What modern yoga styles get wrong about Asana
What modern yoga styles get wrong about Asana.
Yoga. Everybody is doing it, right?
No, not really. What most people are doing, what the academics call Modern Postural Yoga (MPY), owes more to Swedish gymnastics and American market demands than it owes to Yoga.
Yes, I know, it’s not polite to say that. And one shouldn’t make sweeping statements. Yet this is what the academic literature shows me and, more importantly, what I’ve experienced through my own practice. Nevertheless, I’ll concede that I’m writing about *most* modern yoga, and not all.
My own experience
I’ve explored almost every style of MPY, even before I discovered Classical Hatha Yoga. I’ve kept going back to these commercial styles from time to time, either out of curiosity or sometimes out of courtesy. I’ve even joined Urban Sports Club and class-hopped through different studios for awhile, until I couldn’t take it anymore.
I’ve also been guiding people into Yoga for over 15 years, many of whom had years of MPY practice. Curiously enough, I learned to guess with some degree of accuracy which style my students were coming from. Mostly by how difficult it was for them to remain still.
The Big Con(fusion)
There is this huge misconception that MPY is basically the physical aspect of traditional Yoga. But the way MPY uses Asana has nothing to do with the way Asana is approached in Classical Yoga. While this applies also to the most “gentle” and slow forms of modern yoga, it is more clearly evident in the “flow” styles like Ashtanga.
What do face yoga, acroyoga, ashtanga yoga and laughing yoga have in common? None of them is Yoga.
An Asana is not an Asana
Modern yoga uses physical poses, which it calls Asana, to improve the body’s flexibility, strength and balance. It works mostly on the musculoskeletal human.
Of course, that doesn’t mean you don’t get all the effects of a good workout; like more energy, wellbeing and a better mood.
Asana, in our tradition, is not at all concerned with flexibility or strength or muscles or such. Whatever happens in that domain is simply a side effect.
Just as an example: The endocrine glands are more interesting to us, as the physical manifestations of the Chakras. The most important Asanas massage and stimulate these glands, bringing mental, physical and pranic energy to these crucial places. While, in the process, balancing those super important hormones.
What is an Asana, really?
In Classical Yoga an Asana is an energy shape that, when held for a certain amount of time, brings about a mild altered-state of consciousness and increased pranic flow. Depending on how sensitive you are, you can actually feel this consciousness shift after holding the classical poses for five minutes or more.
For it to work as intended, Asana must be held effortlessly and motionlessly. That is expressed in the very definition of the word, “a steady, comfortable pose”. One has to be able to rest in the pose for awhile, so that all the layers of oneself can gradually come together.
How it Works
Understand: In Classical Yoga, each Asana is a meditation. You relax the body in the pose; you let your breath flow fully and freely; and you keep your mind’s attention on the process – either by feeling the body or the breath, by noticing the thought stream, or by being receptive and open to whatever comes up. The exact nature of the meditation depends on your inclinations and level of skill, but a meditation it is.
Moving into Stillness
We do practice dynamic exercises in Classical Hatha Yoga. But these are either beginner practices, to help people “move into stillness”; or techniques targeting a specific purpose, like the Intestinal Cleanse or Chakra-Activation practices.
One of the most powerful dynamic practices we have is the Pawanmuktasana series, which systematically brings consciousness and movement to every single part of the body. Unfortunately you won’t find this practiced in many yoga studios.
A Part of the Whole
Sometimes one has to remove blockages and chronic stiffness of the body before one can go deeper in the process of Self-Integration. While Asana could be perfectly suited and useful for this purpose, it is much more efficient when combined with Shatkarma (the yogic cleansing techniques) and the other disciplines in Classical Hatha Yoga, like Mudra, Bandha and Pratyahara.
Ultimately Asana itself is a beginner practice. It is meant to prepare you for deeper-going techniques. It is meant to make your body expansive and free, so that you can forget about it for a bit and explore the other parts of you.
A Holistic Hopscotch
In the modern wellness market, Hatha Yoga is presented as “a gentle, unbranded style” of yoga.
The centuries-old Hatha Yoga we practice is a series of steps, each supported by a deep and white set of methods: 1. Removing gross tensions (Shatkarma), 2. Mastering the body (Asana), 3. Stimulating and directing the subtle energy (Mudra/Bandha), 4. Using the breath to harmonise psyche and soma (Pranayama), 5. Learning to reign-in the mind (Pratyahara), and the different stages of 6. Concentration, 7. Meditation and eventually 8. purely Being, the experience of Self.
Each of these stages prepares you for the next. And yet they all influence each other in an back and forth loop, a web of cause and effect. It is a holistic, interconnected system that transforms you from all sides over a period of time.
A Much Bigger Whole
Of course, for us Yoga is much more than the amazing system of Classical Hatha Yoga. There are other systems, like Kundalini Yoga (no, not the commercial one by the discredited Sikh guru, but the old one), Laya Yoga, Swara Yoga, and more.
And still beyond that treasure-trove of techniques that enrich our sadhana, Yoga is something we experience throughout our daily life, away from the mat: Through our work (Karma Yoga), through our point of view (Jnana Yoga), and through our deepest longing (Bhakti Yoga).
To experience authentic classical Yoga, visit the Pirate Tantric’s Magical Yoga Ritual; from 9th November, every Saturday at 11h.
Ahoy!