Exam weekend

Exam is finished and the results will be presented in December.

2 years of interesting and occasionally stretching  experience are almost finished.

While I can follow most of the physical and mental benefits as well as I see the clear structure and building blocks of Patanjali’s 8 step path, I had and still have a hard time with the christianised version of Yoga, which we had been taught based on Yogananda’s linage. The must read “Autobiography of a Yogi” contains more than 200 times the terms God, divine and the like, which for me is not what the sutras convey. Anyway. Its just one type of vocabulary and one shouldn’t take it too serious.

Same for the metaphysics thoughts, the multiple bodies, karma etc., which is reflecting to me the Hinduistic worldview that is quite stretching and contains too many aspects I cannot buy.

Last month of preparation for the exam

2 years are almost over and the final month of preparation approach. The learning cards are written and its about to get them into the head. 70 asana, 20 mudras and 15 breath exercises as well as Patanjali’s main sutras make up the main core of the exam together with crafting Yoga sessions for all types of situations.

Who am I?

“Who am I?”, asked the wave and disappeared in the ocean.

After some days this quote appears to me the most memorable from my first yoga teacher weekend.

The 2 year curriculum

The 2 years will be stuffed with the full spectrum of what yoga is about in the tradition of Dhiranandaji. It aims at the development of the body, the mind and the soul. The yoga path targets to be fully conscious of yourself. It gives tools and methods to work on all three aspects. From anatomy to understand the effects of postures and to learn how they work, to limitations on when not to apply to the spiritual background of the teachings.

The art and goal is to find the right mixture and guidance for an audience of say 10-20 different individuals with their individual stage and limitations. And its not about showing how great the teacher can execute an asana, but to give all participant the good feeling about their practice and the motivation to stay engaged.

Clear message at the first week-end is:

You don’t get this in a crash course in 10 days or 4 weeks. You have to evolve and develop and enter a path, which is nicely summarized in the first sutra of Patanjali:

Atha yoganusasanam

The path of yoga starts now

You start looking at your thoughts and by looking at them you change them, you look at your breath and by looking at your breath you change it. You develop a mindfulness, which resides in the now and will inevitable result in the understanding that clinging to the past and to future will make you miss your life.

A yoga lecture in the tradition of Dhiranandaji

A initial lecture showed that this is going to be different. The sequence was sort of similar to all the yoga classes I participated in so far. However: The entire session was framed with into a relaxation phase. Each asana was executed in the following pattern: Take the position, hold it for a given time, take the mirroring position and go into relation posture either directly (if the asana includes any type of pressure on organs) or after 3 rounds of exercise. It was pretty impressive how this small change in the exercise influenced the way you can consciously focus on the effect of each posture. 110 min went by quickly and our teacher revealed that this was going to be the last lecture he will be given as for the next months, we will have to give them in order to practice teaching. 🙂

The first impression

It’s cold outside, about 5 below zero.

32 participants with, on paper, the same goal, but completely different background and desire. There is a warm welcome by the teacher and a first get in touch with the group, who decided to do this journey.

After some organizational announcements, the first lesson started right away and it got clear from the very beginning that this style or tradition is completely different from what I have experienced so far in the context of Yoga.

A surprise, I bet not the last one and not a negative one either.

First weekend to come.

It’s getting exiting. At the weekend the first session will start. All preparation is done. You screen the participation list and wonder, who’ll be the other participants. Not really surprising is the fact that the gender distribution is like in any Yoga class I visited so far, be it the classical Hatha Yoga or be it one of the hundreds derivations. 95% female participants traveling up to 350km.

 

Getting started

Challenge defined, commitment from the family acquired and now find the right teacher.

Living in, say, not in the spiritual headquarters of the world the matter of selection or finding a YOGA teacher looked harder than it finally was. Browsing some web pages and checking the driving distance I had 5 choices in the final selection round. 2 dropped out due to the distance as traveling several hours one or the other week, was not in my time budget. 1 dropped out due to the schedule (I would have to wait another year to start), so two were left. Both offering a 2 years schedule, one with a weekly schedule plus some retreat type of week-ends and one with a one full weekend a month only schedule.

As it is not obvious, which one to pick I went to info sessions from both teachers to get some insights from outside.

The presentation of both schools/ traditions was quite different in focus and the way YOGA was described to the audience.

One put the spiritual aspects into the center of the description with all the rules and regulations, which the participants had to comply to like “We wear white or bright clothes.”, “In the second year you are not allowed to smoke, drink alcohol, eat meat etc., etc.”

The second put the long relation to his teacher and the description on how the different aspects of body, mind and soul play together and that a big part of  education is the understanding on these relation down to the physiological reasons of certain asanas, and how the impact of a posture can be “understood” and amplified by mindfulness and concentration.

So the choice for me with a scientific pre-load was obvious.

My teacher had almost 30 year the same teacher, which gives him a great confidence, which shines through his words.

Ok, some stuff sounds really, really weird.
But it looks also a familiar to me from another angle as most of people understand just as little as about 20th science and find it weird.

And what is a challenge, if it is without drama and conflict. …and be it inside your head.