mind body planet

I just signed myself up for something that is so cool that I just have to talk about it with you all out there.  If you know anything about Yoga then yo of course know that there is not just one brand of yoga. Anywhere you go in the world you will be practicing a different form of yoga. The same can be said within a town. In this town along i think have about eight or nine different variations of Yoga being practiced at various places. Each one of these different variations emphasizes different things and places more of the teachings on certain scriptural passages rather than others. Then there are also the classes that are called Yoga classes but don’t incorporate any kind of meditation or attempt at overcoming the exercise routine stereotype we have here in America. I have been a practitioner of a few different styles that I have taken to blend in to my own distinctive style. I have read the Baghavad Gita several times and have taken many lessons from the text. The styles that I have taken from are Iyengar, Jivamukti, Ansuara, and ashtanga. 

The cool thing that I signed up for is a workshop in Jivamukti yoga up in New York. The workshop is held at the studio where this particular style was actually developed. The creators won’t be taking part in this particular workshop, as far as I know, but it will be taught by one of their top teachers in the world. The point of this particular workshop is to look at the energy channels in the body. In Yoga these channels are known as Nadis. This term comes from the original sanskrit terminology that all Yoga practitioners share. We all speak the same language as written down by the great Sage Patanjali thousands of years ago. This workshop is looking at these channels of energy that run throughout our whole bodies and finds the positions that Jivamukti practitioners have found to be the ones most effective in connecting them. When these channels are connected then energy is allowed to flow through the body freely and thus increase the coherence of the body. Even for the practiced yoga student this may sound a bit crazy, but for me it is just the facts. 

*I have been teaching for quite a while and these kinds of workshops have been essential in taking me from student to teacher and then from teacher to yogi. At this point they are just one in the same with my practices as a knowledge builder.  When it is over I will have a whole new store of lessons and ideas to take to the mat and in to my classes.

I encourage all of you to go out and try one of these workshops because they are well worth the minimal cash involved.

The other day I was i our local coffee shop and I was browsing the books shelves. I typically only buy the old relics on the older shelves, but this time I thought I would hop on over to the newer book section and see if there was anything worth looking at. I saw of course all of the political books and takes on the lives of the candidates that make me want to vomit from political overexposure. I also found plenty of great looking graphic novels that I would never put down until I had sucked out all of the life from those pages. Then I came upon a book that peaked my interest and made me think of all of you readers out there. The huge text books weighed a ton and cost relatively little and I’d like to talk about it right now.

The book is titled Alternative Medicine: the definitive guide by Anderson and Trivieri. This book is basically the ultimate guide to anyone who wants to know all of the methods in which they could seek help for any particular medical condition.  It is set up i a really great style where it is listed first by the different types of conditions that you could hope to heal or remedy with an alternative or complimentary treatment. Conditions as simple as a skin rash all the way to things like cancer which may people choose to treat i ways other than chemotherapy since it is so hard on the body.  After the listings of the conditions it goes on to list in depth each of the different kinds of treatment methodologies that the books has to offer. It is ot meat to be ay kind of a medical text, but for those who really want to know anything about an alternative healing mode. For me I personally found all of the sections on Yoga, Herbal healing, and Chiropractics to be very close to how I myself would explain these methods within the context of a discussion of healing. The way it is presented is a bit dry at times, but they make sure to include plenty of cool diagrams ad pictures to really paint a picture of all the different styles of learning that may be ended to entice people to read and remain interested in such a large book.

IF you are out there wondering what certain modes are about and if there are other ways out there to aid in healing with some condition that you have, pick this one up because it will really help you find what you are looking for.

