"Whether you practice the dynamic series of Pattabhi Jois, the refined alignment of B.K.S. Iyengar or the customized vinyasa of viniyoga, your practice stems from one source: a five foot two inch Brahmin born more than one hundred years ago in a small South Indian village."
The full moon in July is traditionally Guru Poornima, the celebration of the fullness of the teacher. It is a time to formally honor special teachers. This July, we will honor Sri Krishnamacharya.
A lineage of Yoga teachers is called Guru Parampara, literally "one after the other". A lineage is access to an unbroken line of energy. Our lineage in the studio is Vinyasa Yoga in the tradition of Sri Krishnamacharya (1888-1989), a legendary Yoga teacher, healer and scholar. Krishnamacharya is credited with the creation of the Vinyasa system, intelligent sequences of asanas combined with steady gaze (Dhrishti), manipulated breath (Ujjayi Pranayama) and core emphasis (Bandhas).
Krishanamacharya had 3 students who also went on to become very famous Yoga teachers in the their own right- B.KS. Iyengar, Sri K. Pattabhi Jois, and T.K.V. Desikachar, his son. Iyengar's vigorous style of Yoga is known for an emphasis on alignment and the use of props like blocks, straps and sand bags. Pattabhi Jois' Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga has an emphasis on repetition and structure. Practitioners perform nearly the same practice 6 days a week. Pattabhi Jois has said that the three key words that describe his style are strength, stamina and sweat. The Yoga of T.K.V. Desikachar is customized individually for each practitioner according to their specific needs and goals. These three students, who all studied with the same teacher, created three very different styles of Yoga. Yet, the one aspect of practice that all three of these teachers agreed on was the importance of meditation in a Yoga practice.
"Let us set aside as much time for meditation as possible."
Sri K. Pattabhi Jois
I began my journey into Yoga with a meditation practice. I had practiced meditation for years before I did my first down dog. When I started teaching, I taught in the way that most teachers teach led classes- instructing asanas combined with pranayama (conscious breathing) for the bulk of the duration of the class and then finishing with a short Yogic sleep meditation and maybe a very brief seated pranayama and/or meditation. The heart of the class is asana work with the subtle practices just thrown in very briefly at the end. Part of the reason for this is because students have a difficult time with meditation and often, initially, they simply do not see the benefit. Also, unfortunately, many Yoga teachers do not practice meditation themselves, so do not see the benefit of teaching it to others. For teachers like me, who do practice meditation, we often teach classes speaking of the importance of meditation, giving students a short taste of meditation at the end of each class and then hope beyond hope that maybe we have inspired practitioners to commit to a home practice of meditation. Yet, I found that after years of teaching serious, regular students Yoga, there were only a handful of students who were meditating at home.
About six months ago, I decided that I could no longer live with myself teaching in this way. If I really thought meditation was so important, then I had to give students a real experience of it in each practice. The change that is possible from a Yoga practice is profound, but most teachers agree that the miracles that are possible only happen with a full Yoga practice- asana, pranayama and meditation. Asanas with pranayama cultivate fire and devotional practices like chanting and meditation cultivate the sap of vitality that protects daily practitioners from getting burned by the fire.
Nowadays, when I teach, I draw from the wisdom of all the root gurus from this tradition. I teach poses with some emphasis on physical alignment honoring Iyengar, tempered with the energetics of the pose, "feeling" our way toward optimal alignment and enhanced energy flow. I like to work with repetition and structure in sequencing honoring Pattabhi Jois, yet allowing some wiggle room for a sprinkling of creativity. Form and freedom are nice. And I teach with the idea of using Yoga as therapy honoring T.K.V. Desikachar, instructing students how to tweak poses, breath and sequencing to best suit their own anatomies and nervous systems. It is possible for students to practice the very same sequence of poses with very different bhavanas, intentions. Honoring Krishnamacharya and all of his students, each practice ends now with an extended experience of Yogic Sleep Meditation, Yoga Nidra.
"Silence is not silent. Silence speaks. Silence is not still. Silence leads."
Sri Chinmoy
