Enough is Enough
By J. Brown
On the subway I overheard two women next to me discussing yoga. I always enjoy hearing others thoughts on this subject, especially when they are candid and uninhibited. Two specific sentiments were being expressed that struck me as particularly indicative of practitioners today. First there seemed to be the sense that they consider themselves to be "disconnected" most of the time, and the reason they go to yoga class is to "re-connect." Second was that the classes they found most impressive were the ones where the teacher really "kicked them in the ass," when the practice was an almost overwhelming challenge that overcoming meant they were closer to or deeper in this "connection."
At no point was there any discussion as to what it was they were connecting to, or disconnected from. My immediate thought was that if someone believes themselves to be lacking in some way then they will have no problem torturing themselves and will gladly embrace such a pursuit if they're convinced it is leading them to something greater or better, but if someone considers themselves to be inherently sufficient then subjecting themselves to suffering would not make much sense, in fact it would seem ludicrous."
Certainly the conventional wisdom at the large majority of yoga centers is that the more "advanced" student is the one who can perform more rigorous feats of physical prowess. It has been my experience that this is generally not the case. In fact, extreme displays often prove to be more an indication of immaturity.
When did "advanced" yoga come to mean inversions and arm-balances, or fast passed vinyasa with little or no attention to breath? Is it appropriate for practice to be reduced to a gymnastic effort with a dualistic purpose? Who created a "level I-II-III-IV" classification of asana, and what are the distinguishing characteristics of a "beginner", "intermediate", or "advanced" student? Most importantly, why does it seem that there are so few in the yoga "community" who are raising similar questions?
I remember when I first began to question the efficacy and purpose of doing poses and the implication it had on my understanding of life. I had been practicing and teaching on the New York yoga scene for some years and was considered by many to be "advanced" in the conventional sense, often being asked to perform demonstrations in class. It was one of these occasions that marked the beginning of a change.
I had just completed a most flashy handstand press, the class applauded, and the teacher said: "Now that is what we are working towards." On the way home from this class I was wrought with dismay over the comment. At the time I was in chronic pain and horribly disillusioned. I couldn't help but think that this was not something one would want to work towards.
Not too long after that I took a trip to India. Not to study, just to travel and see if I could make some sense of what I had been doing and which direction to go. Would I continue teaching and making a life of yoga practice or buy a new set of clothes and get a real job? The answer came, purely by accident, when I ended up spending ten days with a rogue swami in Rishikesh. He lived in a cave most of the year (no joke) and came down during the raining season to teach. It was nothing more then happen-stance that we would meet and our practice began with him asking me a most simple question:
"What do you want to learn?"
My answer was equally as simple: "anything I don't already know."
The lessons continued from there:
"Do you know Danurasana?"
"Yes."
"Show please."
I then proceed to perform the biggest, flashiest, feet on my head version of Bow Pose that I could muster, to which he responded:
"Ah yes....... children also do very well"
It became clear right away that the swami was unimpressed by my displays of physical prowess, that this ability was relatively unimportant to him. Instead he would ask me to perform some incredibly simple task, like rotating my wrists. First one way then the other, with the right then the left, and this would take maybe ten minutes to complete. Then he would ask me to sit still with my eyes closed for another few minutes. Then he would say:
"Now open your eyes. Tell me.......how do you feel?"
I would then proceed to describe the experience of rotating my wrists. Articulating the anatomical principles at work and observing any limitation there seemed to be in my range of motion, mostly doing my best to impress him with my technical understanding of the anatomy. This seemed to annoy him more then anything else and with a disappointed look on his face he would shake his head and say: "Let us try something else."
Three days went by without any change in this pattern. He would ask me to do some seemingly simple and stupid task that was no real physical challenge at all, we would sit, he would ask me how I feel, I would try to sound knowledgeable, he would be disappointed. Until finally I just ran out of "smart" things to say. I became frustrated with this process and started thinking that I was being taken for a fool. Culminating in the swami once again asking me:
"How do you feel?"
To which I blurted out in defiance:
"I don't know how I feel!"
The swami smiled and said: "Good."
It was the first time in three days that I actually answered his question and the last time in the ten days we spent together that he would ask it. He had made his point. The rest of our practice from then on was really more like play time. In a totally informal manner, he would offer exercises and explain why he did them: "This is for the pain in the neck..... this for the pain in the low back..... this is to calm the thinking....." etc. He also became increasingly interested in what was being taught in the U.S. He asked me to describe what and how I had been trained to teach and we began to discuss the purpose of practice (as best we could given our language barrier).
