Advanced practice · 31 May 2008

People keep sending over this article from the NYT about how a sharp increase in yoga converts the past three years has led to a watering down of the intensity of practice. The writer doesn’t quite trace out the mechanism (increasingly superficial teaching, therefore increasingly superficial students, and advanced yoga’s inherent resistance to commodification because it is so weird and demanding) because she only sees "supply and demand" at work, but she does capture the effects. The gaps she leaves open are pretty thought-provoking.

Anyway, at the end of the article, the NYT lists advanced practice options in LA, NY, Chicago, Miami and Boston. Well, they get Miami right. In LA, they list Yogaworks 2/3 Flow yoga as the advanced option.

Really? Vinyasa flow, perhaps especially at YW, is inherently intermediate practice. That is great, and exactly right for many students; but it puts yoga in a poor light to market 2/3 vinyasa flow as "advanced."

In vinyasa flow, a 90-minute synchronized, led format is the pinnacle. This is a very good format, but no matter how much art and technique it packs, it is always going to deepen the student’s dependence on the teacher. Which is the exact conundrum the NYT article addresses. In terms of institutional history, many would say YW karma is all about not trusting students with their own bodies. The teacher is taught to consider “risk” above all else; and the original creator of the TT program publicly says that most people who finish the YW TT “have no business teaching.” Distrust until proven otherwise is the name of the game both of teachers and of students in relation to their own bodies: an ethos that makes good sense in an environment where everybody wants, a little too much, to be a teacher.

By its nature, vinyasa flow contains no transmission of old knowledge and certainly no initiation. It's dance-infused, post-aerobics group exercise, after all. It’s a very good way to begin practicing yoga, but those who want "advanced" the deeper challenges of advanced practice are just not available within that format.

Vinyasa flow is great--exactly what it should be. YW is a franchise, and should not be doing initiation. The majority of its students want not to be fully trusted, want to be told what to do. Some of its prominent teachers are known for claiming to be students of the lineage (when legitimacy is needed) even as they publicly ridicule ashtanga and students who practice it past a certain age (too dangerous; too demanding; created for teenage boys). That is fine too, but encouraging fear of and hostility to advanced practice is not exactly the mark of an institution where one can learn advanced practice.

And as everybody around here can verify, research shows ashtanga is amazing for practictioners at every age, given that practitioners have been initiated as their own teachers. Without initiation, yeah: ashtanga would be hazardous over the age of 14.

It feels, to me, like the main reason to ridicule ashtanga publicly and tell people it’s physically too hard is that when adept students find out it’s a place where they can finally get away from talking teachers and learn the deeper dimensions of tristana (when they discover it is advanced practice), they will take their pretty postures elsewhere. Ashtanga is so beautiful and badass that it dominates the flow experience, even on the more superficial level of asana. So students get protected from advancement, even though their own teachers probably at some point used ashtanga to nurture their personal home practices.

You can’t even begin to think about “advanced practice” without some kind of initiation into the tradition and self-possession of your own practice. You have to be trusted, and taught to trust yourself. Following the breath and quieting the mind is a whole new game when you’re not dependent on a teacher for every move.

Also, it’s not like you practice supta kurmasana and kapotasana in vinyasa flow. Pish posh on this whole "advanced practice" thing. Don’t deny yourselves.

Posted by (0v0)        
Categories: astanga yoga , beta state , having a body , markets-networks-society

Comment

1. This was completely brilliant and says more clearly, things I’ve been trying to say for I don’t know how long. Email to follow :)

   Posted by: patrick · Jun 1, 04:59 AM · #

2. From experience, I think that the article got Chicago “right,” too.

   Posted by: knl · Jun 1, 05:06 AM · #

3. KNL, haven’t seen you in a while. Welcome.

   Patrick, you are going to enjoy the backstory here.

   The Editor gave me a tough time for even including tricky postures as a dimension on which ashtanga is “more advanced,” since I do believe it doesn’t matter what it looks like. True, but I was feeling a little provocative. Off to practice---

   Posted by: (0v0) · Jun 1, 05:31 AM · #

4. Beautiful and badass. Yes, exactly!

   Posted by: joy · Jun 1, 07:43 AM · #

5. great post. it’s the paradox of the mysore model…the best teaching system is inherently anti-capitalist: great teachers want to empower you to leave them. good for the student, not so good for long-term studio cash flow.

