I've held off posting this... draft, but listening to David Garrigues interview with Claudia this morning (see below) persuaded me to brush it off a little. David too talks of less asana and seeing them as gestures whereas I had suggested perhaps mudras.
No, I don't really think 'Series killed asana', it's a useful tool perhaps for bringing us to asana and ultimately towards Yoga. Manju Jois mentioned to us once that while many thought his father had stopped practicing asana that wasn't the case, that his father would spend a long time in individual asana
Less can be more
After going on and on about the breath yet again and how I seem to be practicing less and less asana these days on account of breathing more slowly, kumbhaka, longer stays... pranayama, sitting.... M. asked me, why then are there so MANY asana.
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Why are there so MANY asana?
Perhaps because there are just so many birds and beasts of the earth to name them after, so many rishi/sages to honour and be reminded of.
We choose our asana just as we choose our gods, our teachers.
Practicing asana should be an encounter, a meeting, a coming together
It's not or shouldn't be a quick
"hi howyadoin, howsitgoin', seeyaaround"
but rather,
"How great to see you again, lets have coffee, lunch,...dinner, of course I have time, I'll make time".
A relationship, a correspondence rather than an a quick update and nodding acquaintance
Vajrasana, thunderbolt.... 'sacrifice post'..... sacrifice.... spend time here, laghu vajrasana, suptavajrasana, bharadvajrasana...... "know me".
"I'm listening... take your time, I'm in no hurry, nowhere better to be".
Krishnamacharya had groups of asana, and way back in Mysore he seems to have taught them often in subroutines that formed sequences perhaps but not completely fixed, never it seems as a series.
We have how Krishnamacharya taught asana but also perhaps how he himself practiced asana....
Asana for health and fitness with the faint hope perhaps that some might look for more in their asana just as he seems to have done.
He talked of long stays, fifteen minutes at least in an asana, fifteen minutes is a start, it's an encounter, we can listen to each other, learn from one another.... asana too grow, adapt, Become.
In the kumbhaka, the breath retention Krishnamacharya seemed to believe that one might know god, see god or seek for him there at least.
And if not looking for god, he suggested we might find love there, learn how to love there...
Same thing perhaps.
....and then the fixed sequence came, pedagogic requirement. Less and less breaths and taken quick, ever quicker rather than long and slow. Kumbhaka was the first to go, next came the variations, less of them and no repetitions either, gone the relaxed breaking of the ice, the gentle getting to one another in favour of a clumsy, fumbling, a lets get down to business
An imperfect enjoyment.
Asana consumerism.
It's a phase of course, the asana aren't going anywhere, they always were - waiting, all 84,000,000+, never lost, not a single one..... just unfound.
I don't need to know every one - just you.
Our mats are clearings, we can encounter otherness there if we take the time and with apologies to Ricour, perhaps...
shatter reality and reinterpret each other anew.
Did Series kill asana, I suspect it only puts them to sleep*
*In his book Yoga Mala Pattabhi Jois, as did Krishnamacharya before him, suggested we inhale and exhale as much possible and practice however many asana as we have time for, just include the final three. If we are generous in our inhalations and exhalations, it may mean we only have time for a handful of asana, half a series, less than half, Krishnamacharya would no doubt approve as might Sage Marichi....
NOTE: This post should not suggest that that I IN ANY WAY support those who criticise anyone coming at/to their practice in any other way, smugness has no place in yoga, what seems appropriate to me now may be exactly that.
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Asana as gesture from The Yoga Podcast Episode 5 with David Garrigues: The Devotional Side Of Yoga - Transcript
Claudia Altucher: What is yantra? What does that mean?
David Garrigues: Yantra is like mantra, but it's – so mantra is mind instrument, so it's a corolla of the mind, a sacred sound that you utter. And yantra is a – it has to do with form and order and a physical device for meditation or shape. And so Asana is that. It's a shape or a form, a certain ordered-pattern form and there's an aesthetic quality to it to. That it has something compelling to the eye or to the senses. And so for me, that's why the Asana can do what you're saying. It draws you in completely because it has so much interest for somebody that – I don't know. There's an aesthetic aspect to it, right?
Claudia Altucher: Yes.
David Garrigues: And that's included in movement and posture that is particularly compelling to me.
Claudia Altucher: I was lucky enough to participate in one of your workshops earlier this year and you were calling it a gesture. It's not just a pose that you're doing. It's a gesture.
David Garrigues: Yeah.
Claudia Altucher: And you said the difference between a beginner student and an intermediate student – do you remember what you said? You said it's the gesture.
David Garrigues: It's the…
Claudia Altucher: You said is that you maintain these – I guess the yantra, we could say. Would that be fair to say?
David Garrigues: Yeah. And that the yantra – to make a yantra, a skillful yantra, is to make a gesture. And that gesture has – like mudra, the word mudra, which is an important…
Claudia Altucher: What does that mean, mudra?
David Garrigues: Mudra is – well, it means seal or it has many meanings, actually, but it means like a stamp. So you – like a king when he signs his thing, he leaves his stamp. That's a mudra. But it's also a gesture, like a hand gesture they have. The classic mudras are like dancers. Indian dancers do all the hand gestures or all mudras. And then in yoga they have those – the classic ones too for meditation and things. But it's a broader term that any – all the transitions between the postures in the ashtanga system they're gestures. So you gesture between the posture. And they're alternating, opposing patterns, those gestures, that they're – so your gestures reveals one pattern when you inhale and another pattern when you exhale, and those are opposing patterns.
