Is Yoga sometimes not enough?

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Permalink Reply by Uti on August 20, 2008 at 11:10am

Nancy, what I hear you say is that you're an endorphin junkie like so may of us :-)

Bikram is certainly a valid form of yoga, but it's form can also be a limitation. Yoga has no boundaries, no limits to what you can do with it. While Bikram uses an outside source of stimulation to soften the body, it is easy enough to do that from the inside. Try doing a 108 Sun Salutations practice..... it might take you years to reach 108, but you will sweat and your cardio vascular system will get a workout. And not just Sun Salutations, you can step up the repetitive pace of a number of routines to get the energy pumping and stoke the fire in the body.

This is where personal practice will give you gains you can't get in a class situation. Take it home and take it to your mat and explore how to get what you need from yoga. I'm not knocking running or capoeira, they have their place. Recognize that there is also a social aspect of these other activities. Camaraderie and friendly competition are part of our human nature. However, when you're on your mat alone with god you are also fulfilling a basic human need. Choose both and have it all!

Look at injuries for a moment. I know numerous people who have injured themselves with running, weight training and other athletic forms of exercise. In over ten years of intense yoga and over a thousand yoga classes and practices I have only witnessed 2 injuries. One person was using a strap to assist with a pose and was regularly muscling himself in his impatience to reach a goal. The other person was a woman who had been a professional dancer, and who I watched dislocate her hip socket and then reset it herself. Again, an injury caused by goal orientation and unconsciousness. If you keep your focus on balance, alignment, symmetry and the breath you will not injure yourself. If you're lucky you will have "openings" in the body where the body sometimes "lets go" dramatically and those can release a lot of pain, but remember the pain was already stored in the body from the way we do the life. It may go away quickly or stick around for weeks and months testing your commitment to your healing and your practice. I had such an opening in my shoulders and upper back, but the payoff was that my range of motion was increasing and the hump in my upper back was flattening out. I looked like Quasimodo when I started. Pain is a very great teacher.

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Permalink Reply by Kev on August 20, 2008 at 11:34am

Uti- What an answer!.. beautiful.
I sometimes do some quick vinyasa for the cardio training but mostly stick to Iyengar.
I practice because of the gifts I receive mostly on the emotional level when I work with my emotional pains there in the upper back, there in the harmstrings, there in the hips, letting go, letting go letting go.
More and more I take it into my room, I face myself, I stay in the postures, I witness. Like you my kyphosis is strong as is my lordosis, my harmstrings are tight, I know there is such an immense work on letting go, but it is so beautiful.
Since very very recently I now do rebirthing as my pranayama. The same way as we avoid eating light and pure to avoid emotional release I am now amazed at how we avoid breathing for the same reason, as my rebirthing mentor puts it.
Ultimately to me pranayama is really anapana, what Sakyamuni taught, BKS Iyengar says pranayama is "to witness and observe the smooth flow of inhalation and exhalation with depth, subtlety and precision".
I feel it is amazing to dive into the body and to dive into the breath, to me it is so insightful, revealing so clearly my avoidances, my fears, pointing so clearly my emotional traumas... a wonderful map.

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Permalink Reply by Uti on August 20, 2008 at 11:52am

Thanks Kev, would you ever have thought breathing could be so trippy before diving so deeply into yoga? I've spent countless hours engaged in outside stimulation only to discover that the ultimate theme park has free admission 24/7.

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Permalink Reply by Nancy on August 20, 2008 at 12:48pm

Thank you so much Uti and Kev! Both beautiful statements.
It's true, I do not have a home practice. Something I plan to remedy soon (maybe even today!). I agree that running and other forms of cardio can more easily lead to injury and yoga not as much. But we are usually the cause of most our ills anyway, as Uti said. On the mat or on the track, our competitive nature can get the better of us at times.

The breath was the greatest gift yoga gave me. On my first week of yoga 10 years ago, I took a long workshop focused on the breath. A few days later I had to call the studio because of this severe pain in my chest. I was told that the pain was from my lung muscles (intercostals) actually being used for the first time at the workshop. I couldn't believe it!

Another thing Uti brought up was the spiritual aspect of the practice which I've always underestimated. Some instructors I've come across were heavy-handed in this aspect without, it seemed to me, fully embodying the meaning or spirit of yoga. Others avoid it altogether. Yet others, my favorites, will inject a little wisdom into each posture and a little more in the beginning and end of class. But alas, I have to find my own way. That much I know now.

Thanks again for your inspiring responses.
nc

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Permalink Reply by Lee on August 23, 2008 at 12:48am

Funny how I completely misread this thread title. I was gonna say my yoga practice is severly lacking without meditation =D

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Permalink Reply by Uti on August 29, 2008 at 7:19pm

Lee, do you do your meditation before or after hatha?

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