   Posted by: cody · Jun 1, 08:09 AM · #

6. Yes Joy, irresistible in its way. You couldn’t help but come to it eventually…

   CP, no kidding. You understand this so well. The practice is rife with very useful paradoxes; and I love that its confrontation with the Market has generated a specifically American kind of paradox— one which the shitty economy brings to the fore.

   And yet… ashtanga grows. It seems to be expanding according to its own weird logic. (Indeed, the past 5 years have been a crazy boom… and it intrigues me, too, that the ashtanga blogosphere has boomed as well.) I think we need more than economic logic to understand its spread and the ways in which this practice in particular will continue to define “advanced yoga” in a way that subverts the rest of the market.

   Seriously, this practice is the only one in which a large number of teachers ride motorcycles. Anybody can do it, but they have to bring their whole selves to class (not just the hippy dippy namaste shit) and have to take some responsibility for taking themselves to the difficult places. It’s just off the map of the teacher- coddling, give- yourself- a- treat, don’t- challenge- yourself- but- just- feel- good, student- as- consumer spa yoga that is everywhere.

   Wow. Look at that. This post has gotten me all ashtangelical. Ashtanga is so completely awesome.

   I guess now I have to write a post about why ashtanga is not awesome. Arg.

   Posted by: (0v0) · Jun 1, 11:03 AM · #

7. Wonderfully put. Thank you for your perspective. I agree, tristana is an advanced practice. Ashtanga takes us deep.

   Thank you again.

   Posted by: Laruga Glaser · Jun 1, 03:39 PM · #

8. Beautiful and badass and once again you highlight that the advanced practice is more than just the difficult asanas, it’s going within…

   Posted by: Anna · Jun 1, 04:39 PM · #

9. Mmm. That’s what I don’t want to leave out. The second and third series do some pretty advanced things to a person, but it’s possible to be full of shit and doing advanced ashtanga, right? And I bet we all know really truly sophisticated yogis who hang out in the primary series.

   That said, I have to break down and admit it is badass on the level of poses and stuff.

   Laruga Glaser, hello! It is very nice to see you.

   Posted by: (0v0) · Jun 1, 04:56 PM · #

10. Swenson famously has said, “you can still be an asshole and be able to put your foot behind your head,” yes.

    0v0, I’m not going to get that email sent. If you want my two cents, you’ll have to send first. This is not a bribe, just the facts. I’ll email you on Friday if I can.

    Posted by: patrick · Jun 1, 06:26 PM · #

11. Of COURSE it’s badass! Kapotasana is badass, the LBH stuff = badass, karandavasana, badass, all that beautiful third series arm balancing jumping all over the place you do, badass, freestanding chakra B, badass.

    And yes, someone can do all of these things with pride and ego and feelings of superiority and we might think that person is an asshole.

    Advanced = evolved.

    Posted by: Anna · Jun 1, 06:44 PM · #

12. Well.. the article is not as bad as I feared, but there’s something about bendy 23-year-olds complaining they’re too advanced for the teachers around.. advanced is humble, and resourceful. Do some bendy stuff at home. Meditate. Read some Bihar books or something and learn about the subtle side. Life exists after spoon-feeding.

    Agreed, ashtanga is empowering, but only for those with the attention span to do the same poses every day.

    Posted by: susananda · Jun 1, 11:00 PM · #

13. Yes, I’d like to see that post on why ashtanga sucks….. :)

    Posted by: LI Ashtangini · Jun 2, 05:25 AM · #

14. Astanga vinyasa system can do wonders, and the Mysore teaching method is the next best thing to a home practice. Yet at the same time, the degree of difficulty of the postures and the demands of doing advanced posture after advanced posture and the hierarchial nature of the series in Western hands has done harm to some. I would venture to guess that most of the readers here are in the late 20’s to 30’s and have been at it for less than 10 years. Do we have many 20 year practitioners doing 3rd, 4th in the 40’s or 50’s? I know several who were doing the advanced series who have let them go – mostly because of the painful physical conditions that ensued. I must admit that I have developed fear of Astanga vinyasa. I am in my 40’s and have been at it for 9 years and frankly, its been one injury (I like to call them “teachings”) after another. I’ll be the first to admit that I may not be practicing “right”. I have had 3 knee surgeries with a 4th one pending and I attribute this to many things including premature padmasanic posturings as required in the traditional teaching method. And I taught almost two years of mysore 6 days a week and the most commmon questions I got were: 1. why does this hurt? 2. how can I get more flexible? 3. When do i get my next pose?. Very few seemed too concerned about using the practice as a tool for observation or to achieve higher states of awareness. Now that may just have been my fault as a teacher and I attracted such “energies”, or projection on my part.

