10 days in

Ten days into the yoga teacher training course and this wee body and mind are literal being stretched. It has been a tough past week not only physically but mentally as well. We have more philosophy that I had expected and just memorizing the asana series is a lot far let remember the muscles and bone that work in a posture. So now that the toughest part is over I hope it will become much easier from now on. We are learning Ashtanga yoga as taught in the lineage of the historical Indian yogi, Pratangali. In recent times this lineage has been taught by Swami Sivananda, who died in 1924 then his student Swami Satyananda who died in 1984, followed by his students Swamis Niranjanananda, Satyasangananda and Suryaprakash who are presently holders of this lineage and teaching.  You can check out the web site below.

The postures or asanas work on building strength, opening up the hips but are only one of the eight aspects of Astanga yoga. The other aspects include living an ethical life and meditation and together these 8 aspects are a path toward “self realization”. I am discovering that there are quite a few similarities in this yogic path and Buddhism but there are also major differences in their view of how the self exists; i.e. the atma v’s anatma, or self v’s no-self. This debate has been going on for centauries in fact Indian Buddhist and Vedic scholars would have big debates over his point and one of the largest seats of philosophy and debate was at a monastery in Bihar called Nalanda, which today lies in ruins. Anyway not meaning to get all technical but I find it fascinating to investigate how the different traditions of the world interoperate and understand the self, the universe and just why various codes of conduct and particular practices of asanas and mediation came about, as well as and what in the human body and mind they effect and for what purpose.

So anyway back to Agonda. Today we started the Mysore style learning method. Which is teaching yourself the postures by doing them yourself and having the teacher walk around the class and adjust people as needed. I must admit I was resistant at first thinking “I am not ready for this yet, I can’t remember all this stuff now, they should teach us another week or so, what am I paying them for anyway!” But after the first few sun salutations I discovered it was actually really great to go at my own pace and really focus on which postures and positions this wee body could do easy and not so easy. It was great to have the time to watch my resistant mind, often screaming at not wanting to do a posture and begin to work with relaxing and surrendering into the pain or tension. As you yoga practitioners will already know it is working with the resistance and learning to transform it into pleasure is the real work of a yogi. Anyway I had to have a wee laugh at myself as I admitted I had fun with this style of learning and in many ways found a child like curiosity in examining, “just how far can I stretch my spine, if I breath out more and try to smile at the experience, and let it all go.” So it seems that mental attitude and how I hold and use my body go hand in hand. I am sure a lot more mental blocks, or should I say stiff muscles will be unblocked, stretched and released in the next few weeks and I will not be a bit surprised if the pain of either has me in tears in the next few days, but till then I am laughing and going off for a swim. Hope that all is well and relaxed in your world. .http://www.biharyoga.net/