Jan 29- The Winds

A nice lady here, self-practitioner, first time to mysore, asked a good question.  A common one.  With a good attitude and some frustration she asked:

OK, what is up with nobody speaking of alignment in Mysore?”

My friend Tasia Whitmore noted that when she assisted Sharath, he advised her to:  fix their feet, and the rest of the alignment will come.

I noted that there is an alignment principle, one that supercedes the mind.  The alignment of a dynamic, vinyasa practice like Ashtanga comes from the pure movements of Prana.  The systems of Yoga and Ayurveda both describe the 5 Pranas, which are patterns of movement inherent in the body.  When the mind proposes to run the show, we get into trouble. 

While asana certainly does provide shapes for the Prana to move within, in beneficial ways, too much mind-emphasis can actually rupture these natural currents.  Prana rides the waves of the breath, which is why the only instruction given is generally, deep breathing with sound.  If you keep it moving in rhythm with the breath, all is well. 

I know for some western minds, this is hard to believe.  There is a sense that we must DO something.  At this stage of my game, not obsessing over the movements of mind and watching for the all-the-time-happening movements of Prana is what I am Doing.  On and off the mat.  The name of the game is letting it be, trusting it, relaxing into it.  The Prana.  Its mysterious in the beginning, requires building a relationship with the subtle body in a way that implies some groundwork has been layed.  I believe it is a natural progression of the practice.

If a yoga system can short-circuit the mind rather than give it full plates of food all the time (read: information), then it would seem we have an opportunity to come into a healthy, dynamic sense of ourselves through the practice.  Like I said before, there are booby traps.  Over-emphasis of alignment, safety-obsessed practice (and maybe some teachers need to teach mostly safety because their classes are too big), can be a booby trap.  

On Yatra, we had the treat of a lunch date with Dr Robert Svoboda in Mumbai.  When asked how he feels about the different styles and representations of Yoga in the West, he replied something like: It is my hope that the focus on Yoga in the west will shift more towards the concept of Prana, and less on the idea of styles and complicated representations ,which may not be correct.

Amen to that.

So I keep writing about, thinking about, and feeling for Prana.  The winds of my existence.

In the teaching, I try not to say too much because Robert is right, better to say nothing than to create an incorrect representation.  Let the students figure it out for themselves.  Let the winds lead the way.

That’s how we do it here in Mysore.