Guru or not Guru.. that could be the question

The long awaited email about what has been going on this term!

So, at new year I was scratching my head to find an original and interesting theme for our classes. We have studied many philosophical books, Traditional Chinese medicine, chakras, auric fields, breath, amongst other things. So as I stood in front of my bookshelf asking all these wonderful practitioners what to do, it dawned on me, it’s going to be about them!
And so this term has been and will be an ode, a homage to the teachers who have stood out and written about their experiences, and shared it with us.
I might add that this has been a very challenging email to compose, as my research with each teacher has several interesting rabbit hole-able tunnels to dive into! but it has been fascinating!
If you have been in these sessions and would like to give me feedback I would be really happy about that, at the end of the email there is a link to an online feedback form, only I will see it, so don't hold back.

I’ll begin at the beginning:

The week beginning 5th January.

Vanda Scaravelli –Her own style of yoga.
Born 1908, Florence Italy. Died 1999.

Its worth mentioning here that Vanda never did have a school for teaching, she asked her students not to name any school of yoga after her. She picked people randomly to teach one to one. So when you come across "Scaravelli Yoga", it's not quite accurate, it should be Scaravelli inspired yoga, one needs to be certified already to teach this style.

Florence, Italy, Vanda was a concert Pianist and came to practice yoga in her 50's when she was fortunate to be taught by family friends BKS Iyengar and TKV Desikachar and taught her yoga through the Swiss summers alongside another notable family friend; renowned violinist Yehudi Menuin, when they left Europe through the other three seasons, she developed her own style based on gravity, the spine and breath.

Vanda Scaravelli was not a whip cracking kind of teacher, she knew that being kind to the body wielded better results, and therefore her teachings are always about ease and softness, over pushing and pulling.

Quotes from her book "Awakening the Spine"

P6 "Each of the yoga poses is accompanied by breathing and it is during the process of exhalation that the spine can stretch and elongate without effort. We learn to elongate and extend, rather than to pull and push".

P15 "..No motivation, no aims, only an agreeable appointment for the body to look forward to. We do it for the fun of it".

P25 "Some may ask why I write on a subject which can only really achieve results through training and example. But in this kind of teaching there are no achievements and no results. It consists simply in the cleansing and revival of the body and the re-awakening of the spine. This purification will give us vitality and the opportunity to heal whatever may not be right with the body"

P26 "Movement is the song of the body"

P34 "To be sensitive is to be alive".

And my personal favourite:
“Through Yoga a different life begins and the body expresses a happiness it never knew before.”

Vanda Scaravelli inspired my teachers and has inspired me not just in yoga, but also as a way of seeing and being in the world"and has helped me to keep a keen eye on ego and "advancement" which is of course a myth in this context.

Week beginning 12th January
Paul Grilley- Yin Yoga
Born 1958 Seattle USA

With his wife Suzee Grilley, the model for his book Yin Yoga -a quiet practice.

Paul Grilley began to practise yoga in 1979, he was studing anatomy and in 1982 he went on to study anatomy and kinesiology at the University of California and gained his master's degree in 2000. He was awarded an honorary Ph.D. by the California Institute for Human Science for his work on the relevance of fascia, the sheets of connective tissue that hold the body together, to the practice of yoga asanas. This is the main reason I wanted to shine a light on his teachings:

"The mechanical, bioelectric, and bio magnetic signals travelling through the connective tissue network, and through the space around the body, tell the various cells how to form and reform the tissue architecture in response to the tensions and movements we make"

p7 P.Grilley Yin yoga- outline of a quiet practice.

He discovered through his teacher Dr Motoyama and other athletes that yin yoga was used as a balance for yang forms of movement. Qigong & Tai Chi were practiced before Karate and Tae-Kwon-Do, and other more yang styles of martial arts. This was a real spark for him and made so much sense as he had been learning the 26-2 asana sequence from Bikram and through learning Ashtanga yoga, these powerful yoga styles he felt needed some balance.

He decided that he would teach what he coined the "yoga of the Ashram" which was methodical, meditative, interesting, and quiet.

Yin yoga isn't a passive floppy style of making shapes, It uses powerful poses but with the philosophy that you don’t have to go through hell. Yin asks more of the connective tissue, and therefore the main joints and strength muscles need to be relaxed in order to gain a safe understanding of the stretching that is going on. The yin and yang supplement each other, one nourishes the other, one prepares for the other.

"Yin speaks to the liquids of the body, once one is warmed up through yin, the yang naturally comes."

"Connective tissue is tough & fibrous, to stretch connective tissue around a joint, the muscles must be relaxed. If the muscles are tense the connective tissue doesn’t take the stress" P15 P.Grilley

A practice we tried out in sessions was "anger in stillness" (p23 P.G) lying in shavasana, still as can be, and try to stay still whilst conjuring up anger, it's virtually impossible.

