It strikes me now that only one of these postures is worth my time and that’s the first, Maha Mudra, why did I waste so much time and energy on all the others?
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Is it really to keep us coming back to the mat or is it all a bit of a con, are we being distracted from what we first found when we practiced Primary. When I look back at my previous post I’m reminded of how I was more struck by the meditative quality of the practice than the actual asana, the asana madness came later, seduced by the awareness that my middle aged recently obese body could do these strange and wonderful contortions. Are we led astray? Did I lead myself astray, it was a home practice after all. And don’t we alway end up back at Primary asana anyway, sooner or later, whether from injury or age or self awareness?
These days, when practicing Primary, I’ll tend to skip even Janu Sirsasana A an B and just spend quality time in Maha Mudra instead with Kumbhaka after the inhalation (I might include C and D, I might not). All these postures, aren’t they a distraction? Jois said they were for Instagram ( OK, he actually said demonstration).
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Above: The photos in the poster were all work in progress photos, this was before Instagram. However I too succumbed to fancy asana in fancy location, the one above in Santorini to promote Manduka's new blue mat .
Jois inherited From Krishnamacharya, lists of Primary and Intermediate asana, which he kept pretty much in the same order but practiced as fixed series. He also inherited a rag bag of what Krishnamacharya referred to as ‘Proficient ‘ postures that Jois employed as an Advanced series, then it seems to have become Advanced A and Advanced B and finally 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th. That’s a lot of demonstration asana, I’ll ask it agai, have we been, are we being, led astray?
Exploring these asana was fun though, I admit it, and we can often use perhaps the distraction in our lives. There is a time though, surely, to put the toys away or perhaps not even take them out in the first place. And on reflection the Advanced asana were actually easy, no really, all that work on Kapo and dropping back over the years, the leg behind head work, easy compared to just sitting with the breath, getting beyond the monotony and relishing the space to be found there. I let my Pranayama slip a little, a lot, after coming back off nights and finding myself with less time in the mornings, it was a bugger to get it back again, to just sit and breathe rather than just knock out some asana. There was time of course, it was just harder, it is just harder, just sitting has always been harder than the most mind blowing arm balance.
Krishnamacharya wrote that they (‘advanced’ asana - are they really advanced or just intricate?) were unnecessary for most but that a few practitioners should practice them, so that they were not lost again. I asked a question of Krishnamacharya once on the blog “Hey Krishnamacharya, is there really any point to putting my leg behind my head?” ( you can google for the post or http://grimmly2007.blogspot.jp/2015/09/convince-me-krishnamacharya-are-there.html ). He replied via Yoga Makaranda (Mysore 1934) that these postures could benefit the different chakras, I’m still not convinced.
I originally made up this Leg behind head sheet to show how Krishnamacharya seems to have taught, not in series like Jois but in groups of asana. If you had a nice Janu Sirsasana then he might lead you to a basic leg behind head posture and if proficient then he would ‘rediscover’ more leg behind head postures and no doubt use you in his demonstrations. Krishnamacharya was of course trying to promote Yoga that had fallen into disfavour. These days we tend to use these asana to promote ourselves (yep, done it, allowed my playing the flute with my leg behind my head to sit on a workshop flyer) rather than Yoga. Krishnamacharya fell into the same trap of the rest of us, rather than disclose Yoga he seems to have unintentionally hidden it under a pile of manure. Note the last photo isn’t me but a young BKS Iyengar from Krishnamacharya’s 1938
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In the past I've asked if we are at fault with Instagram and social media but perhaps now I'm asking if they too were at blame, Jois certainly with his four series of advanced postures, Iyengar, but Krishnamacharya too. In seeking to promote yoga through asana perhaps he buried it away, hid it even further from sight just as perhaps the Hatha yogi's did before him with all their tantric practices, taking us ever further from Patanjali. Ashtanga, it isn't perhaps what it says on the box. It's a thought.