Ultimately, it came down to a most simple principle. That practice is to be done on a need-to-do basis. If one is feeling well and life is happening in an enjoyable way then no practice needs to be done. If one is not feeling well or feels that something needs to be done, that is when practice is employed. As the swami put it:
"If you need to do a little something, then you do a little something."
It was acknowledged that in general a consistent daily practice was useful and important: however it is crucial that there is no obsessive idea of linear progression. No attainment or achievement, just the observation of how one is feeling and how the practice affects it. No formula towards something other, just simple tools utilized to help facilitate healthy living.
I returned to New York with a drastic shift in perspective. It was clear that the large majority of yoga classes were not teaching Yoga at all, at least as I was coming to understand it. In three years of diligent study and training no one had ever asked me how I felt or even suggested that this was important. Emphasis had been solely placed on technique and theoretical knowledge without any understanding as to how it might be utilized. In fact a large part of the practice and philosophy I had learned up until this point had been quite detrimental, not just in a physical sense but in my behavior and thinking. Struggling, striving, reaching, and straining were all being reinforced and even encouraged. All in the name of becoming more "connected" or "Enlightened."
Eventually I stopped going to group classes and began to explore doing my own personal practice exclusively, applying this new sensibility. Slowly, ingrained arbitrary ideas about perfection of alignment and grandiose fantasies of supernatural consciousness began to give way to the immediate experience of my breathing and how the body positions seemed to inform or challenge it. The vinyasa became slower and more an exercise in sustained attention rather then any particular achievement of body. Before long the chronic pain and discomfort I had been suffering from was largely gone and a marked shift in my temperament and thinking patterns had taken place. In all areas, practice and life, it amounted to being less attached to the outcome of the work, in favor of simply enjoying the process of doing it more.
Recently I was having dinner with of group of people at a somewhat renowned institute for holistic studies. Most of them were "seasoned" practitioners who had studied with many different teachers in different styles, with the exception of one woman. They had taken my class earlier and I was fielding some questions. The inquiries were of a most elevated sort, wanting to know if this asana affects that chakra or if that yoga sutra is referring to this passage of the Bhagavad Gita etc. I was doing my best to try and bring the conversation to something less abstract with very little avail when the one woman sitting at the table who had no idea what we were talking about, a nurse from Arizona who was feeling intimidated to even speak, interjected:
"I have a question but it's not really a spiritual question, it's more of a reality question.....I'm just wondering if you have health insurance?"
How wonderfully ironic it was. Without a doubt the most "spiritual" question asked. She wasn't interested in grandiose ideas about fantastical things. She wanted to know about me, about who I was, and she was thinking that all this fancy talk was fine and good but doesn't mean anything if I get hit by a car tomorrow and don't have health insurance, and she was absolutely right. While the ancient texts are valuable and interesting for some, they can often be interpreted in a way that serve more to confuse and confound rather then be of any practical use. Going about the activities of ones daily life is spiritual practice. Performing asana or studying ancient texts is only so good as it helps us in the effort of living. Reality is spirituality.
An authentic practice of Hatha Yoga takes place only in the context of ones life. The process of doing an asana is indicative of the process by which we live. In a pose, there is an amount of working the body that, with the breath, is appropriate in the given moment. The asana, and its benefit, will come about gradually without any injury or negative repercussion. If one is doing more then enough, the body will strain, the mind will tense, and the desired result is actually impeded. If one is doing less then enough, little or no action takes place. The same is true in Life. There is an amount of doing: jobs, apartments, relationships, all the things we do to make Life what we want it to be. There is also an amount of not doing, of just leaving it alone and not trying to make it any different then it already is. When we can find the balance between doing and not doing, Life is progressing and we are able to enjoy the endeavor. Some days you do more, some days you do less. It all depends on how you are feeling and what is happening in your life situation. "Advanced" practice is having the awareness to determine when enough is enough.
It is impossible to be "disconnected" from Life. To be so would mean that you no longer exist. So if you exist, then you are "connected." From there it's all just the degree to which we are attentive and appreciative of the fact.
May all beings be free from suffering.
May our practice contribute to peace.
