Long title but we're off to see snow monkeys (more on that later) so need to cram the two or three posts I've had in my mind into one.
This from Richard on fb this morning, always a good reminder.
In my review of Richard Freeman and Mary Taylor's new book The Art of Vinyasa last week I think I failed to mentioned the section on the yama and niyama's. I expected these to be discussed at length in the book but the discussion is actually quite succinct, treated beautifully actually and perhaps my favourite section in the book. I might add a couple of quotes here later.
Asana having been perfected, suspension of either of the processes of drawing in external air and exhaling internal air constitutes a pranayama.(Yoga Sutra: 2.49)
Now this could mean that after perfecting ALL the asana, all 84,000 of them...
But it could also mean that after you have perfected, mastered or to use Krishnamacharya's term, become proficient in an asana you can begin to explore the suspension of the breath in the asana.
It can of course also mean both and more besides.
Is this what Krishnamacharya was up to in Yoga Makaranda (1934) with his stress on the kumbhaka's within the asana?
Uttanasana
"Following the rules for tadasana (yogasana samasthiti krama) (Figure 4.1, 4.2), stand erect. Afterwards, while exhaling the breath out slowly, bend the upper part of the body (that is, the part above the hip) little by little and place the palms down by the legs. The knees must not be even slightly bent. Raise the head upwards and fix the gaze on the tip of the nose. While doing this, draw in clean air through the nostril, hold the breath firmly and maintain this position. This is called sahitha kumbhaka...." p51 Yoga Makaranda
One of the things Krishnamacharya does a lot in Yoga Makaranda is to explore the pose before the pose, the posture before the posture.
In uttanasana above, before folding all the way down into the full expression of the posture he will raise the head up, fix the gaze and at the end of the full inhalation , suspend the breath, kumbhaka.
The asana before the asana.
And this happens a lot, in purvottanasana too, before the fold, there's the full inhalation and kumbhaka.
Paschimottanasana, the janu sirsasana's in fact any forward bend there could be another asana before the asana, no wonder there were 84,000+.
We know this of course in Ashtanga, we transition into each asana through upward and downward dog, at each stage the breath is full. In the David Robson Primary with drums I explored recently there was no escaping it, each movement, each breath for the same regular cycle of the beating of the drum.
Ashtanga Vinyasa may have misplaced Krishnamacharya's kumbhakas but we shouldn't be in such a rush to get into the next posture. Savour that preceding inhalation, milk it for all it's worth, let it lead the body whether it's helping us to stretch up off the heads of our femurs and out of our pelvis in preparation for a forward bend or perhaps in a twist, lifting and twisting with the breath opening up ever further on the chariot of Vayu.
Hint: Those tricky postures that we struggle with, 9 times out of 10 the secret is in the preceding breath, the preparation.
In exploring Yoga Makaranda I've been paying more and more attention to those preceding inhalations and their kumbhakas, staying three five, ten breaths sometimes in that posture before the posture....
the asana before the asana.
And why not, the Sanskrit vinyasa count is intended to focus attention on the inhalations and exhalations, the matching stages of the vinyasa, The count is put on hold as we move into the full expression of the asana, that's why Pattabhi Jois, Sharath, your teacher etc. switch to English to count the number of breaths you stay in the posture before picking up the Sanskrit count as you exit the asana.
There is NO reason why you shouldn't put the count on hold at any stage of the vinyasa, because each of those stages is an asana in and of itself. That's perhaps why, in Yoga Makaranda Krishnamacharya breaks down each stage of the lead in and out of an asana and treats them as stand alone asana.
You might not feel happy about exploring kumbhaka in asana but there's no reason why you can't explore a couple of extra breaths at different stages of the vinyasa. Done absentmindedly, or while distracted or in hesitation it's just faffing about...but done mindfully it's the hidden asana.
This from Richard on fb this morning, always a good reminder.
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| http://www.richardfreemanyoga.com/ |
In my review of Richard Freeman and Mary Taylor's new book The Art of Vinyasa last week I think I failed to mentioned the section on the yama and niyama's. I expected these to be discussed at length in the book but the discussion is actually quite succinct, treated beautifully actually and perhaps my favourite section in the book. I might add a couple of quotes here later.
My review of the book here
In the book Richard and Mary stack the yamas one on top on the other, one leading to the next, all of them based perhaps on Ahimisa which is ultimately described as being nice.
