yoga styles, part two

[Guest guest]

ASHTANGA, VINYASA & IYENGARE YOGA<br><br>There is

a debate about the relationship between, the

validity of and the comparative merits of Iyengar Yoga and

Vinyasa Yoga. As a student and teacher who has explored

both with equal passion and commitment I would like to

offer some insight derived from my experience. For 18

years I studied with Iyengar trained teachers,

including Iyengar and his daughter, and participated in a

teacher training course, but did not take the assessment.

I never felt that I quite understood the subtleties

of alignment that my teachers were presenting. I

often could not see what they were describing in their

presentations, nor feel it within my own body. I couldn't help

but feel I was stuck somewhere on the surface of

yoga. Nevertheless I gained a great deal from the

method and that can clearly be seen in my practice.

<br><br>Then I unintentionally found myself in a class

presenting the Primary Series of Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga. All

of the 55 postures were familiar to me but their

context was not. The breathing method, the bandhas, the

jumping style, the physical and psychological continuity,

the sweat, the surrender provided a context in which

my body began, at last, to express more fully and

deeply what my Iyengar teachers had been trying to

instil in me with regard to alignment. The effect of the

vinyasa practice on me was to shift that knowledge from

my brain to my body. At last I felt I was practicing

yoga. Despite my enthusiasm for the feel of vinyasa

practice I did not become a practitioner of Vinyasa Yoga.

Just as previously I had never been a practitioner of

Iyengar Yoga. The vinyasa techniques were there, the

alignment of Iyengar was there, and for me they served only

to clarify, enhance and expedite each other. As a

student of both the Iyengar method and the Vinyasa

method, I am simply a practitioner of yoga

..<br><br>However over the next four years my passion was to get

the better of me. I soon created a reckless imbalance

in my practice, doing sequences of up to 300 asana

in six hours practice. This did not allow enough

emphasis for the nourishing inversion section of the

vinyasa sequences. Eventually all the jumping, the heat

and sweat were no longer purifying me of toxins but

draining me of moisture and energy. I became dehydrated,

depleted and physically exhausted. But worst of all I

became psychologically exhausted, and lost the ability

to recognise the imbalances I was creating, until

finally, at the point of breakdown I stopped. My body

refused to allow me to practice any more, and would

insist that I sat in meditation, or laid myself over a

chair in ardha halasana, and other supported postures.

While doing these poses I explored the nature of the

bandhas and realised that I had not been correctly

applying them. In error I had been creating hardness where

there should have been softness: especially in the

brain. It was this hardness, I realised, that was

damaging me: not the techniques. I had been misapplying

the techniques by my faulty attitude. The essence of

this attitude was greed. I wanted to know more, to

feel more, to be more than I was. This ambitiousness

was creating an insensitivity to the subtleties of

technique, and resulting in a subtle but insidious form of

violence. And although i was using some of the techniques

of yoga, i was not practicing yoga. I was breaking

all of the yamas and niyamas every time i went to the

mat.

[Guest guest]

Great posts Mr. D. Hope to hear more from you!