The one thing that is constant is change. How
much our world has changed in the last 100 years. This
accelerated living most of us experience- fast cars, fast
talking, cell phones, always on the move, always thinking,
always doing- may be a reason that yoga has become so popular.
However, do we really change when we approach and begin a yoga
practice? Or has the westernization of yoga affected this
choice?
My observation would be that people sometimes
gravitate, and perhaps often so, to Hatha or slow Iyengar
practice if they are inherently slow and careful while a hard
driven tightly wound up type may be drawn to Astanga or Bikram
practice, both very physical practices that may be ineffectively
approached in a competitive manner.
One student I met who was going through a
divorce when I first met her appeared calm. She expressed how
much the yoga she had been doing had been helping her. When she
attended a class her actions were aggressive, she was constantly
moving, adding and doing things that were not in the
instructions being given. After the session I waited until the
other students had left and spoke with her suggesting that
perhaps her additional rapid movements might be distracting to
the other students in the class. She became very angry and
defensive, saying that she had injuries and because of this she
had to be constantly moving and very warm all the time. My
assessment as a teacher, had she wanted to hear it, was that a
fast moving Astanga practice at this time in her life, and
perhaps because of her overall temperament, may have led to the
injuries. Especially when one is going through times of change
and challenge is a time to let your yoga practice nurture you
and hold you in a gentle allowing place in your life, not a
forced place.
Anyone who is uptight in life can more easily
injure themselves in a strong fast yoga practice. They would be
much better off doing the same poses or asanas more slowly to
experience the therapeutic effects of the pose, such as
emotional release and physical softening and opening . In the
case of this woman my perception was that she was, like many
practitioners today, using yoga like an aerobics class or a good
long run, to force the stress our of her system. It is times
like these we must search our heart and not our head. Yoga gives
us this opportunity with every slow breath, every time we pull
our spine up, letting our shoulders relax and the chest open,
not leading with the head forward of the chin, but with a
feeling of receptivity and vulnerability to life and it's
changes.
In this woman's life a slower cooling
practice would have helped balance the fire of pitta that was
creating the anger and calm the vatta, the wind that would not
allow her to be still thus was causing in her this need to be
constantly moving. Only then can we experience what we are truly
feeling, as uncomfortable as it might be, and begin to heal the
hurt.
What I would have suggested at this time, had
the woman not been blocked by her need to be right, was a much
more meditative and still physically fulfilling practice which
in the long run would have helped the injuries and made the
transition more smooth. Just as fast jerky movements in yoga can
cause injury to the body, fast movements and reactions of the
mind can harm ourselves and others.
We should practice ahimsa, nonviolence
towards ourselves. If this is something we have not thought of
before or need to be reminded of, it is a powerful part of our
yoga practice:
This is a wonderful quote from Vanda
Scaravelli's book Awakening the Spine. (Vanda started with
Iyengar as her teacher in her 40's and practiced and taught into
her 90's). "Yoga… it is a living process that changes moment by
moment, watching when we eat. How we eat, when we walk, how we
walk, what we say and how we say it. All these things must be
present in us and we must be passionately interested in them
all."
And finally, this quote: "A rigid mind is
very sure but often wrong. A flexible mind is generally unsure,
but often right." So keep asking the questions, looking for the
answers in life and through your yoga practice all the while
willing to go with the flow, remembering the one thing that is
constant is change and what we worked for us once may not right
now or ever again.
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