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Victor
USA
910 Posts |
 Posted - Oct 18 2005 : 3:33:36 PM
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Today I am celebrating 25 years of daily Yoga practice!
After dabbling in Yoga during 1979 and 1980 I finally got serious and on Oct 18 1980 I took home a copy of BKS Iyengars "Light ON Yoga" and began the practice series in the back of the book. Been practicing ever since though more pranayama and less asana in recent years.
It was a milestone for me so I thought I'd mention it. |
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david_obsidian
USA
2602 Posts |
Posted - Oct 18 2005 : 3:41:07 PM
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Congratulations Victor!
I suppose that is your Silver Anniversary!
-D |
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lucidinterval1
USA
193 Posts |
Posted - Oct 18 2005 : 4:16:38 PM
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That's pretty impressive Victor! Nice work.
Paul |
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trip1
USA
739 Posts |
Posted - Oct 18 2005 : 6:52:40 PM
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Congrats Victor! I hope to someday be making the same statement.  |
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Victor
USA
910 Posts |
Posted - Oct 18 2005 : 10:28:18 PM
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Whoo! thanks folks :D :D
Now to do some practice..... |
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Lili
Netherlands
372 Posts |
Posted - Oct 19 2005 : 06:23:41 AM
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Happy birthday We want a jubilee speech  |
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NagoyaSea
424 Posts |
Posted - Oct 20 2005 : 12:16:17 AM
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Blessings Victor!!!
An inspiration indeed! |
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Frank-in-SanDiego
USA
363 Posts |
Posted - Oct 22 2005 : 2:26:12 PM
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Hari Om
~~~~~
Pranams Victor!!!!
Jijvishet satam samah - "may you live 100 years"
from the Isavasya Upanishad .
At first glance people see this as a salutation to have you reach one-hundred earth years. Yet what this rishi of this Upanishad is suggesting is that may you become enlightened.
The "satam samah" = 100, also stands for fullness or one-ness. The "1" is one without a second, and the first "0" is fullness of the Absolute. The second "0" is that of the relative/changing/expanding field of life.
Together the 100 = Wholeness or Brahman - the "fruit" of your meditations! May you become 100 !
Best regards
Frank in San Diego
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Jim and His Karma
2111 Posts |
Posted - Oct 22 2005 : 5:25:25 PM
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That's a long time, Victor! Can you do anything really hard? :)
I've been practicing twenty years, and can't do anything above like a 12 (out of 60) in difficulty in Light on Yoga. But, of course, much of the good stuff comes from practicing the basic poses, with increasing focus and sublety, as you know... |
Edited by - Jim and His Karma on Oct 22 2005 5:25:52 PM |
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nearoanoke
USA
525 Posts |
Posted - Oct 22 2005 : 10:18:11 PM
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Happy Yoga birthday Victor. Really wish to be there in your place one day. 25 years, it really needs great determination to stick to it that long. great going.
Hi Jim,
Just curious to know. How important are yoga asanas in the total journey of enlightenment? I am very lazy to do any of the physical stuff. I understand it is important but will just the 10 minutes of asanas prescribed in AYP book be sufficient?
Thanks, Near
If you want your neighbor to believe in God, let him see what God can make you like. - Emerson |
Edited by - nearoanoke on Oct 22 2005 11:42:02 PM |
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Victor
USA
910 Posts |
Posted - Oct 22 2005 : 11:33:14 PM
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Well to Jim, I think all the poses are really hard! What I mean is that when I was younger i tried to do the really strange looking poses and can still do some of them but at this stage It feels that depth in the basics is FAR more important. I have been combining pranayama breath with postures and it backs me waaay up to be able to do them with smooth and open breath from the inisde. That is where it really works in my opinion. That said i do have a nifty picture of myself in the kandasana pose in our yahoo groups pics. check it out.
to Near. I would say that the postures are much less important for someone who has done them with depth than for someone who has not. They are very powerful for opening the nadis and breath and should not be dimissed as unimportant. i was taught that it is foolish to attempt pranayma without at least 6 months to a year of solid daily asana practice. How much daily is a personal issue. For some 30 minutes is enough, others prefer 3 hours. i would put 30 minutes daily as a minimum in my opinion for someone starting pout with asana though. I don't however see asana as a major path to enlightenment. I have met many people who are advanced at poses who seem that they have a long way to go.
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Edited by - Jim and His Karma on Oct 23 2005 02:42:55 AM |
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Jim and His Karma
2111 Posts |
Posted - Oct 23 2005 : 02:43:11 AM
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To Victor:
"Well to Jim, I think all the poses are really hard!"
Hey, of course! I was teasing. Shoot, I've been working on uttanasana for 20 years, and I'm only about 3/4 of the way there! But, y'know, I've learned sooo much from the long voyage that I feel badly for those who, from the start, can simply bend over and place their palms on the floor. The friction is everything, and with no friction, there's not much yoga!
" I have been combining pranayama breath with postures "
one nice tip I've heard: inflate the posture with the inhalation. That's nice, though I've not really worked on it much, myself.
" That said i do have a nifty picture of myself in the kandasana pose in our yahoo groups pics. check it out."
Ok! Let me see if I can navigate to it....
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Jim and His Karma
2111 Posts |
Posted - Oct 23 2005 : 02:56:26 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by nearoanoke
Hi Jim,
Just curious to know. How important are yoga asanas in the total journey of enlightenment? I am very lazy to do any of the physical stuff. I understand it is important but will just the 10 minutes of asanas prescribed in AYP book be sufficient?
Big complicated highly divisive question. let me just toss thoughts at you
1. if you're in pain or sick or are too inflexible or jittery to sit straight for 20-30 mins to do practice, there is literally nothing better to fix that than asana. that, in fact is its main purpose.