Is it really to keep us coming back to the mat or is it all a bit of a con, are we being distracted from what we first found when we practiced Primary. When I look back at my previous post I’m reminded of how I was more struck by the meditative quality of the practice than the actual asana, the asana madness came later, seduced by the awareness that my middle aged recently obese body could do these strange and wonderful contortions. Are we led astray? Did I lead myself astray, it was a home practice after all. And don’t we alway end up back at Primary asana anyway, sooner or later, whether from injury or age or self awareness?
These days, when practicing Primary, I’ll tend to skip even Janu Sirsasana A an B and just spend quality time in Maha Mudra instead with Kumbhaka after the inhalation (I might include C and D, I might not). All these postures, aren’t they a distraction? Jois said they were for Instagram ( OK, he actually said demonstration).
Above: The photos in the poster were all work in progress photos, this was before Instagram. However I too succumbed to fancy asana in fancy location, the one above in Santorini to promote Manduka's new blue mat .
Jois inherited From Krishnamacharya, lists of Primary and Intermediate asana, which he kept pretty much in the same order but practiced as fixed series. He also inherited a rag bag of what Krishnamacharya referred to as ‘Proficient ‘ postures that Jois employed as an Advanced series, then it seems to have become Advanced A and Advanced B and finally 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th. That’s a lot of demonstration asana, I’ll ask it agai, have we been, are we being, led astray?
Exploring these asana was fun though, I admit it, and we can often use perhaps the distraction in our lives. There is a time though, surely, to put the toys away or perhaps not even take them out in the first place. And on reflection the Advanced asana were actually easy, no really, all that work on Kapo and dropping back over the years, the leg behind head work, easy compared to just sitting with the breath, getting beyond the monotony and relishing the space to be found there. I let my Pranayama slip a little, a lot, after coming back off nights and finding myself with less time in the mornings, it was a bugger to get it back again, to just sit and breathe rather than just knock out some asana. There was time of course, it was just harder, it is just harder, just sitting has always been harder than the most mind blowing arm balance.
Krishnamacharya wrote that they (‘advanced’ asana - are they really advanced or just intricate?) were unnecessary for most but that a few practitioners should practice them, so that they were not lost again. I asked a question of Krishnamacharya once on the blog “Hey Krishnamacharya, is there really any point to putting my leg behind my head?” ( you can google for the post or http://grimmly2007.blogspot.jp/2015/09/convince-me-krishnamacharya-are-there.html ). He replied via Yoga Makaranda (Mysore 1934) that these postures could benefit the different chakras, I’m still not convinced.
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| See this post which looks at most of the leg behind head postures in the poster this way, with a photo from Yoga makaranda and Krishnamacharya's list of supposed benefits http://grimmly2007.blogspot.jp/2015/09/convince-me-krishnamacharya-are-there.html |
I originally made up this Leg behind head sheet to show how Krishnamacharya seems to have taught, not in series like Jois but in groups of asana. If you had a nice Janu Sirsasana then he might lead you to a basic leg behind head posture and if proficient then he would ‘rediscover’ more leg behind head postures and no doubt use you in his demonstrations. Krishnamacharya was of course trying to promote Yoga that had fallen into disfavour. These days we tend to use these asana to promote ourselves (yep, done it, allowed my playing the flute with my leg behind my head to sit on a workshop flyer) rather than Yoga. Krishnamacharya fell into the same trap of the rest of us, rather than disclose Yoga he seems to have unintentionally hidden it under a pile of manure. Note the last photo isn’t me but a young BKS Iyengar from Krishnamacharya’s 1938
In my defence, there was actually a point to the flute photos, see this post
In the past I've asked if we are at fault with Instagram and social media but perhaps now I'm asking if they too were at blame, Jois certainly with his four series of advanced postures, Iyengar, but Krishnamacharya too. In seeking to promote yoga through asana perhaps he buried it away, hid it even further from sight just as perhaps the Hatha yogi's did before him with all their tantric practices, taking us ever further from Patanjali. Ashtanga, it isn't perhaps what it says on the box. It's a thought.