"Ahiṁsā, the first of the yamas, means to not kill or harm. On a simpler level, ahiṁsā just means to be nice. This refers to being nice to ourselves as well as to other beings. Because of the nature of biological life, we are largely unaware of the efect of our actions on many species, so we do the best we can, seeing ourselves in all beings and acting accordingly."
It's not THAT succinct, there's a lot more.
We should always hesitate before saying 'X is all about Y 'and think perhaps of another approach but I'm going out on a limb here to suggest that Richard's teaching is all about...., ok, so much about, ahimisa, about kindness, being nice. Being kind to ourselves in our practice, be nice to ourselves and to others, compassionate, whether to those we practice beisde, those we may teach, influence, or just come in to contact with.
My own response to Trump's win was to read Gandhi's autobiography and from Gandhi I moved to his great influence,Tolstoy and the roots of the non-violent protest movement. Tolstoy starts from the airbrushed out (he would argue) gospel precept '...do not resist evil (with evil)'. It's a tough precept to even imagine following but for Gandhi it began perhaps with not hating his the enemy but loving them, compassionate resistance
See Tolstoy's book 'What I believe'. If you're not much a Christian (which includes myself but it was the worldview I was born into so figure I should try and make as much sense of it as I can ) it can be a heavy read at times ( but not that heavy, it's Tolstoy after all) but there are some wonderful passages, my favourite is where Tolstoy suggests that Science is coming from the same place as church dogma. Thinking it is in rebellion against religion, science, Tolstoy argues, is based on the same view of the world, that it's pretty crap and there can be a better world. For christian dogma it's the next world, for Science perhaps a world created here by science and later by technology which takes me back to my old mate Heidegger (The Question Concerning Technology).
"However privileged science, with her philosophy, may boast of being the judge and the guide of intellect, she is, in reality, not its guide, but its slave. The view taken of the world is always prepared for her by religion; and science only works in the path assigned her by religion. Religion reveals the meaning of life, and science applies this meaning to the various phases of life. And, therefore, if religion gives a false meaning to life, science, reared in this religious creed, will apply this false meaning to the life of man.
The teaching of the church gave, as the basis of life, the right of man to perfect bliss – bliss that is to be attained, not by the individual efforts of man, but by something beyond his own control; and this view of human life became the basis of our European science and philosophy.
Religion, science, and public opinion all unanimously tell us that the life we lead is a bad one, but that the doctrine, which teaches us to endeavor to improve, and thus make our life itself better, is impracticable". Tolstoy: What i believe p41-42
That may be being unfair to science but it's a wonderful characterisation to chew over. Tolstoy argues that what we should be really doing is following who he refers to as the Greeks, the Hindus, Confucius, the Hebrews, Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus and rather than creating another world, work on learning how best to live the life we have, in the world that we have. For Tolstoy Christ gives us the key for that, do not resist evil (with evil)... ahimsa.
I was reminded of this because in the YogaGlo class of Richard's that I was following along with this morning he mentioned that in baddha konasana, for some who are flexible, folding over might be an option. For those who were blessed with being less flexible, they might follow vicarious yoga. and watch, with affection, those who can and take delight in their practice.
Something along those lines.
Vicarious yoga
: )
I thought this was a good lesson too for those who get tapped out of one of Sharath's led intermediate classes, vicarious yoga.
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| https://www.yogaglo.com |
my YogaGlo review of Richard's classes here
The class was the one above, Vinyasa Wave: Pause and Reverse. I particularly enjoyed it because Richard is talking about, the un-named postures between postures. In a post a few years back (see below) I wrote about the hidden asana. How there are perhaps an infinite number of asana between one asana and the next. At any point we might stop, pause and notice that the position we are in is a posture with opposing forces and might be treated as an asana,.... that we might breathe there.
This is important I think because for many marichiyasan D, say, may not be available to us, the variations David Swenson gives us say in his book the Ashtanga manual may be considered asana themselves rather than variations. Krishnamacharya certainly saw it that way, we have only to look at all the variations of asana his long time student Ramaswami presents in his book The Complete Book of Vinyasa Yoga.
But also, the extra breaths we might take as we work our way towards an asana. Rather than force our way into a complex posture on the count like Marichiyasana D, or in the class above, Baddha konasana, we can take as many breaths as we wish as we work a little close towards it (but make each breath formal, complete see my previous post). At each breath we might consider the point at which we are, an asana, a hidden asana, unnamed.... but as Richard mentions, all the best asana are unnamed.