2. asana can also do a lot of the coarse work (meditation is more finetuning). If you're a bundle of nerves, depressed, distracted, anguished, as so many people are, asana can chill you out and get your head straight. It's a great, great coarse energy adjustment. That's its other main purpose (this is really just a corollary of #1).
3. hatha yogis go to a lot of trouble to talk about the spiritual way to approach the poses, as if that's their "holy time". there's nothing wrong with that, but you do have to bear in mind that there's nothing more sacred in standing on your head than in peeling a carrot. Every bit of wisdom you hear from more philsosophically minded asana teachers applies just as strongly to anything else in your life.There's nothing inherently spiritual about these positions. All the attention, non-grasping at end results, not forcing, immersion in attention, etc, is about life, not poses. You can remove the poses entirely, and you'd still need to adopt that mindset to get anywhere on any spiritual path. It's like they make a toupee of yogic philosophy and slap it over the scalp of asana.
4. that said, the asanas aren't something to scoff at. They can act in surprisingly deep ways on your innermost being. The people who figured them out were freaking geniuses. The way they affect energy, body, mind, and spirit (regardless of how you approach them) is so tremendous that I'm not sure there's ever been a more ingenious technological advancement. Hatha yoga teaches you nothing less than the skill to hack yourself.
5. if you practice a form of asana from one of the alignment-oriented schools (anasoura or iyengar come to mind), you learn to do very subtle, precise, and insightful adjustments with your body that come in very very handy in meditation, to handle energy flow when kundalini arises, etc. It's a heckuva tool for outer and inner life.
6. nearly all asana teachers are extraordinarily confused re: how asana fits into the larger spiritual scheme of things. There's some deep self-delusion, superficiality, posing, money-grubbing, and ignorance out there, even among the luminaries. But I'm an absolute nut for the practice.
Contradictory a bit, i know. But there you go. |
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Jim and His Karma
2111 Posts |
Posted - Oct 23 2005 : 02:59:48 AM
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| victor, the yahoo group doesn't seem to include pix.....where's the kandasana photo? |
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trip1
USA
739 Posts |
Posted - Oct 23 2005 : 09:18:29 AM
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| Wow Victor, that picture is quite impressive!! |
Edited by - trip1 on Oct 23 2005 09:41:37 AM |
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Jim and His Karma
2111 Posts |
Posted - Oct 23 2005 : 11:54:01 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by nearoanoke
will just the 10 minutes of asanas prescribed in AYP book be sufficient?
I forgot to reply to this.
Yogani's pretty emphatic on this, and I agree to a point. If you're in pretty good physical/mental shape and just want to use asana to make coarse energy adjustment and prepare yourself for the fine-tuning of inner practice, 10 mins is probably enough.
If you are so jittery that you just can't sit still and meditate or if you have health or energy problems, you need more (the latter under a good teacher). And if you're intrigued by the hacking model I described, you'll be inexorably drawn to do much more.
Just don't mistake the practice. It's magical, and you do want to do it yogically (without grasping at the fruits of result - e.g. I took twenty years to touch my toes, and they were years full of insight and delicious opening), but asana is not more yoga (or less!) than anything else in your life. |
Edited by - Jim and His Karma on Oct 23 2005 12:01:53 PM |
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nearoanoke
USA
525 Posts |
Posted - Oct 28 2005 : 12:59:34 PM
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Jim,
Can you suggest me some good book which can help me self-start on asanas without any teacher instructions? Will light on yoga do?
Can we learn on our own or do we need to take a class under some experienced teacher before we attempt it ourselves?
If you want your neighbor to believe in God, let him see what God can make you like. - Emerson |
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Jim and His Karma
2111 Posts |
Posted - Oct 28 2005 : 10:15:18 PM
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Definitely start with a teacher. Good fundamentals are essential, and if you don't develop them from the get-go, you'll be trying to correct bad habits forever.
Me and Victor both do Iyengar yoga (him more impressively than me, for sure!), but try a variety and see what's right for you. |
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Alvin Chan
Hong Kong
407 Posts |
Posted - Dec 01 2005 : 11:28:07 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by Victor
I have been combining pranayama breath with postures and it backs me waaay up to be able to do them with smooth and open breath from the inisde. That is where it really works in my opinion.
What precisely is the pranayama breath which to be combined in postures?
I have been doing asanas for 1 year now. Although I did the best to make it more "spiritual", it doesn't seem to go a long way. The major reasons why I am still doing them is for relaxing my body before my meditation (quite useful), making myself more flexible (quite slow progress), and release stresses, stimulating glands...anyway, all on the physical level. I have to do some exercises anyway, so why not yoga? But cannot feel anything more profound then that so far. Now I am fine with most basic asanas (although usually I try to make them really hard by going to the limit and perfecting the posture), so I would like to add some other components to them, if there is any. I have added ujjayi and sometimes mulabandha, both advised by the yoga teachers here. For certain asanas,I add some focusing points too. Ujjayi is really helpful especially when I am dying from a long-holding posture, by don't really know the effects of the other yet.
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Victor
USA
910 Posts |
Posted - Dec 02 2005 : 12:51:31 AM
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| I actually don't recommend combining pranayama breathing with asana for any but the most seasoned yogis. It is an extremely intense practice and can do more harm than good as it can force energy through blocked areas. I am not currently practicing this way lately because other stresses in my life have made it hard to do such intense practice. i would suggest folowing the rules for some time before "turning up the gas" energetically |
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Jim and His Karma
2111 Posts |
Posted - Dec 02 2005 : 11:44:39 AM
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| For those who want a taste of this...and it makes for a very nice taste indeed, with no risk at all....try this. Consider your breath to be inflating and sustaining the pose. |
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25 years!
