IYEA & The Fight For Yogas Freedom

Today aptly sees the launch of IYEA - Independent Yoga Educators of America. In the booming times of yoga asanas popularity the issue of standards in teaching is a contentious one. If there is to be a standard across the board, who sets it and how they set it is never going to be satisfactory and never going to guarantee the quality of yoga teachers.

This hasn’t been too much of a problem until now when the very success of yoga as an ‘industry’ of an estimated $6 billion has brought it into the focus of state regulators. They want a piece of the pie and they see see requiring yoga teacher training programs to obtain licenses to operate vocational training facilities as a way in. There is good reason to believe it won’t stop there.

There are many, myself included who already find it cringeworthy to constantly read about yoga as an exercise and fitness training. The road of regulation would certainly only lead further away from the true purpose of yoga as a spiritual practice. On a broader scale, in an ever more draconian world in which individual freedom is increasingly encumbered and restricted, where will it end?

Behind IYEA is Leslie Kaminoff who some will know as the co-author (with Amy Matthews) of the book Yoga Anatomy. Regulation in yoga is an issue that Leslie is passionate about and with equal measure articulates well. It is an issue that easily muddies the waters but his view of it has remained clear for over 16 years since the debate began in earnest.

"I’ve always believed that the whole notion of industry-wide standards is invalid, because it presupposes an entity that ENFORCES those standards on an entire industry. Yoga and force are incompatible because yoga is about freedom, and yoga is about relationship, and force destroys both. It is precisely that flawed way of thinking we are fighting against when we resist government attempts to control our profession."

So if you are a yoga teacher, teach yoga teachers, want to be a yoga teacher or for any other reason this issue is relevant to you, consider joining IYEA, at least visit the site and read more about the issue and Leslie’s position.

Proposed IYEA Statement of Principles:

I am an independent yoga educator.

I teach about the value of personal freedom on all levels of human experience.

I embrace my own standards for my education, and the training of my students – and am willing to be held accountable for living up to those standards.

I value my freedom to conduct my relationships without coercive interference by third parties.

I will resist to the best of my ability any entity that assumes the authority to license or regulate me as a yoga educator or to enforce its standards upon me.

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Technorati Tags: Yoga, Yoga Philosophy, Yoga Practice

Yoga Improves Asthma

Researchers have found that yoga nearly halves  symptoms of asthma in just 10 weeks. The study was done at the American College of sports medicine.

The group of asthmatics in the study did to yoga classes twice a week  And were asked to do an extra 30 minutes of practice at home during the week. That’s really not so much yoga practice for such good results is it.

In fact the less is more route was a deliberate choice by the researchers as past studies had been of twice daily yoga and studied for fewer days. It was thought this was an impractical ask for most people.

None of the participants aged 20 - 65, had done yoga before. Results were based on a questionnaire that measured frequency and severity of symptoms, activities associated with breathlessness and social and psychological functioning.Overall, scores of individuals participating in the yoga arm of the trial improved an average of almost 43 percent.

Of course an important part of the improvement comes from deeper breathing, but the development of greater breath awareness is just as beneficial to asthmatics. This breath awareness from asana practice allows asthmatics to recognize early on when breathing is becoming impaired

It’s also thought that the deep breathing involved while holding yoga postures causes similar respiratory stress as in an asthma attack - as the subjects became used to this, they were better able to deal with their asthma.

Lead researcher Amy Bidwell, herself a yoga teacher said “There’s not much of a downside to yoga unless you have a major orthopedic problem,” She added "Yoga is an excellent way to relieve symptoms because there are no side-effects, unlike modern medicine such as corticosteroids"

Bidwell worked closely with a physician to design and conduct the study. He had been teaching breathing techniques to his patients. Based on the study results, he now is prescribing yoga practice as well.

This study joins a lengthening list of studies proving numerous health benefits from both yoga and meditation practice.

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Pattabhi Jois Dies Today At 93

From those I know who have, losing your guru is harder than losing a parent, for many around the world Sri. K. Pattabhi Jois was Guruji, and my heart goes out to them today.