May we have the strength and courage to overcome any obstacles that lay before us.
OM TAT SAT
Summer 2006
copyright 2008
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License
What Kind of Yoga Do You Teach?
Financial Realities and Occupational Hazards
Making of a Yoga Therapy Center, Part 1
Making of a Yoga Therapy Center, Part 2
Practice as Profession
Notes From a Concerned Practitioner/Teacher
Ethical Imperatives and Sexually Responsible Behavior
At no point was there any discussion as to what it was they were connecting to, or disconnected from. My immediate thought was that if someone believes themselves to be lacking in some way then they will have no problem torturing themselves and will gladly embrace such a pursuit if they're convinced it is leading them to something greater or better, but if someone considers themselves to be inherently sufficient then subjecting themselves to suffering would not make much sense, in fact it would seem ludicrous."
Certainly the conventional wisdom at the large majority of yoga centers is that the more "advanced" student is the one who can perform more rigorous feats of physical prowess. It has been my experience that this is generally not the case. In fact, extreme displays often prove to be more an indication of immaturity.
When did "advanced" yoga come to mean inversions and arm-balances, or fast passed vinyasa with little or no attention to breath? Is it appropriate for practice to be reduced to a gymnastic effort with a dualistic purpose? Who created a "level I-II-III-IV" classification of asana, and what are the distinguishing characteristics of a "beginner", "intermediate", or "advanced" student? Most importantly, why does it seem that there are so few in the yoga "community" who are raising similar questions?
I remember when I first began to question the efficacy and purpose of doing poses and the implication it had on my understanding of life. I had been practicing and teaching on the New York yoga scene for some years and was considered by many to be "advanced" in the conventional sense, often being asked to perform demonstrations in class. It was one of these occasions that marked the beginning of a change.
I had just completed a most flashy handstand press, the class applauded, and the teacher said: "Now that is what we are working towards." On the way home from this class I was wrought with dismay over the comment. At the time I was in chronic pain and horribly disillusioned. I couldn't help but think that this was not something one would want to work towards.
Not too long after that I took a trip to India. Not to study, just to travel and see if I could make some sense of what I had been doing and which direction to go. Would I continue teaching and making a life of yoga practice or buy a new set of clothes and get a real job? The answer came, purely by accident, when I ended up spending ten days with a rogue swami in Rishikesh. He lived in a cave most of the year (no joke) and came down during the raining season to teach. It was nothing more then happen-stance that we would meet and our practice began with him asking me a most simple question:
"What do you want to learn?"
My answer was equally as simple: "anything I don't already know."
The lessons continued from there:
"Do you know Danurasana?"
"Yes."
"Show please."
I then proceed to perform the biggest, flashiest, feet on my head version of Bow Pose that I could muster, to which he responded:
"Ah yes....... children also do very well"
It became clear right away that the swami was unimpressed by my displays of physical prowess, that this ability was relatively unimportant to him. Instead he would ask me to perform some incredibly simple task, like rotating my wrists. First one way then the other, with the right then the left, and this would take maybe ten minutes to complete. Then he would ask me to sit still with my eyes closed for another few minutes. Then he would say:
"Now open your eyes. Tell me.......how do you feel?"
I would then proceed to describe the experience of rotating my wrists. Articulating the anatomical principles at work and observing any limitation there seemed to be in my range of motion, mostly doing my best to impress him with my technical understanding of the anatomy. This seemed to annoy him more then anything else and with a disappointed look on his face he would shake his head and say: "Let us try something else."
Three days went by without any change in this pattern. He would ask me to do some seemingly simple and stupid task that was no real physical challenge at all, we would sit, he would ask me how I feel, I would try to sound knowledgeable, he would be disappointed. Until finally I just ran out of "smart" things to say. I became frustrated with this process and started thinking that I was being taken for a fool. Culminating in the swami once again asking me:
"How do you feel?"
To which I blurted out in defiance:
"I don't know how I feel!"
The swami smiled and said: "Good."
It was the first time in three days that I actually answered his question and the last time in the ten days we spent together that he would ask it. He had made his point. The rest of our practice from then on was really more like play time. In a totally informal manner, he would offer exercises and explain why he did them: "This is for the pain in the neck..... this for the pain in the low back..... this is to calm the thinking....." etc. He also became increasingly interested in what was being taught in the U.S. He asked me to describe what and how I had been trained to teach and we began to discuss the purpose of practice (as best we could given our language barrier).
