Yoga Midterm

Keeley Mills

Laura Douglas

Yoga: Theory, Practice and Culture

October 1, 2011

The Yoga studio that I decided to go to was O2 Yoga on Highland Avenue in Somerville, MA. I pass this studio all the time and have never been aware or acknowledged it until recently when this class and the practice of yoga became prominent on my radar. To be completely honest, I was incredibly nervous. Even though I checked out the website and knew that I would be participating in a “basics” class, a class highly suggested to beginners, I was petrified. Literally, knots in my stomach, the whole nine yards. I felt like my inexperience would be easily noticed, displayed like a tattoo on my forehead or a sign on my back. Then, the other classmates, or in my mind the established yogis would smell my unbelonging and chase me out, pitchforks and all.

Luckily, it did not go at all as bad as I had imagined. My instructor’s name was Justine, but a woman named Mimi Loureiro started the studio in the late nineties. On her website for O2 yoga, she describes her creation as a mixture of Astanga yoga and Vinyasa yoga (Loureiro). From what we have covered in class so far, I was immediately familiar with the term “Astanga.” What I have come to understand or associate with Astanga Yoga is basically breathing. To describe it in my own words it is a yoga that revolves around controlled or cognizant breathing. Then “vinyasa,” I did not recognize as quickly. But after doing some research it made much sense and was exactly what I had experienced in class. I realized I had been practicing this form of yoga all along. Vinyasa yoga is explained as relating your movement from one position to another and matching it with your inhalation and exhalation (Pizer, par.1). This focus is important because once the breath is stabilized or practiced in a forced manner other things fall in line, as well. You become aware or conscious of your ability to be in control or alter things that are normally involuntary. Specifically, you become conscious to your movement and speed of your diaphragm, along with your thought process and its patterns.

My physical experience with Astanga Yoga as a practice, similar to my understanding of its culture and theory, is very limited and elementary. All the while, the class was still very challenging. The positions were broader than what we have covered in class so far and, surprisingly to me, even though we were stationary, they were still very intense and strenuous. I found myself, having to transition faster, using my strength to hold my own weight for what was probably only a minute or two, but felt like hours, stretch to lengths I have never needed to or knew that I could, and then, most attractively, sweat immensely. Before class started the instructor did raise the thermostat, raising the heat in the room to around 80 degrees. Considering that this was only the second establishment where I had experienced yoga practice, I could not help but to continuously compare and contrast to what we do in class. In class, when we practice Astanga Yoga, room temperature is not relevant, at least in a heat-inducing manner. This made me wonder if this is something that has developed with the Americanized evolution of Yoga.

After experiencing O2, I can make the call that, even though it does reference your mind and thought process I would classify it more as a physical or exercise form of yoga. The typical Americanized practice of yoga. Which learning and coming to understand this over the semester I have continually been curious if this American edit and evolution of yoga is offensive or upsetting to the culture of India and the people who have been following traditional forms of yoga, mind, body, and spirit for centuries? I know that disrespect was never a motive or intention, but I just feel like it might be offensive to traditional Yogis that our society has taken something handed down and sacredly and spiritually practiced in their culture and completely turned it into a profitable fad or trend for mainly superficial reasons of tightening our tummies or strengthening our gluts.

This led me to dig a little deeper. After reading a few articles online and really taking them in I have come to feel that it is not anger being expressed by traditional yogis or anyone really, but it is fear. I also realized that I should have known better. While, personally, I would be offended and infuriated if someone took something involving my spirituality or a practice that I very strongly believed in and turned it into something profitable or trendy. I understand that everything evolves and I respect that, just from my basic brief experience and understanding of our American culture’s promoted practice of yoga, it is shallow (as opposed to the depth and inward speculation of the individual in traditional yoga practice) and basically practiced as a way to keep you entertained and spice up your normally boring work out routine. Yoga, not being a practice of dramatic emotions or reactions, they would of course not be raging with fury. They fear that the distorted Suburban fad of yoga that has been promoted in American culture, as the next quick fix diet or exercise plan will destroy the sense of spirituality and personal discovery that is the entire purpose and pursuit of traditional yoga.

When in class at Lesley, I do not feel any disrespect or concern at all because it is all in the pursuit of knowledge, and of course, obviously, we are not revolving solely around the physical practice. We are engaging yoga in all of it’s being. In class we spend a lot more time and focus on concentrating our breathing and quieting or calming our thoughts. That is important to me. At the O2 studio we just jumped straight into it. Being unsure and not having the normal intro like I do in class, I tightened up even more. I became more aware of my surroundings and unsure, which made it impossible for my mind and breathe to become mobilized and calm. The fact that I was so occupied with what was going on around me and the “pain” my body was in that day disqualifies my yoga experience, in the sense of philosophy, as being successful. My mind was overflowing with what was going on around me and too distracted to even be anywhere near freedom of thought.