While the cause of death has not been made public Pattabhi Jois’s health had been declining for the past few years, with several spells of hositalization.He passed away at his home after another spell of illness.

The word is that his grandson and student Sharath Rangaswamy is likely to take over as head of the Ashtanga Yoga Research Institute in Mysore, India (known today as the Sri K. Pattabhi Jois Ashtanga Yoga Institute).

Pattabhi Jois, was along with B.K.S Iyengar and  T.K.V Desikachar  a living legend in the  world of yoga. All three were students of the man considered to be the father of yoga as we know it today Krishnamacharya.

His passing is like the begining of the passing of an age. In that age yoga has become synonymous with asana practice and is today practiced by tens of millions of people worldwide.

On the question of the true goal of yoga Pattabhi Jois Said " The essence of yoga is to reach oneness with God. Ego must be understood, contemplated, and released, if you only try to boost the ego, you will miss the greatest fruits of yoga."

Here in his own words is a small snapshot of the wealth of knowledge and experience from a lifetime dedicated to practicing and teaching yoga, that this wonderful man held.

 

 The world is a poorer place from his passing and a richer place for his living. I hope you will join me in  offering respectful pranams at the feet of Sri Pattabhi Jois. May his life serve as an inspiration for the age of universal yoga he helped birth.

Please also visit YogaDork who has put together links to other  bloggers responces to the passing of Sri Pattabhi Jois

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Children Benefit From Yoga Practice

When Alayna Kurek panicked one day about forgotten homework, the 9-year-old stunned her school counselor by using a yoga breathing technique to calm down.

That stress-relief method is a reason Sherri Kurek says she takes her two children, Alayna and Olivia, 7, to classes for kids at the Yoga Studio of Shelby.

“It’s the one thing they stick with,” says Kurek, an in-home transcriptionist from Shelby Township, Mich.

Alayna gets exercise, going from downward-facing dog position to cobra to frog. And her improved confidence shows when she teaches her classmates how to pretzel up, Kurek says.

Karen Lutz, who teaches child yoga classes at Providence Hospital in Novi, Mich., says, “A 4-year-old — they have a short attention span. They really don’t care where their feet are.” But as younger yogis mature, she says, “They want to know, ‘Where do my feet go?”’

University of Michigan pediatrician Dolores Mendelow says yoga, if done properly, is a suitable alternative to tumbling and team sports for getting stressed-out, sedentary children socializing, exercising and building discipline.

“It requires practice, patience and accepting of self-limitations,” she says.

Read the complete article here….

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Enlighten Up

Enlighten Up is a bold and welcome film. It isn’t a snuggly feelgood bhakti fest for what 18 million Americans call yoga, thankfully. Director Kate Churchill chose in her approach to directing and making the film to make the project an experiment. The film is a reality documentary style following Nick Rosen a spiritualy skeptical New York son of 60’s parents, as he goes on a process of discovery seeking transformation through yoga. Below are some clips from the film and part one of three of an interview with Churchill and Rosen.

You can look here for upcoming showings of the movie  If you have the opportunity it will be well worth your time to see Enlighten Up and glimpse yoga beyond the designer body and clothes.

 

 

 

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Can Yoga Fix Health Care?

Most of us agree that America’s health care system is broken. Disease management is a more accurate way of putting what we have in our country’s operations. Have a pain? Take a pill. Don’t worry about why or where the pain came from in the first place or what it could develop into without behavioral change. If Americans were healthier, doctors and pharmaceuticals would lose business. So what is the solution? Many Americans aren’t covered anyway, or spend too much of their income on insurance premiums. Millions of people pray they don’t get sick because who knows what their insurance won’t cover when they really need it.

Americans are catching on, or at least becoming aware of something that can make a major difference in our collective health. A regular yoga practice keeps the body strong, vibrant, and sharpens and calms our minds. It also keeps you healthy, and mends a lot of the chronic problems for which standard medicine hands you a prescription and mountain of nasty side effects. You probably won’t need those pills during your lifetime if you practice yoga regularly and eat well. Healthy eating is one of the many benefits of practicing yoga. Yoga keeps us enjoying and treating our bodies well.

