What I’m Teaching Now
After teaching yoga now for nearly 20 years my teaching has undergone quite a few changes, but there have been 2 major shifts. The first was when I stopped teaching Ashtanga Yoga (as taught be Pattabhi Jois, may he rest in peace) and started teaching in a way that most students have characterized as “Iyengar Yoga.” I have never received any formal certification in this system, but for about 13 years my teaching has drawn heavily on my studies with Ramanand Patel who holds a senior level teaching certificate in Iyengar Yoga and studied closely with B.K.S. Iyengar for many years.
The second major shift in my teaching started over a year ago and is continuing now. For more than a year I have been studying bio-mechanics and the work of Katy Bowman, MS. I have found that what Katy teaches, which incidentally I consider to be somewhat out of the realm of yoga, has a lot to say about how to practice yoga and how to teach it.
Those of you who take my classes have seen this shift happening. It has not been easy as it has forced me to reconsider nearly every instruction I give in every posture. It has, however, begun to transform my work in a profound way. This has been especially true when doing therapeutic work. I am seeing much better results working with the wide variety of health issues that clients present to me every day. I am also better able to help clients translate the work they do with me at Sadhana Therapies into better health and function in their daily lives.
Part of the challenge with this change is to begin to describe what I’m doing, perhaps name it. I’m not going to rush into this as the name is very important and will no doubt contribute to setting the tone for the future of our business. For now, I am just going to call what I”m teaching “yoga” and leave it at that. But here’s a bit more info on the kind of “yoga” I’m teaching now.
The yoga I am currently teaching focuses on “Yogasana” or the study and practice of yoga postures or “asana” for promoting optimal physical, mental and spiritual wellbeing. While any number of a vast array of classical yoga postures may be employed this way, it is the more basic, foundational postures that are the most essential for success.
Foundational postures tend to be the most similar to the postures we use in our daily life and can therefore have the greatest impact on health and function. Simply standing, walking and sitting in a well aligned, mindful way can have a huge impact on our health on a variety of different levels. When sound bio-mechanics and mindful awareness are applied to daily activities it can mean the difference between an activity that builds our strength, stability and flexibility and one that damages our joints, weakens our muscles and bones, degrades our function and shortens our lifespan.
Any activity that we take up for the purpose of our health must therefore be bio-mechanically sound. Bio-mechanically sound posture and movement must also have the effect of either reducing the impact of stress on our health or support our ability to better respond to and recover from it. This is especially true of yogasana. Yoga postures can be approached, modified and sequenced to enhance alignment and support function and therefore reduce and even reverse the effects of stress, both on and off the mat!
Of course, the impact of stress is not limited to the physical body. Very often the mental effects of stress are an even bigger issue. It is with respect to managing mental stress that yogasana really shines.
Above all else, yoga is a tool for training the mind. Yogasana is an important part of this as it begins to develop our mind’s ability to pay attention to and perceive the feedback it receives from our body through the senses. Yogasana also builds our capacity for discernment which helps us to act willfully and intelligently, rather than simply Re-acting. It is by way of this attentiveness that the mind can begin to see itself more clearly and through discernment that it begins respond in situationallly appropriate ways.
Discernment also enables the mind to see its patterns which is the first step toward changing those patterns. This leads to the kind of growth which we might call “spiritual.” Whether we want to cultivate this kind of growth, or not, is a question each of us must eventually answer at some point when doing yoga. This kind of growth requires a lot of honesty with ourself. And this may be a subject for a different post.
At the very least we should be honest with ourselves about why we are doing yoga. If health is the reason, alignment and bio-mechanics have a lot to offer any yoga student.