New Years Resolution: UN-do Your Idea of a Disciplined Yoga Practice

Most of my readers come from cultures where discipline is revered yet feared. If you look up the word in the dictionary, it’s no surprise why:

dis·ci·pline/ˈdisəplən/ Training people to obey. Punishing those who disobey.

People with discipline are looked at in awe, ‘What willpower you have.’ However, those with discipline have an intimate relationship with the dangers of it. You read right. Look at the Olympic gymnasts and swimmers like Michael Phelps.

I can’t compare myself to them. I can say I have trained in techniques that celebrate discipline with almost dictatorial vigor at a very young age. I became a master at taking what felt like blows and daggers of correction and criticism from myself and o†hers without ever noticing the scars, until they surfaced and threatened to destroy me.

I read in one of BKS Iyengar’s books (I want to say it was the Tree of Life, bu† I’ve yet to locate it again) that his guru Krishnamacharya used a phrase like: ‘Let the yoga do the yoga’. That phrase coupled with ‘faith’ so eloquently explained in Patricia Walden’s infamous Taking the Next Step: Faith and the Yoga Vitamins blog are what I’d like to see shape the yoga of 2019.

Over the course of a hiatus from studio life, I worked to UN-do my idea of discipline. My mentor, Kquvien DeWeese, supported my efforts by being there for me and meeting me where I was without judgment. She helped me learn to stop judging myself. She told me there are all kinds of yoga. It doesn’t have to be a class.

Do yoga. Whatever way works for you. Start with a single pose - a pose that gives you joy. Become the pose. Let the pose become you, and you will be doing more yoga than you imagine. Have faith that whatever small part of yoga you bring into your life will take hold and light the way forward.

~Namaste

Iyengar Yoga: Awakening the body, mind and spirit.

Manouso Manos and Patricia Walden are the most senior teachers of the Iyengar Method in the United States. Their contribution to spreading the great work of BKS Iyengar in the United States and abroad is integral to maintaining the integrity of the vast wisdom yoga has to offer us all. 

Yoga has many definitions as Patricia and Manouso will attest; however, all definitions lead to one basic concept: self realization. Whether that realization comes from learning to deal with chronic back pain as in Manouso's history or realizing the wisdom within your own heart and mind as Patricia alludes to in this discussion. 

The Iyengar Method in the U.S. begins with body awareness through asana. However, many know that there are eight limbs in the Astanga (8-limbed) path of Iyengar Yoga. The first and second limb are behavioral. They are age-old precepts on how to conduct yourself from a personal and social level based on the natural laws of existence. Before there can be any kind of evolution from our base human state there must be an involution. We must first understand what will bring clarity of mind, body and spirit in order to move us to the next level of awareness. 

The third limb is learning the mechanics of the ten systems in our body through asana, which in Sanskirt means seat. Beginning with the most visible parts:  arms and legs, the Iyengar Method goes ever deeper and deeper into the wonderland of the physical, mental, and heart-centered self. From the periphery to the core and back again. Asana or seat is a practice to foster awareness and refinement in the functioning of all the systems in the body such that one can sit in still meditation in order to keep moving to more advanced levels of awareness.

Awakening. Enlightenment. They are not destinations. They are ongoing journeys that shed light on our innate wisdom and ignorance (read unawareness) in equal measure. We realize we are matter and non-matter, we are flawed and perfect all at the same time. It is the yoke of our existence to be fertilized by our own infinite resources.