But then the Asana itself is a gesture. And in that way, it can be a kind of very slow unfolding gesture. It could take ten minutes to complete this gesture that is headstand or whatever you're working on.
Claudia Altucher: And then these opposing forces that happen, say, for example in the down dog where your heels are going to the ground and the seat bones are aiming towards the ceiling or even in the headstand where you're inverted and everything is upside down, learning to breathe in the face of these opposing forces, I guess that's part of what yoga is all about, right? Even when you step off the mat –
David Garrigues: Yeah. Yes.
Claudia Altucher: – maintaining that equanimity. I think you talk about equanimity in your book as well.
David Garrigues: Yeah. And so that – and it's a very curious thing, opposing forces, because they – in one sense, if you get – go right to the root of it, of yoga, the source of all that is you is completely equanimous. In fact, it seemed as, like, all equal, everything, like there's a unity that exists. And then what actually starts kind of creation or manifestation is imbalance. So form is based on imperfection and in that sense, like ignorance in a way. And so those – and the opposing forces are the quintessential pair that come right from that equanimity. And that – and so all the forms get created from just those two original forms like the yin and yang.
And so what's interesting is you have to use those opposing forces to get to the unity, to get back to it, to kind of return to this source that we've forgotten. And so the – that's how you do it, with breathing, with the inhalation and the exhalation. And like what you're saying, by stamping the heels down and lifting the sitting bones up or pushing the thigh bones back as you resist. They're everywhere, those. And then you learn how to use those to get, to find that centre line, that elusive middle that is dynamic.
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and from my interview with Claudia, Asana as Mudra
Yoga Podcast Episode 2: Anthony Grim Hall
TRANSCRIPT
[For the full episode with highlights and links click here]
[To Listen Click Here]
[For the full episode with highlights and links click here]
[To Listen Click Here]
Anthony Hall: It is kind of cold and I have been running around doing workshops for the last few weeks. I felt I have lost the degree of flexibility. In the last couple of days or two days, I’ve gone back to pretty much full Ashtanga series but I have been changing the tempo quite a bit. Because my breath is quiet long, so I cut; some postures I only take two breaths. It is pretty much same length of time as I
was been practicing the Ashtanga with same posture but my breath is longer in summers so two breath is enough there. Other postures I would treat it more as a Mudra and stay longer. I would do most of the series but then I'll change the tempo quite a bit. Yeah, some postures I’ll stay longer, some postures I’ll stay less amount of time. I’d do less Vinyasas as well so I won't necessarily jump back off for every posture or in between every side of the posture.
Claudia Azula Altucher: When you say I’ll make the posture a bit more of a Mudra, what do you mean?
Anthony Hall: There’s something strange about Krishnamacharya’s instructions in his first book which he wrote in Mysore in 1934, the same time he was teaching. It is almost as if he’s treating a posture in Mudra. In Mudra, banners are engaged; usually the exhalation could be longer, maybe twice as long. Usually in Ashtanga, there is the same length of inhalation as exhalation. In the Mudra, the exhalation can be twice as long as that. There would be usually, say a Kumbhaka in a Mudra. Bandhas will be engaged and that will be a strong focal point, negative focal point, and concentration. When you look at the Asana instructions of Krishnamacharya, it seems like almost every posture, he seems to be treating them almost as Mudras. So in Bharadvajrasana [photo of Anthony below], which is a second series posture. One knee is bent back. The other leg is in half lotus, the other foot is in half lotus. You reach around and hold on to that foot in half lotus with the arms with that foot in half lotus. Then, the other hand goes under the knee.
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It’s a deep twist. You look over say the right shoulder and that's where the twist is.
Claudia Azula Altucher: Right.
Anthony Hall: Krishnamacharya would have you look the other way. You would be looking towards the front which seems to allow more space in the chest and allow you to breath. In that posture with the head forward, you can really engage in the jalandhara bandha and chin can come down. You are able to do a Kumbhaka and he will tell you to save 12 breaths in this posture or he will suggest
Claudia Azula Altucher: When you say I’ll make the posture a bit more of a Mudra, what do you mean?
Anthony Hall: There’s something strange about Krishnamacharya’s instructions in his first book which he wrote in Mysore in 1934, the same time he was teaching. It is almost as if he’s treating a posture in Mudra. In Mudra, banners are engaged; usually the exhalation could be longer, maybe twice as long. Usually in Ashtanga, there is the same length of inhalation as exhalation. In the Mudra, the exhalation can be twice as long as that. There would be usually, say a Kumbhaka in a Mudra. Bandhas will be engaged and that will be a strong focal point, negative focal point, and concentration. When you look at the Asana instructions of Krishnamacharya, it seems like almost every posture, he seems to be treating them almost as Mudras. So in Bharadvajrasana [photo of Anthony below], which is a second series posture. One knee is bent back. The other leg is in half lotus, the other foot is in half lotus. You reach around and hold on to that foot in half lotus with the arms with that foot in half lotus. Then, the other hand goes under the knee.
It’s a deep twist. You look over say the right shoulder and that's where the twist is.
Claudia Azula Altucher: Right.
Anthony Hall: Krishnamacharya would have you look the other way. You would be looking towards the front which seems to allow more space in the chest and allow you to breath. In that posture with the head forward, you can really engage in the jalandhara bandha and chin can come down. You are able to do a Kumbhaka and he will tell you to save 12 breaths in this posture or he will suggest
12 breaths. It seems to me that he's pretty much describing the Mudra. The Asana seems to become more mudra.
See my earlier post on Mudras
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