Therefore, immediately I realized that I was already going against one of the main theories of Yoga, the need for meditation. Not only was the unfamiliar noise and movement around me to blame for my unsuccessful result, but also I was to blame. My mind, being too consumed with the events of my day and life, was simultaneously thinking about meditating, trying to create this state with my own thoughts, but that is impossible. To quote Krishnamurti, “Meditation is the summation of all energy. Not the energy created through thought or…but the energy of a state of mind in which all conflict has completely ceased” (p. 33 par. 3). Now, the idea of discord to forever silence in my brain is ideal, desirable in fact, I am still a realist and am only a human being, I honestly don’t think I can ever be capable of a state like that, but very impressed and envious that there are people, yogis, who can successfully attain this out in the world. Their inward connection and spirituality is very remarkable, so it makes sense that this enlightenment is their reward.

A part of practice and theory that Justine was adamant about was mechanics of our breathing. We had previously spoken in the Lesley class that it is inappropriate or not the normal practice to breath with an open mouth. It is correct to do through the nostrils. In class I really had not been too worried or aware, being a mouth breather. But here, it was a different issue. I noticed, immediately that none of my fellow classmates at O2 were breathing with their mouths open. With my eyes closed trying to concentrate, the nasal exasperations of my classmates around me were audibly noticeable right from the beginning. This, along with glances from my instructor, made me become extremely insecure and conscious of keeping my lips sealed. I believe it was this too that made the physical practice so strenuous, not being able to exhale involuntarily and through my mouth took a lot of focus.

At the same time, being audibly aware of everyone’s heavy and powerful exhalations and inhalations helped me find my rhythm and successfully control my breath. This too helped me relax because hearing these heavy nasal expulsions made me less timid of the noises or actions I created. Much like the chanting in class, it makes you really let go and realize no one is there to judge or even concerned with my being or actions.

In the O2 class there was no chanting, singing, or explanation, which again, I actually enjoy. The exercise of chanting and controlled breathing reminds me very much of religion. Yoga, being very similar to religious practices, helps me understand the spirituality behind it all. Having attended parochial school for 13 years of my life the tradition of prayer is embedded in me and much like breathing is almost involuntary. I think it would be safe to say a lot of people, a vast majority, talk to God or some higher divinity through their thoughts. They pray or ask for guidance, strength, or to alter some form of inadequacy they feel or are worried about. This is similar to the practice and theory of Yoga because participation is for a connection and completion of the individual self, righting the inner wrongs and seeking happiness, enlightenment.

People practice yoga in the eventual achievement of personal contentment and illumination. So when we chant and breathe in class, and quiet the mind, my mind cannot help to in my own way, pray. In calming and tracking of my mind, I notice I begin to converse with God, wonder to him about current situations in my life. This makes yoga a very reassuring thing to me. It makes me take the time to slow down my 90-mile hour anxiety caffeine prone nature and just be. So although in the sense of culture or theory I may not be triumphant in meditation in the textual sense, but I still have discovered a form of inner good that helps me be retrospective and understand my mind, body, and spirituality a little better.

I hope that I have not portrayed my outside yoga experience as negative. I just feel, conclusively, from what little I have learned so far, the philosophy of yoga surrounds or is saturated with the mind and meditating, and the American culture of Yoga I see promotes the ideals of yoga as not breaking the physical exterior. It strongly consists of beautiful thin females, emitting the exact opposite of the root of yoga theory, that your body is all you are. From reading class texts what I have received clearly is that our bodies do not make up the content of who we are. Our bodies are simply physical, they are just representations. Our true identity is the mind.

Everything power, thoughts, action, they all start in from brainpower, the thought process. Even the actions that play out these concepts and ideas and result in skyscrapers and highways, they all are triggered by the mind. Everything physical that we see was produced form something that we cannot see at all.

Although my yoga experience outside of class had little to do with the theory and culture traditions, it did not discourage me. Actually, quite the opposite, it intrigued me. Knowing that there are many other forms of yoga experiencing O2 yoga has only lengthened my curiosity. I would like to continue practice, but expand from Astanga/ Vinyasa many forms as possible all the way from “hot yoga” to yoga completely focused on meditation and stationary breathing. Unfortunately, the surprisingly high cost of attending studio classes and being a broke college student will slow my ability to experience Yoga, but I am still very open and interested in its many forms. In doing my research I hope to continue in my understanding or interest in this idea of what America has turned yoga into and what traditional yoga actually is.

Bibliography

Krishnamurti, J. (1999). This Light in Oneself: True Meditation . Brockwood Park, Bramdean Hampshire, England: Krishnamurti Foundation Trust Ltd.

Loureiro , Mimi. (, 2011). What is o2 yoga?. Retrieved from http://www.o2yoga.com/.

Muktibodhananda, Swami. (1985). Hatha Yoga Pradipika . Munger, Bihar, India : Yoga Publications Trust.

Pizer, Anne. (August 21, 2011). Vinyasa-Yoga, Flow Yoga . Retrieved (2011, October 1) from http://yoga.about.com/od/typesofyoga/a/vinyasa.htm