"If we were more aware of the physical beating our body was taking from our mental and emotional lives we might take more precautions against undesirable mental states. This is one reason why classic yoga texts include moral and ethical training among their disciplines".
P23 P.Grilley Yin yoga- outline of a quiet practice.

"Never is never right, and always is always wrong" P.Grilley

Week beginning 19th January
Thomas Hannah -Somatics

Born 1928 Died 1990 in USA.

Just to be clear this study isn't technically yoga. It probably more akin to "movement awareness" than Yoga, however the methods and teachings of Hannah are definitely noteworthy in the fundamentals of "how not to hurt yourself in yoga", and also how to re-learn movements when they have become uncomfortable or painful.

Thomas Hannah was a philosopher and a neuroscientist, and later a student of Dr. Moshe Feldenkreis, a philosophy and movement therapy professor.

He proposed that most negative health effects are due to what he called Sensory Motor Amnesia. (SMA)

He coined the word “Somatics” which comes from the Greek “soma” meaning “living body”.

One of the movements he championed was "pandiculation", where a muscle or group of muscles find their full range of contraction and then relaxation. He used this in order to help people reset unhelpful habitual motions through the body. Think Cat & Cow poses!!! these are pandicular stretches, and are particularly lovely practiced alongside a 4 legged creature doing the same.

if you're interested in the stretching v pandiculation debate check out this video

Why did the habits start? Many reasons are possible; trauma, lifestyle, regular movement habits, conditioning… the possibilities are vast and they can lead to SMA, which will then possibly inhibit other activities.

"The fact is, during the course of our lives, our sensory-motor systems continually respond to daily stresses and traumas with specific muscular reflexes, repeatedly triggered create habitual muscular contractions, which we cannot -voluntarily- relax... SMA is an adaptive response of the nervous system; and because of this it can be un-learned"
pxiii introduction. Somatics. T Hannah

“Always focus your attention on the internal sensations of the movement.”

As we explored some of the movements which can help unlock particular tensions in the body- achey shoulders & lower back, this is the quite straightforward re-learning guide:

Think:

-Position the body
-Create a pandiculation Movement
-Sensing the experience of the movement.

Repeat

Then move to a different position, then find the movement, and then take time to sense.

One movement which I have brought into lessons for a really long time is this one;
Twirly down & up video

Enjoy!

Week beginning 26th January
Norman Blair- Yin Yoga
Teaching since 2001

Norman in his studio in North London.

Since a friend of his suggested coming to a yoga class in the early 1990's Norman has had a varied and profound relationship with yoga. He learned Ashtanga yoga and kept going to classes for over 5 years until he discovered that having his own practice at home was also really helping him. A friend suggested he taught, and so he gave it a go. it came naturally, and now 25 years later he is still running that first session, with a few more credentials under his belt than when he started out.

He wrote "Brightening our inner skies". a book dedicated to yin yoga, which is an insightful, thoroughly researched and personal book.
Here's a taste of whats inside:
"Practice is connecting to self (without fetishism or narcissism) and connecting to other (with clarity and kindness). It is lessening judgements and encouraging joy. A sign of deepening practicing is laughing more, becoming more able to wear the being human with greater lightness. Obviously settings from the past are still present, yet there have been shifts. There is a definite brightening of our inner skies".
p14 Brightening our inner skies

Incidentally if you're interested in a copy of this first class book, let me know and I can arrange a direct sale from Norman.

Yin, a softening of the edges of the angular intensity of yang practices like Ashtanga yoga.
"Time is more important than intensity when practicing yin yoga." p45
"In practicing, we attempt to find our own frequency, like those old transistor radios, the turning of dial to tune in to where we actually are right in this moment, not where we would like to be nor where we have been in the past.. tuning in and turning on."

"In coming to yin, we could let these five qualities guide us:
Softening
Patience
Kindness
Effort
Dedication

& Four points could ground us:
Pause & soften
Connect
Allow
Listen"
(p35-36)

The edge..
"The edge is a place where sensations are strong without you having to struggle to stay ; a shape that allows you to be able to walk away afterwards and to wake up the next day without feeling as though you’ve been hit by a train... The edge shifts".
P46
In our week's sessions we studied how some of the standing sequence of the Ashtanga primary series played out when presented as a yin practice.. using blocks, straps and blankets to support us in our relaxing. It totally changed the urgency and fierceness in the body, although the mind was concentrating hard to soften in whichever places didn't need to be used. there was a sense of overcoming overcompensation and inviting softness and kindness.

Week beginning 2nd February

Bikram Choudry- 26-2, hot yoga, Bikram yoga.

Bikram teaching hundreds of students in a hot studio, Spain.

