Emily
Fishman
CSOS.3452.01: Yoga Theory Culture and
Practice
Professor Laura Douglass
Midterm Paper: Reflection on the
Arlington Center
10/10/12
For my midterm project, I attended a
yoga class at the Arlington Center in Arlington, Massachusetts. It is mainly a
yoga studio that is dedicated to the integration of yoga and dharma practice.
They offer classes in Iyengar yoga, Vicara yoga, breath and meditation, and
basic yoga for toddlers, along with dance, akido and tai chi. Their mission is
to provide various types of movement and meditation for all age groups and
their philosophy is that everyone is capable of movement and they should go as
far as their individual body allows. There is no emphasis on athleticism, but
rather the combination of meditation and enjoying the movements within the
practice. The Arlington Center serves all ages, from toddlers to middle
age-elderly individuals and the center offers classes appropriate for each age
group.
The founder and director of the center is
Chip Hartranft, who is a trained physical therapist and yoga teacher. He is a
student of yoga mainly in the Krishnamacharya traditions, which stem from
Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, an Indian yoga teacher and healer who believed in
catering to each individual’s body. He is also considered to be the father of
modern yoga and the creator of vinyasa yoga, combining breath and movement.
Under this influence, Chip has been teaching yoga classes in the Boston area
since 1978 to students of all ages, where they are taught to blend movement and
stillness. Throughout his career he has established the combination of yoga
movement, or asana yoga, and mindfulness meditation, or vipassana yoga. In
1988, Chip founded a program called BodyMindConnection, which is a healing
program for people under stress, where they learn mind-body techniques. He is
also the author of the book, The Yoga-Sutra of Patanjali, which was
published in 2003.
The class that I attended on Thursday
October 4th was taught by Chip, and it was titled; Yoga I/II, which
means that it is a mix of beginners and continuing students. The classes there
are divided into three levels; level I, which is ideal for beginners or older
students with no prior experience, level II, which is for experienced students
and a continuing level for students with one year or more of experience. These
levels fit with the Arlington center’s philosophy of catering to the needs of
the individual body. This is the same overall philosophy of Tirumalai
Krishnamacharya, the yoga teacher who influenced Chip Hartranft, the founding
director of the center. The attendees of the class were a wide range of ages
from about 30-70 and there were about 20-30 people in the class. Most people in
the class knew each other and Chip knew most people’s names, which gave me a
strong sense of community within the class and within the center. I also felt
extremely welcomed as a new attendee into this community and Chip personally
welcomed me into the class. This community setting coincides with the overall
accepting philosophy of the center, and I automatically felt comfortable and
accepted into the community.
Although I have been to many different
types of yoga classes, there were a few elements of this class that were
different to me. Before the class began, each student was encouraged to take a
yoga block, a blanket, and bolster to sit on. In most classes these items are
available, but I have never been to a class where it is the standard to use all
of these materials to accompany my practice. In my experiences, usually the
beginner students use the block to help them with poses, but in this class
every student used the block and they were encouraged to do so by the teacher.
The block was not seen as something to assist someone who is having trouble,
but rather as a tool to enhance the experience of some of the poses. Also, in
my experiences, the blankets are mainly used for shavasana. In this class, the
students were encouraged to use the blanket for extra support along with the
yoga mat, which I have never incorporated in my practice. This gave a new sense
of comfort beneath my body as I practiced.
The main thing that was especially
different to me and that I have never experienced before was that the class
began with a brief seated, guided meditation. I am used to beginning a yoga
class by going straight into seated poses and then into more vigorous poses
from there. The meditation at the beginning helped to set my state of mind and
consciousness before practicing which gave my practice more of a purpose. It
helped me to get into the meditative mindset that I kept for the remainder of
the class. This is part of Chip’s philosophy of combining asana yoga and
vipassana yoga. After we finished the seated meditation, I still remained
within that meditative state while I was completing the movements. I was truly
practicing vinyasa yoga by aligning the meditative breath and state of mind
with the poses and movement. I enjoyed beginning the practice with seated
meditation and then ending the practice with another meditation in shavasana,
and I felt that both meditation practices enhanced my overall yoga practice.