Yoga Resources

If you are someone like me then you have certainly noticed the extreme growth in popularity of magazines and websites that are meant to disseminate the practice of many, and still climbing, different styles of yoga. Though now we are just awash in it, I still think that it is funny how much can be taken for granted right now. When I read books by guys like Ram Das and he bears all of this knowledge and wisdom as if we have not heard any of it before, but today it is a completely different picture than what he was dealing with at the time. Just twenty years ago people sort of knew what yoga was but unless they had gone out and tried it, it was probably still a very vague idea. Now anyone who has walked through a magazine aisle in the supermarket has seen at least one yoga pose as they glance across the covers. If you have dug a little bit further you will find that the internet is also awash in many stable as well as many budding yoga websites for both the world-wide practices to the one room studios around the country. A lot of the early popularity of the websites came from the base of people reading the magazines but now, as with television as well, people have begun to convert their primary source of information gathering to the web. Though this hasn’t stopped magazines from functioning, it has prompted the bigger names to turn their website in to a source completely separate from the magazine as well as a supplement to the hard materials.

My favorite of all of the internet websites is the site for the magazine called Yoga Journal. Their website simply Yogajournal.com is a huge resource for the beginner and a great supplement for the teacher or experienced practitioner. Basically built around the premise of yoga teachers giving out their own advice and wisdom on the nature of poses and the ancient art form of yoga, this site gives you everything you need. Constantly updating articles reach in to every area of practice on and off the mat. The special section built simply around ayurveda medicine is a huge wealth of knowledge on the ancient Indian form of healing and general health in the modern world. Though all the while preaching about a form of discipline that is over two thousand years old, this site provides you with a modern idea of what yoga means for all of us. Also, as a yoga teacher and student , I feel that the constantly updated takes on all of the poses is great because it allows anyone coming to the site to find something a little different within what they have been practicing all along.

Something interesting that I am seeing lately also is prenatal yoga and simple yoga for toddlers. Parenting and integrating yoga at a very young age will open their minds to this medium early.

If you are out there surfing the net right now and would like to learn a bit more about yoga, please check this or any of the other yoga websites out. As with any other topic on the net, the bigger the site the more information swirling around and so you may just want to try the big ones and not get scared off. I certainly recommend this site in particular because it has been of huge value for myself and other students I have taught in the past.

Yoga’s Role

In this country today we have received the best and the worst that the other cultures of this world have to offer. We have gotten all of their best and brightest, which may be changing, and we have managed to make them our own unique product in some way, shape, or form. With every one of our own cultural interpretations of other practices, we seem to have a hard time finding the same truths in other cultures when we try them on. There must be something inherent in our own culture that doesn’t allow us to see the truth of a situation. One of the biggest items along these lines that I can think of is the role of the Hindu practice of Yoga within our society. Somehow in our cultural view of this ancient art form of life and breath, we have managed to find a way to make it something in the league of jazzercise. It is now something that is viewed here as an exercise routine that is reserved for soccer moms and older women who need something to do to stay out of the hospital. Concurrently we have turned what has been historically a male practice in India in to something that seems to turn men away. Now I don’t know if it has something to do with the American Patriarchic ideal that men should not be in touch with their inner selves, but I would certainly say that I have felt uncomfortable in many Yoga classes because the women feel that I am invading their sacred space. In my experience the majority of people who populate Yoga classes in this country are women and any man how rolls out a mat is either viewed as a possible homosexual or someone who is less that a man. I would like to just say that this is a purely American product of skewed views and prejudice of a practice of self-knowledge that might just be able to heal the problems ailing this country.

Yoga is a practice of joining the mind and the body with the breath in order to move to higher planes of existence. This is not some religious vision or spiritual quest that only ascetics attempt in their wisdom and knowledge which we in this country cannot comprehend. This is something we can all take part in. Though the structure of Yoga classes in this country are typically based on the goal of exercise and flexibility, the efforts of the individual can make all of the difference. Some of the best teachers in the country and in the world understand the true goal of the practice, but if a student doesn’t want to hear the words then they won’t.

The practice of Yoga is meant to calm and aid in the practice of daily life. We all cannot spend our lives on the mat or in seclusion, but we can all be proactive about our own lives and find our own truths within. All we have to do is be patient and have the courage and strength to sit up straight, breath slowly, and listen to the silent voice within ourselves.