Ashtanga Yoga is more than just asana, as there is a family of practitioners, not only in your home town, but a worldwide community.
I have just returned to Brighton, the most Bohemian and possibly most yogacentric city in the UK, and having established a Mysore practice with a beautiful, friendly and passionate group of ashtangis over 2 years I have made many yogi mates.
And wandering around the town over the past week I have met a few of these fiends, one whop has just returned from a months intensive retreat in Maui, Hawaii with Nancy Gilgoff, another who has just returned from 6 months in India, and another who has just had a baby... Not static people.
And this energetic and powerful moving family are all creating waves around the planet, learning, through their practice, to be gentle with their bodies and the Earth upon which they tread, and to pass through this life with consideration and understanding.
For the practitioners of Ashtanga Yoga are a special creed, a dedicated and intelligent family, each striving for growth and development, and willing to make sacrifices to create better health for themselves and also educating others by their learned expressions.
And through the connections we make, in yoga, we connect to a larger family, worldwide, with a trust and fellowship, arisen from shared experience and shared wisdom... To my brothers and sisters, I salute you! Namaste!
Written and published by Mark Golding - THE ORGANIC HOME
THE LATEST YOGA NEWS, FROM IT IS YOGA
Saturday, 17 April 2010
Thursday, 8 April 2010
AN ASHTANGA DIARY 10
I have been approaching my practice with dedication and integrity this year, knowing that I have to re-establish both neutrality and strength within my physical body.
Extending my awareness throughout my body, evenly distributed with softness and passivity, but, with the best will in the world I reach areas within my body that seem to defy my efforts to clear, and this creates a tendency for the area to be even more isolated, a bit of a catch 22 situation.
So, when this happens, or when I take notice that it has happened, it is time to seek expert advice, and not necessarily from a yogi. I choose to visit a therapist, trained in both Bowen Therapy and Emmett Technique, a man called Ray Smith, and this is his website - Feelsbetter Therapies
And what he does is quite astonishing for a yoga practitioner. He helps to identify the emotional aspects associated with the individual blockages and obstruction, and he will explain where these are within the body, and with a combination of manipulation and healing will penetrate and soften these areas, in a manner that might have taken 3 months of yoga to reach, thus enabling the yoga practice to be eased through the change, rather than the yoga practice causing the change.
It does, in effect, create a doorway through which one can travel with yoga, and once traversed, can be maintained through practice, not to return again. I will say that I do not have this treatment often, but when I feel my body burdened with emotional backpacks and burdens, it is Ray who lightens my load, explaining aspects of my physicality that I was completely unaware of.
The man with X-Ray hands...
Written and published by Mark Golding - THE ORGANIC HOME
THE LATEST YOGA NEWS, FROM IT IS YOGA
Extending my awareness throughout my body, evenly distributed with softness and passivity, but, with the best will in the world I reach areas within my body that seem to defy my efforts to clear, and this creates a tendency for the area to be even more isolated, a bit of a catch 22 situation.
So, when this happens, or when I take notice that it has happened, it is time to seek expert advice, and not necessarily from a yogi. I choose to visit a therapist, trained in both Bowen Therapy and Emmett Technique, a man called Ray Smith, and this is his website - Feelsbetter Therapies
And what he does is quite astonishing for a yoga practitioner. He helps to identify the emotional aspects associated with the individual blockages and obstruction, and he will explain where these are within the body, and with a combination of manipulation and healing will penetrate and soften these areas, in a manner that might have taken 3 months of yoga to reach, thus enabling the yoga practice to be eased through the change, rather than the yoga practice causing the change.
It does, in effect, create a doorway through which one can travel with yoga, and once traversed, can be maintained through practice, not to return again. I will say that I do not have this treatment often, but when I feel my body burdened with emotional backpacks and burdens, it is Ray who lightens my load, explaining aspects of my physicality that I was completely unaware of.
The man with X-Ray hands...
Written and published by Mark Golding - THE ORGANIC HOME
THE LATEST YOGA NEWS, FROM IT IS YOGA
Saturday, 3 April 2010
AN ASHTANGA DIARY 9
And in savasana, then what? What are you supposed to do?
There is an opportunity to withdraw the sense awarenesses, starting from the outermost layers, where the hairs of the body experience the air around the body, this being the primary physical encounter with that which lies external to us, the bridge from the inner to the outer worlds.
Then drawing inwards, to the skin, that which comprises and contains our shape, our form and to a large extent, our identity, and then inwards through the first layer of fat, and into the muscles that lie below.
Those muscles, which following practice are engorged with prana, and vibrational resonances, and then on into the bone structure, the skeleton that dwells within. Recall and identify as many as you wish, from memory of those illustrations we all know so well, and mapping internally too.
Yes, know your skeleton well.
And, then conatined within the structure are the vital organs, from the brain and eyes in the skull, and the heart, lungs, digestive systems and more within the torso, and, this all fed with a network of veins and arteries, carrying the life giving blood throughout the body.
Yes, know your system well, and feel it by knowing it.
And, then deeper within, are the nervous systems that carry information and data about the entire body, at lightning speeds, and follwing practice allow the mind to become more familiar with the mapping, that is loosely aligned with the physicality of the body.
These pulsating and resonating systems are highlighted immediately after practice, and this is an opportunity to know, to feel, that which we normally ignore, and then, deeper still, the subtle body...
Written and published by Mark Golding - THE ORGANIC HOME
THE LATEST YOGA NEWS, FROM IT IS YOGA
There is an opportunity to withdraw the sense awarenesses, starting from the outermost layers, where the hairs of the body experience the air around the body, this being the primary physical encounter with that which lies external to us, the bridge from the inner to the outer worlds.
Then drawing inwards, to the skin, that which comprises and contains our shape, our form and to a large extent, our identity, and then inwards through the first layer of fat, and into the muscles that lie below.
Those muscles, which following practice are engorged with prana, and vibrational resonances, and then on into the bone structure, the skeleton that dwells within. Recall and identify as many as you wish, from memory of those illustrations we all know so well, and mapping internally too.
Yes, know your skeleton well.
And, then conatined within the structure are the vital organs, from the brain and eyes in the skull, and the heart, lungs, digestive systems and more within the torso, and, this all fed with a network of veins and arteries, carrying the life giving blood throughout the body.
Yes, know your system well, and feel it by knowing it.
And, then deeper within, are the nervous systems that carry information and data about the entire body, at lightning speeds, and follwing practice allow the mind to become more familiar with the mapping, that is loosely aligned with the physicality of the body.
These pulsating and resonating systems are highlighted immediately after practice, and this is an opportunity to know, to feel, that which we normally ignore, and then, deeper still, the subtle body...
Written and published by Mark Golding - THE ORGANIC HOME
THE LATEST YOGA NEWS, FROM IT IS YOGA
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