we sit, silent, our breath moving steadily deeply, our awareness drawn inward, awareness of the Self is allowed.  We can sit in our center and our edges soften and blur into the world around us.  There is equanimity and oneness.  This is the experience of meditation.  The Self is always there, it always has been, we are not attempting to create something new.  Yoga gives us the means to remove the debris so we can see clearly and so that our light is allowed to shine brightly outward.   

Loosing Your Religion

A christian friend recently told me what a christian doctor of hers said about yoga. The doctor used to practice yoga and meditation, for years actually and felt he received great benefit from it (the benefits were not described) but he also found himself to be loosing his religion (again details not described). He concluded that yoga was the work of the devil and quit immediately and also, evidently, took to advising his clients of its dangers. At the time this little tidbit was shared with me, I sort of chuckled and thought - “well, sure, yoga WILL give you another perspective on religion.”  But for some reason it has stuck with me.

I have been through a sort of evolution in my perspective on yoga within the framework of spirituality and religion. In the beginning, I believed it to be non-dogmatic, spiritual but not religious, able to be easily reconciled with the belief systems of all and any religions. Then I started to realize that is does hold a systematic structure of beliefs and principles that define its practice - dogma. So I would describe it as a spiritual philosophy. Maybe it IS a religion -  a set of beliefs and values organized into a system of doctrine and practice. Sounds like yoga. In fact a yoga teacher and friend of mine, who came to the yoga practice with an agnosticism that was very resistant to the formal idea of God and religion, has in recent years opened herself up to a new faith and relationship with God. And she greatly attributes this to the yoga practice. The yoga revealed to her the truth of God. I myself, as a young adult, was greatly resistant to what I called at the time “organized religion” and even the word “God” especially with a capital “G”! I believed in a great mystical power that was the source of creation, but I hated the personifications of religion. Through years of the yoga practice I softened and my attitude towards religion. I became more allowing, more compassionate and I found myself saying the word “god” again when talking about my own belief system. But is yoga also potentially a destroyer of religion? What was it about yoga that had this doctor questioning or releasing his faith?

I think it has to do with the primary intention of a yoga practice that is to guide our awareness to the true nature of the self. We begin to see ourselves as perfect expressions of divine nature. As we see ourselves this way, we can’t help but acknowledge others as the same and then also all aspects of nature and the universe as divine manifestation. This is compassion and connection and oneness and includes people’s characterizations of God. As our vision and perception of God becomes all encompassing, how can we fully subscribe to any one specific set of dogma, labels and definitions? How can we limit ourselves to one label, one book of teachings, one name for God when there are so many that reveal the same message, the same truth? It is fear then, fear of abandoning our history, our personal, familial heritage. It is an understanding that falls just short of true oneness and awareness of our human, and preceding divine, heritage. We are all godly in nature, all expression of that are welcome.

Good Enough

Every yoga community has it’s culture. In my decade or so as an instructor, I have taught Ashtanga Yoga in a few different cities: Chicago, Miami, Philadelphia, and visited many others for workshops and events. Each community has certain characteristics regarding their approach to practice, to discipline, to asana, to ego, etc. Of course there are aspects of each individual that may contradict the whole but when in the room with a group there is often an overall sense of that group’s identity. Maybe it is intellectual and skeptical. Maybe it is driven and overeager. Maybe it is experimental and noncommittal. Each time I sink into the experiences of a new community it causes me to reflect on my own approach to practice, my own personal culture.

I have always considered myself to be a bit lazy. I know Guruji used to say only lazy people cannot practice Ashtanga yoga, yet here I am. I am the person that really, I mean REALLY, struggles with a consistent home practice. I can come up with a million rationalizations why I just can’t practice: “Ooops I already ate something, I can’t practice now!” “The kids NEED me this morning.” “I practiced yesterday” “I have to be somewhere in three hours, I just don’t have the time.” And then if I do make it to my mat, I tend to practice just good enough: “Primary Series is good enough” “Half Second is good enough” “Didn’t catch my landing in karandavasana, but that was good enough” “mayurasana was a mess (always is), but it was good enough” Because I have realized my tendency to settle samskara long ago, I do my best to first get into a shala with a teacher - it really changes everything for my motivation, intention, accountability - and second, not give in to the laziness of being satisfied with good enough when I am practicing at home, which lately is very very often.

Recently I am realizing that it isn’t really the urge to require so little of myself that is my practice culture, it is the resisting of it that characterizes me. I mean, maybe Guruji was right, lazy people cannot do this practice. And maybe I was not in fact lazy. I had a practice that stretched into third series, a lazy person would not have journeyed that far, right? A lazy person would not have chosen the physically, mentally, and emotionally demanding path of instructor. So I have misdiagnosed myself. I am not lazy after all, I am quite determined, quite motivated - at least enough to overcome what maybe most of us feel with regards to discipline and a committed yoga practice. It is the overcoming that defines us, not the challenge. That being said, what is the progress we are striving for in our practice anyway?

After second baby, I had faced a possible truth that I may never practice third series again. That it was a practice for a time in my life that had passed. I accepted it, with grief and a lot of ego resistance. But then something amazing happened! I started practicing with a teacher for the first time since beginning my journey as a parent. My practice progressed steadily and quickly, and about a year and a half after birthing my second boy, I was again practicing my third series postures!

It was a bit mind blowing, perception altering, to accept a new truth - that nothing is certain, all things are possible. Then shortly after reaching the point in my practice that I had been before kids, a new revelation. While the postures felt familiar, accomplishable, some even easy… the practice as a whole, full second through a small handful of postures of third, thoroughly. wiped. me. out. As a mom who had to leave the shala to go home to two little ones in the getting-into-everything stage and the needs-mommy-for-everything stage, I wondered if I could maintain it. But why did I have to? Serendipitously, due to schedule issues and circumstances at home, I had to shift my practices from the shala to the garage. And with my previously mentioned tendency towards “good enough” I soon settled into a practice that excluded my newly regained third series postures. And it felt great! It felt right. I am now confident that third series, and maybe beyond, is something that is available to me in the future of my practice but am comfortable that the time is not NOW.

I look at the culture I am currently teaching in and see students that are so enthusiastic for that next pose, the next physical challenge, referencing superstars on instagram, or other students in the same mysore room, asking about handstand technique and drop backs. Will they realize eventually, that progress in our practice is not about how many postures we do, or even about how well we execute them - not really? Progress is about deepening our understanding of ourselves, and the opportunity for that is available in surya namaskar just as readily as it is in tic tics. I am reminded of something Sharath spoke about in conference during one of my trips to practice in Mysore. A student asked about something Guruji used to say about the practice - that the more stupid the student, the further into the 6 series he/she would have to practice to reach enlightenment. Sharath laughed and said then he must be the most stupid. And he clarified saying yes, while many need more, there is enough to work with in Primary series alone, even just surya namaskar, to guide a student to Samadhi, if the student is devoted and focused. So rest easy, whatever your practice, it is in fact, good enough.