Read the complete article here

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I Don’t Want To Do Yoga

Let’s admit it, there are days when we all say I don’t want to do yoga today. It would take much time to go into all the reasons why we might feel this way, instead I want to look at what we do.

Obviously I can only really speak for myself, so I will tell you what I do.

Sometimes I just don’t do any yoga practice. I’m finding that I’m much more relaxed and easy going as I get older. I also find it helpful to break the habit of my morning asana practice, just like breaking any habit. It is interesting to notice how my body feels without the benefit of my practice in the morning. So this option kind of works both ways.

Sometimes I do a practice that is even more yin than usual. The way I practice asana  is pretty slow and contemplative  anyway, but there are days when going even slower and deeper feels like the right thing. For me practising asana very easily becomes meditation and I tend to just go with it.

The push through it and work even harder option, as you may have guessed by now isn’t one that I often take any more.

At least once every week or two I like to use my Earthlite back roller. It’s amazing how quick the time passes when you start slowly working it up the sides of your spine. Because it is underneath you and the pressure is created by your own body weight you can work into those old knotty areas with great precision and control. The feeling when you finish is really quite amazing, and there have been many times I have felt so grateful that I owned this fabulous tool. Back in the days when I used to travel all the time I really wish I’d had a mini back roller which are perfect for throwing in your bag when you travel.

Let me know what you do when you don’t want to do your yog a practice.

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The Paths Of Yoga Explained

Primarily there are four paths of Yoga, they are: Jnana Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, Raja Yoga and Karma Yoga. We will look at each yogic path in turn.

Jnana Yoga - The path of wisdom.
The word ‘Jnana’  is derived from the Sanskrit root ‘Jna to know, meaning knowledge. Like all paths of yoga its purpose is to reveal the absolute nature of the practitioner.  it is based on the monotheistic principles of the Advaita, or non dual system of Spiritual philosophy. At the core of this teaching is the subject and object are expressions of the one absolute truth. Or in other words there is only One consciousness which manifests as the vast multitude of forms.

Firstly the student studies the teachings of Advaita (or other non-dual tradition), ideally from a Sat Guru, who is their living embodiment, or from the Scriptures.  This aspect is called sravanam, meaning listening. Secondly, the student contemplates upon the teaching. This is called manamam meaning reflection or contemplation. Finally through meditation on the absolute truth the student comes to its direct experience and ultimately knows themselves as that absolute truth. This is called nididhyasana, meaning meditation.

The path of Jnana Yoga is then one of using the intellect of mind, contemplation and self enquiry to attain direct experience of the true nature of the one consciousness, from which all manifestation arises.

Obviously this path appeals to the more intellectual type, and its trap is the mind remaining bound in intellectual  knowledge without direct experience. Knowing something because you’ve read in a book over and over again, is entirely different from directly experiencing the truth of it. Yet we live our lives defining ourselves by such beliefs. Contemporary non-dual teacher Adyshanti said “absolute certainty is delusion.”

It is for this reason that having a teacher who is established in the truth of the teaching is it so important. In the presence of such a teacher there is a subtle energetic transmission of the truth of the teachings. It is in the energy of this transmission that the teachings become alive and vibrant in the students resonating with that truth as yet unrealized within them, calling it forth into conscious awareness.

Bhakti Yoga - The  path of devotion.
Bhakti Yoga  is in some ways the other polarity to Jnana Yoga. The Bhakti yogi is all about love devotion and worship. From a philosophical point of view Bhakti yoga is dualistic, meaning worshipper and worshipped are seen as different. Of course the full realization of Bhakti yoga is the union of  the lover and their beloved as one.

The great Sufi poets Rumi  and Hafiz are wonderful examples of bhakti yogis. Bhakti yogis can be found in every religious and spiritual tradition.

Ideally through unwavering devotion the bhakti yogi comes to see God everywhere in everyone and everything. Life itself becomes the act of devotion and the individual will is surrendered to the will of the divine.  It is through this depth of surrender that the limiting consciousness of the egoic mind is dissolved and only the beloved remains.