Ultimately, it came down to a most simple principle. That practice is to be done on a need-to-do basis. If one is feeling well and life is happening in an enjoyable way then no practice needs to be done. If one is not feeling well or feels that something needs to be done, that is when practice is employed. As the swami put it:
"If you need to do a little something, then you do a little something."
It was acknowledged that in general a consistent daily practice was useful and important: however it is crucial that there is no obsessive idea of linear progression. No attainment or achievement, just the observation of how one is feeling and how the practice affects it. No formula towards something other, just simple tools utilized to help facilitate healthy living.
I returned to New York with a drastic shift in perspective. It was clear that the large majority of yoga classes were not teaching Yoga at all, at least as I was coming to understand it. In three years of diligent study and training no one had ever asked me how I felt or even suggested that this was important. Emphasis had been solely placed on technique and theoretical knowledge without any understanding as to how it might be utilized. In fact a large part of the practice and philosophy I had learned up until this point had been quite detrimental, not just in a physical sense but in my behavior and thinking. Struggling, striving, reaching, and straining were all being reinforced and even encouraged. All in the name of becoming more "connected" or "Enlightened."
Eventually I stopped going to group classes and began to explore doing my own personal practice exclusively, applying this new sensibility. Slowly, ingrained arbitrary ideas about perfection of alignment and grandiose fantasies of supernatural consciousness began to give way to the immediate experience of my breathing and how the body positions seemed to inform or challenge it. The vinyasa became slower and more an exercise in sustained attention rather then any particular achievement of body. Before long the chronic pain and discomfort I had been suffering from was largely gone and a marked shift in my temperament and thinking patterns had taken place. In all areas, practice and life, it amounted to being less attached to the outcome of the work, in favor of simply enjoying the process of doing it more.
Recently I was having dinner with of group of people at a somewhat renowned institute for holistic studies. Most of them were "seasoned" practitioners who had studied with many different teachers in different styles, with the exception of one woman. They had taken my class earlier and I was fielding some questions. The inquiries were of a most elevated sort, wanting to know if this asana affects that chakra or if that yoga sutra is referring to this passage of the Bhagavad Gita etc. I was doing my best to try and bring the conversation to something less abstract with very little avail when the one woman sitting at the table who had no idea what we were talking about, a nurse from Arizona who was feeling intimidated to even speak, interjected:
"I have a question but it's not really a spiritual question, it's more of a reality question.....I'm just wondering if you have health insurance?"
How wonderfully ironic it was. Without a doubt the most "spiritual" question asked. She wasn't interested in grandiose ideas about fantastical things. She wanted to know about me, about who I was, and she was thinking that all this fancy talk was fine and good but doesn't mean anything if I get hit by a car tomorrow and don't have health insurance, and she was absolutely right. While the ancient texts are valuable and interesting for some, they can often be interpreted in a way that serve more to confuse and confound rather then be of any practical use. Going about the activities of ones daily life is spiritual practice. Performing asana or studying ancient texts is only so good as it helps us in the effort of living. Reality is spirituality.
An authentic practice of Hatha Yoga takes place only in the context of ones life. The process of doing an asana is indicative of the process by which we live. In a pose, there is an amount of working the body that, with the breath, is appropriate in the given moment. The asana, and its benefit, will come about gradually without any injury or negative repercussion. If one is doing more then enough, the body will strain, the mind will tense, and the desired result is actually impeded. If one is doing less then enough, little or no action takes place. The same is true in Life. There is an amount of doing: jobs, apartments, relationships, all the things we do to make Life what we want it to be. There is also an amount of not doing, of just leaving it alone and not trying to make it any different then it already is. When we can find the balance between doing and not doing, Life is progressing and we are able to enjoy the endeavor. Some days you do more, some days you do less. It all depends on how you are feeling and what is happening in your life situation. "Advanced" practice is having the awareness to determine when enough is enough.
It is impossible to be "disconnected" from Life. To be so would mean that you no longer exist. So if you exist, then you are "connected." From there it's all just the degree to which we are attentive and appreciative of the fact.
May all beings be free from suffering.
May our practice contribute to peace.
May we have the strength and courage to overcome any obstacles that lay before us.
OM TAT SAT
Summer 2006
copyright 2008
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License
