Tuesday, August 4, 2009 - Yoga: It's many things. Peeling a carrot with mindfulness. Studying and devoting yourself to study, or a teacher. Breathing. Being in the only reality there really is: NOW.
BOOMER YOGA AND THE EVOLUTION OF POWER YOGA
I have been dipping into yoga over the years and really did kind of fall away from it as a real practice. I recently stopped in for a beginnning class at Yoga in the Pearl and was shocked to discover what a work out it really is. This book totally reinspired me. I think you will enjoy it too. LISTEN BELOW.
I really enjoyed this interview with Beryl Bender Birch and thought you would as well.
"I didn’t begin the study of asana in earnest until l980, when I met Norman Allen in New York City. Norman was the first Western student of Pattabhi Jois and I – through sheer synchronicity – stumbled into a workshop he gave at the Jain Meditation International Center in New York. Watching him practice this rajasic (active), awe-inspiring, athletic form of asana, was unlike anything I had seen before.
I had been taking asana classes off and on since l971 and had studied Sivananda Yoga with Swami Vishudevananda, Kundalini Yoga with Yoga Bhajan, and Iyengar yoga with many of the early senior Iyengar teachers like Judith Lasater, Ramanand Patel, and Adil Palkivala. I even began teaching asana classes in Colorado in l974.
But this system of asana, called Ashtanga by its primary proponent, Sri K, Pattabhi Jois, was completely different than anything I had seen. It felt familiar in an ancient sort of way. As soon as I saw Norman doing this practice, I felt like I had found what I had been searching for in India years before. And here it was in my back yard. I jumped in to solid training with Norman, 24 days a month, for two years.
He took a couple of month long trips to India during that time to see Pattabhi Jois, but I, and the other 4 people studying with him at that time, kept our practice going while he was gone."
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