Practice As Many As You Can: T. Krishnamacharya's Yoga

T. Krishnamachrya in a "New" Pose

by Nina

In my post last week Authentic Yoga, I mentioned that most of the yoga asana we do these days were invented in the early 20th century. In his book on the origins of modern posture practice Yoga Body, Mark Singleton focuses in particular on the innovations of T. Krishnamacharya, the teacher of three very influential 20th century yoga teachers who had a tremendous impact on yoga in the western word, Iyengar, Jois, and Desikachar. Krishnamacharya was clearly a genius, whose system, as Singleton puts it:

"can be fruitfully considered a synthetic revival of indigenous exercise (comprising yogasana alongside other types) within the context of Westernized curricular physical education in late colonial India."

Because so many people are reluctant to practice yoga at home due to concerns that they might not be doing it “right” or don’t have time to do what they would do in one of their full-length classes, it’s worth taking a little time to look at what Krishnamacharya (who was, for many of us, the original teacher of our teacher, or our teacher’s teacher) was doing in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Dear readers, he was making stuff up! For details you can see the wonderful book The Yoga Tradition of the Mysore Palace by N.E. Sjoman. But for now let’s just look at this quote in Yoga Body from T.R.S. Sharma, one of a group of students at the yogasala in Mysyore, which confirms that Krishnamacharya’s teaching was intended to be, and in practice was, experimental:

"was innovating all the time in response to his students. He would make up variations of the postures when he saw that some of his students could do them easily. “Try this, putting this here, and here.” He was inventing and innovating. Krishnmachrya never emphasized a particular order of poses, there was nothing sacrosanct about observing order with him. He would tell me “practice as many as you can.”

The quote as whole really brings home the idea that, regardless of what we may have been told by certain teachers, the practice of yoga asana traditionally was not a rigid system that you have to follow or else it won’t be effective. And it seems to me, if you’ve been reluctant to practice at home due to time restrictions or concerns about doing something wrong, this quote contains a great motto for home practice in general:

Practice as many as you can.

Since it is December already and you may be thinking about New Year’s resolutions, “practice as many as you can” also seems like an excellent resolution for starting or deepening a home practice next year.

P.S. Hey, Krishnamacharya's alignment in Utthita Parsvokasana (Extended Side Angle pose) in the photo above doesn't look the same as what I've been taught is "correct," so that must mean....

Authentic Yoga

by Nina

On Friday evening, Brad and I went to the Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art in New York City, an exquisite, small museum with a very impressive collection of Hindu and Buddhist art. Our primary reasons for being there were to take a break from our hectic, urban vacation in the peaceful oasis that the museum curators have created and to revisit the permanent collection, which we remembered loving from an earlier visit. And I highly recommend this special museum to anyone who is visiting the city. However, as I gazed at the life-sized facsimiles of an entire sequence of 18^thcentury murals from the Lukhang, the Dalai Lamas’ Secret Temple near the Potala Palace in Lhasa, Tibet, I was struck in particular by a section of one mural (shown above) that depicts meditation and yoga practices in vivid color and detail. Because they were: perfect, clear images of authentic yoga from the 18^th century.

You see, by chance, I’m currently reading The Yoga Body: The Origins of the Modern Posture Practice by Mark Singleton, which traces the development of the asana practice that most of us currently consider “yoga” from its hatha yoga roots to the revolutionary work of the early twentieth-century yoga teachers, such as T. Krishnamacharya and Swami Kuvalayananda. I’ve already known for a number of years that, contrary to what is commonly claimed by some teachers and publications, the “yoga” we do these days is primarily a 20^thcentury invention. But this mural from the 18^th century (not so long ago, right?) really brought home the message. For what do we see here? Mostly versions of Lotus pose (some with interestingly asymmetrical spines), along with a few standing forward bends and a one-legged standing pose. And I know from my studies, that when the ancient scriptures, such as the Yoga Sutras, refer to “asana,” the poses pictured here are more likely to be what they referred to than the Downward-Facing Dogs, Triangle poses, and Sun Salutations that many of us now consider essential yoga poses. (For further information, see The Yoga Tradition of the Mysore Palace byN.E. Sjoman.) I was quite excited to be able to view these images, which were in some ways what I imagined ancient yoga to be and in other ways completely different than what I’d imagined (such as the dancer-like positions of the torsos in some of the seated poses)

I may write about this more in the future, but for now I just wanted to share this dramatic illustration with you. For you can see at a glance how much yoga has changed in just a few hundred years. 

Take Back Yoga!

by Nina

This morning I listened to a short piece on NPR this morning about the “Take Back Yoga” campaigned launched by the Hindu American Foundation (see here). According to this report, some American Hindus are saying yoga is about far more than exercise and breathing techniques, and they want recognition that it comes from a deeper philosophy, one, in their view, with Hindu roots. Sheetal Shah, senior director of the foundation, said, "What we’re trying to say is that the holistic practice of yoga goes beyond just a couple of asanas [postures] on a mat. It is a lifestyle, and it’s a philosophy. How do you lead your life in terms of truthfulness? And nonviolence? And purity? The lifestyle aspect of yoga has been lost."

If you’ve read this blog before, you already realize that none of us are in the “yoga is just a couple of asanas on a mat” camp. I’m even willing to bet that the four of us would agree the philosophy and lifestyle aspects of yoga will be more helpful than the asanas for allowing us to age gracefully. So I definitely agree with the Hindu American Foundation that many Americans have serious misconceptions about yoga. However, while we may agree that yoga is not just asanas, agreeing on exactly what it is, is more difficult than you might think.

In recent years I’ve done a lot of reading about yoga history and philosophy. And I’ve been particularly influenced by Georg Feuerstein’s masterful (and somewhat dry, I admit) The Yoga Tradition: Its History, Literature, Philosophy and Practice. One major insight this book brought me was what a minor part hatha yoga played during the history of yoga. Although yoga may be thousands of years old, for most of that time it had nothing at all to do physical postures. But another major insight for me was how little agreement there was during those thousands of years about what yoga was and how to practice it.

Shadows of Leaves by Brad Gibson

Even though yoga originally evolved as part of Hinduism, it was also adopted by the Sikhs, the Jains, and the Buddhists. And the different religions naturally had their own takes on yoga. But even among the Hindus, there were an enormous variety of interpretations, with a large schism developing between those who worshiped Vishnu and those who believed in Shiva. Then there was the dualism vs. non-dualism conflict, not to mention sex is good/bad, the body is good/bad, and you can achieve liberation in this lifetime/no you can’t. They didn’t even agree on how many “branches” of yoga there are! While classical yoga (the yoga of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras) has the well-known eight branches of yoga, other traditions have ten or twelve or even more.

So where does that leave us? There just is no simple answer. While some of you may find a teacher whose particular take on yoga you can adopt, others, like me, are left to piece something together for themselves. If you’re interested, you can start by reading some of the classic yoga texts, such as The Bhagavad Gita and The Yoga Sutras. Maybe you’ll even be willing to take on Georg Feuerstein’s book. Just be skeptical of anyone who claims there is only one right way to think about yoga.