Born 1944 Calcutta India. living in India after a long stint in the USA, where he established himself as a yoga “Guru”  with the system he developed through what he learned from his teacher Bishnu Charan Ghosh, who taught him many hundreds of asanas. Bikram pieced together a 90 minute sequence complete with the 38-40 degree heat said to mimic the Indian climate.

The bad boy of yoga, stripped of his Guru title for disrespecting the importance of the title and its origins, yes it might be a bit controversial to bring a discredited teacher to you, however I do not wish to pull the wool over your eyes and pretend that yoga only produces good-willed teachers. It's not true! There are a small handful who will take advantage of the pretty fit young naive women who feel honoured to be invited to the "guru's" room for extra tutoring.. no prizes for guessing what happened there.. but It would possibly please you to know that Bikram was exposed, not just in the documentary about him: "Yogi, Guru, Predator" but by his former staff members and some who he trained.

Despite his horrendous behaviour and attitude he was still widely followed, because the asana was so good.

He filed many a complaint towards his students for using his name for their yoga, and tried to copyright the sequence. Thankfully the US copyright office responded that asana cannot be copyrighted, and quite rightly so.
He was arrested in 2016 and in 2018 was deported back to India with many debts and unfinished claims against him, mostly of a sexual nature.

His lineage is important to recognise, his teacher Bishnu Charan Ghosh, a body builder and Who's philosophy was broadly based around having a "healthy body, & still mind" and was the younger brother of Paramahansa yogananda, the author of “Autobiography of a yogi” one of the most highly regarded yoga books in the world.

So Ghosh taught Bikram asana, Ghosh had rickets in his youth which stunted his growth and he became a body builder in the 50’s and 60’s. He taught Bikram his body building skills and asanas, but died before he could impart the broader wisdom of yoga philosophy to Bikram, a real shame!

Needless to say yours truly struggled with this presentation in sessions, as I really don’t like him, but I know that even when people behave disrespectfully and continue to do so, they still may have gold in them. I also feel it's important not to ignore that even wellness practices have shadow sides.

I have no quotes from him, for a good reason.

Week beginning 9th February
Gurmukh- Kundalini yoga

Gurmukh Kaur Khasla

Born 1943, living in California USA.

Kundalini yoga has been a well kept secret for centuries, and only recently has developed into what it is today. As a branch of Tantra yoga, this is all about energy and how the body can be awakened to change.
The body is a vessel for energy, or prana, and it moves, in yoga myth Kundalini is the name of the “snake” that lives coiled up at the base of the spine.
Gurmukh wrote a book called the “Eight human talents” referring broadly to eight chakras or energy centres in the body and beyond the body.
This subject is vast and I am only skimming the surface of this extraordinary branch of yoga.

Her teacher Yogi Bhajan gave her the name Gurmukh the first time they met, it means:
“One who lives and breathes words of divine wisdom and communicates that essence deeply from her heart”.

"Yoga is not about self improvement, its about self acceptance"

She is a Sikh, and returns to India every year to renew her devotion. Interestingly Sikhism has a lot in common with Tantra and Kundalini yoga, and you will come across a few words in the chants which link the two:

Whaheguru- One genderless god
Seva- Selfless service
Naam Japna- Remembering the creators name through chanting and meditation.
Wand Chakna- Sharing
Mukti- Liberation through reincarnation and karma- actions
Sarbat de bala- Rejecting caste systems, superstitions and blind rituals, emphasising compassion, equality and justice.

There is a of of repetition in Kundalini yoga, numerology is important in the practices, there are many magical numbers and the repetition systematically trains the body mind and nervous system to handle intense energetic shifts, facilitating deep internal healing, changing habits, and breaking through mental limitations.

Chanting holds a great significance in most yoga, but especially Kundalini. Japa is a sacred kundalini practice which is a repetition of mantra through the night, sometimes for days at a time. The voice is a very powerful tool, as Im sure we all know that what we say, and how we say it, and also what we don't say have a huge affect on those around us. We must take care within our speech, our auditory communication tool! I am also thinking about what we say to ourselves..
"If you accept and learn not to criticise yourself, you will find true health- physically, mentally, and spiritually."
p14 The Eight Human Talents

In her book Gurmukh describes many practices, and at the end gives a full description of a wellness practice to do at home. Some things are really challenging, especially if you're doing it 54 times! but giving Kundalini a chance to show its colours really is a grand experience. Personally, I think kundalini should be shown, and guided by a teacher..
If you dive in to a practice on your own without guidance of how to get back to your earthly frequency and leaves you floaty and "off with the fairies", you might not get your taxes done on time, or some other normal business!

Don't get me wrong, Kundalini is pretty awesome, I loved teaching the sessions in that last week before the half term break, and welcome your feedback not just from this session but the others too, and it is your personal experience Im most interested in. Although the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali do talk of magical powers like mind reading, I haven't got to that bit yet!

...And I'll end at the end