    Advanced practice is letting go of our ideas about the practice, letting go of forms yet still paying attention to said forms. And I don’t think I am there yet despite my 2 hour practice to eka pada bakasanas. Will these paradoxes ever cease? Simply, no.

    As for YW, they are sometimes known as instructors rather than teachers which is a far more appropiate term. The title “Teacher” in the context of yoga should be saved for those with a definite uninterrupted lineage.

    Posted by: e&sj · Jun 2, 11:25 AM · #

15. LIA, there you have it!

    Thanks, ESJ. This brings up so many thoughts for me. I will keep them percolating for now, but to say that my experience of your room is one of humor, letting go of dogma, precision and quietude. There is a great deal of CM and RF in your energy, even as the I-want-to-have-kapotasana (kapotasana being a kind of affliction more than a “thing,” as it turns out) attraction bubbled in through the walls.

    I like the idea of reserving “teacher” for someone with a “definite interrupted lineage.” This goes to not only the subject of initiation that I was trying to tease out here, but also the subject of transmission.

    Certain claims are made to the lineage at times…

    Posted by: (0v0) · Jun 2, 12:07 PM · #

16. Did E&SJ not know I was joking?

    Posted by: LI Ashtangini · Jun 2, 12:16 PM · #

17. On Googling “padmasanic”, 0 results (i.e., blank, white page [other than suggestion that I might have meant “Panasonic”):

    “Your search – padmasanic – did not match any documents.”

    Did not match ANY documents? Ontological crisis, ontological crisis. Can something exist yet remain unGoogle-able?

    Posted by: R · Jun 2, 12:45 PM · #

18. Nice.

    Padmasana = ontological crisis

    Considering you’re the one who levitates in padmasana, you should know?

    Posted by: (0v0) · Jun 2, 01:08 PM · #

19. Hi (0v0)
    Thanks for pointing out the article and for your great observations. So I may be crim in the eyes of hardcore teachers, planning to give myself some 3rd series poses at least once a week. But it’s my self practice and I don’t want to wait until I’m 80 to start that set. So my rendition won’t be beautiful. However, I know someone in SF who taught himself 3rd series using videos. I haven’t seen him in 3 years, but he was a wiry thin guy that when he practiced looked incredibly strong. Gotta get a pay off for my calorie restriction somehow.
    hugs
    Arturo

    Posted by: arturo · Jun 2, 07:38 PM · #

20. My apologies for the somewhat harsh tone. I completely agree about the whole notion that the flow classes are advanced or even complex. And the Iyengar people will perhaps attempt one or two postures found post ustrasana in a “level 3” class. Of course, to their credit, their classes are really workshops and should not count as one’s practice – they are supposed to be practicing at home doing their “cycles” (which can be relatively fast and flowing sans catvari -the dreaded or loved 4th form – could this be the mystical source of the turiya state?)

    “The ancient sage Vamana Rishi practiced yoga postures in this way: one meditative yoga posture flows through endless forms, just as one being manifests an infinity of forms. Currents of energy rise and spread pulling the body through the whole spectrum of attitudes and viewpoints, postures strung like flowers on the thread of the breath – this movement produces spontaneous meditation by awakening the core energy of the nervous system connecting it from its root to the crown of the head.”
    -Richard Freeman.

    If I really got that, not just intellectually, but knowing it and experiencing it on a cellular level could there be any doubt (yet another obstacle to yoga aka samshaya – Pada I Verse 30) about the merits of this path? This is one reason why, despite my occasional misfortunes and 3 am pain wake-up calls, I keep at it. To get it as Vamana might have…

    Posted by: es&j · Jun 2, 08:33 PM · #

21. I’m so glad someone finally said it! Great post.

    PS-I teach ashtanga at a YW. It can be interesting…

    Posted by: elise · Jun 3, 05:02 AM · #

22. ES&J: The “cycles” — how does one establish a cycle? (Through a teacher, I’m assuming?) Are they the same pre-set cycles, or are they individually tailored? I’m curious to hear more about how this works.

    Posted by: karen · Jun 3, 06:12 AM · #

23. Wow, Elise. That is intense. I bet you bring a great connection to the tradition in to your teaching.

    Posted by: (0v0) · Jun 3, 08:58 AM · #

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