The emphasis on meditation in the class
and practice was different from what I have experienced, but I found this
emphasis refreshing in our culture. In my experience, I think that the practice
of yoga in our culture today is often characterized as athletic and
competitive. The main focus is on the outside body and perfecting the poses. It
is not usually encouraged to modify the poses to the individual body and or to
respect the body’s limitations. Meditation and breath are often not seen as
equal components in modern day yoga practices, as they do not serve the outside
body appearance. I feel as if this important component to yoga practice has
been lost within our culture of superficiality and physical appearance.
Although I was not used to this incorporation of meditation, I experienced it
as very refreshing to our culture today.
The class was influenced by the teachings
of Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, whose most prominent underlying teaching was
“teach what is appropriate for an individual.” He was an Indian yoga teacher
and ayurvedic healer who is recognized for reviving hatha yoga in the 20th
century, and considered to be the architect of vinyasa yoga. The class and the
instructor exhibited many attributes of this philosophy and the characteristics
of vinyasa yoga. Throughout the flow of the class, the students were encouraged
to do each of the poses to their fullest extent, but the teacher, Chip, was
constantly providing modifiers for each person’s body and emphasized that the
practice is about our individual body. He enforced the mantra, “Don’t look at
what other people are doing, they have different bodies,” along with, “Each
person has a different skeleton, the poses look different on everyone.” His
words and teaching style is following the philosophy of Krishnamacharya because
it is underlining the theme of the individual body and that the personal yoga
practice is about each person’s unique qualities. He would often attend to many
of the student’s needs while we were in poses, especially difficult ones such
as sideways plank. He came over and adjusted my wrist placement so that I was
able to experience the pose to the fullest while responding to my body’s unique
needs.
Most of the poses throughout the class
were someone vigorous, such as sideways plank, warrior I and warrior II and
triangle pose. Chip only instructed the class on a few major poses and the pace
of the class was quite slow, so we were able to experience the poses for longer
periods of time. The fact that it was slowly paced allowed me to fully
experience each pose and include the meditation and breathing components. Since
the class was so slow paced, the type of breath I was exhibiting was the tamas
breath, which is slow, heavy and relaxed. The tamas breathing style enabled me
to be aware of each breath while I was doing the movements, which brought me to
a fuller state of relaxation and body awareness. I think that this slow style
of yoga is very beneficial to the body because the body is able to feel the
full benefits of each pose from remaining in the pose and breathing for longer.
Since each person’s body is different, each person is experiencing the poses
differently, and as Chip taught the class, he truly acknowledged this fact.
The class was very centered around
vinyassa yoga and the philosophies of that type of practice. Vinyassa yoga is
combining the movements with the breath, which causes the body to be fully
aware and within a constant flow. One of Chip’s main teachings is to integrate
movement (asana) with breathing and stillness. These components were
incorporated by holding the poses for a longer period of time while breathing
deeply, which facilitates the body to experience movement and stillness through
the pose and through the breath. Although the class was slowly paced, there was
still a constant flow between poses, which caused there to be a sense of energy
as well. Chip encouraged the students to breathe during each pose to receive
the full benefits of the pose, which is the overall philosophy of vinyassa
yoga. He fully believes that the breath is just as important as the movements
and the two must be integrated to achieve the benefits of the practice. The
practice ended with shavasna, or corpse pose, where the mind is in deep
mindfulness meditation, also a form of vipassana yoga. This is integrating the
peaceful breathing with the mindfulness meditation of the mind and obtaining
that certain state of consciousness, which is also an active component of the
practice. I feel as if my practice came full circle beginning with seated and
guided meditation and then moving into flow and breathing and ending with
mindfulness meditation in shavasana. It placed the importance on the state of
consciousness during practice and the important component of breathing along
with the equally important component of movement.
From this experience, I believe I have
learned a great deal about my practice of yoga and myself. I opened myself up
to a new experience where I learned about the importance of breathing during my
practice. I now have new body awareness from remaining in a pose while being
aware of my breath and my state of mind. I now understand the integration of
movement and stillness and how that is possible within the flow of vinyassa
yoga. I also understand this practice on a different cultural level, and how it
compares to our modern culture, where breath and meditation are not seen as
important as the outside body.
Sources
1.
Ruiz, Fernando Pages. "Krishnamacharya's Legacy." Yoga Journal.
Yogajournal.com. Web.
<http://www.yogajournal.com/wisdom/465>.
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