Bhakti yoga is easily exploited by gurus who are not completely and entirely established in the true nature. Because of the deep emotional and energetic intimacy of the path of Bhakti, it is probably more important than any other path to have a Sat Guru, on who is entirely and completely established in the Absolute. Of course it is not necessary to have a guru to be a bhakti yogi.

Another potential distortion on the Bhakti path if the development of sectarianism, bigotry and fanaticism.  in such instances the chosen form of devotion is seen as superior to other forms, the consequences of which are all too apparent in our world.

Raja Yoga - Control of Mind and Body.
Raja means king, so Raja yoga is often called the “Royal Road”. Raja yoga Claims that whoever has gained mastery over his mind and body can become free from them. Raja yoga  is another name for Ashtanga yoga or Patanjalis  eight limbs of yoga.  I have written about each of the eight limbs  individually here Yamas, Niyamas, Asana, Pranayama, Pratyhara, Dharana, Dhyana, and Samadhi.

Karma Yoga The Path of Service.
Karma yoga, also called Seva  is the path of  selfless service,  the path of action. If we were to summarize the meaning of karma yoga it is to perform all action without any expectation of attachment to the results. When combined with Bhakti yoga, all actions are done in the service of God, as devotion.

In essence all the paths of yoga are a means of purification, removing the causes of the illusion of separation. The nature of the egoic mind is selfishness, the Karma yogi strives to perform each action in thought word and deed from a consciousness that isn’t not self oriented. It is a path well-suited to those would like to  be active and of service.

Obviously there is more to karma yoga than just the actions undertaken. Karma yoga requires the development of self-awareness, from which to recognize and surrender the increasingly subtle tendencies of the egoic minds tendencies to gratification and attachment to the actions and their outcomes.

Karma yoga in many ways seems to be the simplest and easiest of the four, but this is far from true. Karma yoga dissolves the egoic mind by giving it absolutely nothing to feed on. Its very nature is to feed on everything that we do think, feel, hear, see, smell, taste, in fact everything we experience. So Karma yoga  requires commitment and dedication within the very mundane nature of life. There are no grand philosophical treaties to espouse, there are no techniques or spiritual technologies to master.  There is in short nothing glamorous about it.  It is not a path for the fainthearted as can be testified by anyone who has tried to keep up with Amma or when she was alive Mother Theresa.

Of Course it is ideal to blend appropriate elements from each of the yoga paths as befits our tendencies and personality.

Other writtings on the paths of yoga can be found below

 

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Krishna Das & Sting Get Devotional

Time for some Bhakti Yoga, not my natural inclination, but like Amma says Jnana without devotion is like chewing rocks and she also said something about Bhakti without Jnana but I don’t remember what it was. So with no further adoo I give you the daddy of American kirtan Mr Krishna Das and some English ex copper called Sting, giving Krishna some love.

 

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The Power Of Yoga—for Kids

Yoga is becoming a powerful tool in our goal to raise calm, well-balanced, and socially aware children. Most people are already sold on the physiological benefits of yoga—improvements in posture, flexibility, strength, and endurance. But it’s yoga’s often overlooked cognitive/social/psychological benefits that read like a parent’s or schoolteacher’s dream. Kids who practice yoga on a regular basis show improvements in:

    * memory
    * concentration
    * learning ability
    * mood
    * social skills
    * self-acceptance

Today’s kids are bombarded by a neverending array of stimulus every day—from 500 channels on TV to text message overload. Add to this the controversial three hours of homework most kids receive each night, and it’s no wonder yoga classes for kids are finding their way into schools, gyms, and community centers across America. Adults, mostly yoga devotees themselves, are recognizing kids’ need for calm. Laura Whitesides, a kids yoga teacher in Redondo Beach, California schools describes it like this:  “Kids have so much energy, both naturally and from their outside world.  Yoga gives them the opportunity to take a break and focus that energy inward.” 

Read the complete article here….

  

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