Thinking of all these hidden postures is perhaps a way to beat ourselves up a little less, to be kinder, nicer to ourselves ( and our students), ahimisa.
*
Re the snow monkeys.
See David Attenborough's Life for the BBC. Episode 10, 8 minutes in,
Off to see the snow monkeys, long ten hour journey via local trains.
I hope to be waving at this live-cam at 10am japan time on the 23rd Dec.
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| http://www.jigokudani-yaenkoen.co.jp/livecam/monkey/index.htm |
I can imagine that some might be dismayed at all those tourists ( soon to be us included) giving the monkey's no privacy during there bath.
As it happens the Monkey's used to come and stare at the locals in a hot spring further down the valley, one money eventually plucking up the nerve to try it him or herself, others followed. It was decided that the monkey's would get their own hot spring built, the one you see above.
And as David point's out in the BBC documentary, these monkeys are hierarchical, only those at the top of the pecking order get to enter the bath the others stand around shivering along with the tourists but with one might suppose somewhat less delight. Not much ahimisa among the Nihonzaru, the Japanese macaques
*
Perhaps this was the earlier post I was thinking of...
Hidden Asana: The Asana before the Asana
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| Notice the bhrumadhya-drishti above, one of the' vital' marma points, an internal drishti employed here during kumbhaka....another Rabbit hole |
Now this could mean that after perfecting ALL the asana, all 84,000 of them...
But it could also mean that after you have perfected, mastered or to use Krishnamacharya's term, become proficient in an asana you can begin to explore the suspension of the breath in the asana.
It can of course also mean both and more besides.
Is this what Krishnamacharya was up to in Yoga Makaranda (1934) with his stress on the kumbhaka's within the asana?
Uttanasana
"Following the rules for tadasana (yogasana samasthiti krama) (Figure 4.1, 4.2), stand erect. Afterwards, while exhaling the breath out slowly, bend the upper part of the body (that is, the part above the hip) little by little and place the palms down by the legs. The knees must not be even slightly bent. Raise the head upwards and fix the gaze on the tip of the nose. While doing this, draw in clean air through the nostril, hold the breath firmly and maintain this position. This is called sahitha kumbhaka...." p51 Yoga Makaranda
One of the things Krishnamacharya does a lot in Yoga Makaranda is to explore the pose before the pose, the posture before the posture.
In uttanasana above, before folding all the way down into the full expression of the posture he will raise the head up, fix the gaze and at the end of the full inhalation , suspend the breath, kumbhaka.
The asana before the asana.
And this happens a lot, in purvottanasana too, before the fold, there's the full inhalation and kumbhaka.
Paschimottanasana, the janu sirsasana's in fact any forward bend there could be another asana before the asana, no wonder there were 84,000+.
We know this of course in Ashtanga, we transition into each asana through upward and downward dog, at each stage the breath is full. In the David Robson Primary with drums I explored recently there was no escaping it, each movement, each breath for the same regular cycle of the beating of the drum.
Ashtanga Vinyasa may have misplaced Krishnamacharya's kumbhakas but we shouldn't be in such a rush to get into the next posture. Savour that preceding inhalation, milk it for all it's worth, let it lead the body whether it's helping us to stretch up off the heads of our femurs and out of our pelvis in preparation for a forward bend or perhaps in a twist, lifting and twisting with the breath opening up ever further on the chariot of Vayu.
Hint: Those tricky postures that we struggle with, 9 times out of 10 the secret is in the preceding breath, the preparation.
In exploring Yoga Makaranda I've been paying more and more attention to those preceding inhalations and their kumbhakas, staying three five, ten breaths sometimes in that posture before the posture....
the asana before the asana.
And why not, the Sanskrit vinyasa count is intended to focus attention on the inhalations and exhalations, the matching stages of the vinyasa, The count is put on hold as we move into the full expression of the asana, that's why Pattabhi Jois, Sharath, your teacher etc. switch to English to count the number of breaths you stay in the posture before picking up the Sanskrit count as you exit the asana.
There is NO reason why you shouldn't put the count on hold at any stage of the vinyasa, because each of those stages is an asana in and of itself. That's perhaps why, in Yoga Makaranda Krishnamacharya breaks down each stage of the lead in and out of an asana and treats them as stand alone asana.
You might not feel happy about exploring kumbhaka in asana but there's no reason why you can't explore a couple of extra breaths at different stages of the vinyasa. Done absentmindedly, or while distracted or in hesitation it's just faffing about...but done mindfully it's the hidden asana.