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| Beatrice Addressing Dante (by William Blake) - Beatrice ( Dante's beloved) as guide in Dante's Paradiso. |
In his excellent first book Ramaswami presents the three different stages of life when different approaches to yoga may be considered appropriate.
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| Srivatsa Ramaswami Yoga for the Three Stages of Life Amazon |
Notice that in youth
a focus on asana is considered appropriate. Worth bearing in mind perhaps whenever your tempted to claim that practicing asana is NOT yoga. And, if you become criticised for not exploring pranayama or meditation or dipping into yoga philosophy but rather just focusing on your asana practice then you are in fact
following the program, so just smile politely.
Mid-life we may want to reign the asana practice in somewhat, throw in some pranayama, an overall practice that preserves our health and well being. We know this of course, advanced asana practice five days a week (Primary on Fridays) is likely to take it's toll on our bodies, little injuries can come up with more regularity, makes sense to reign it in a little. Of course fifty is the new forty, when does '
mid-life' begin. Also, what constitutes Advanced asana? If you've been practising asana for some time your body may well have
opened up and developed a degree of flexibility such that what many may consider an advanced posture is merely, for you, a natural progression of a more basic asana. And as we all no doubt out realise sooner or later, all asana are advanced asana, it just depends on what we bring to the posture and it's vinyasa, whether we bring out it's innate
advancenessness. Manju mentioned ( one of his world-shattering throw away lines) that all asana are mudras ( or may be considered so if approached that way).
But here's the thing, youth can apply to age but perhaps also to our
stage upon our yoga path ( Jois uses the
Yoga as Path metaphor, so I'm not being unnecessarily cheesy here ), when we first begin to explore Yoga then we may be considered to be youthful in regards to the practice,
young in the practice as it were and so a strong asana focus may well still be appropriate. The practice of asana can form discipline, focus, attention, preliminaries perhaps for the other stages of the 'yogic life'.
That first stage can go on a long time too, from childhood to mid-life, you get to focus on asana and just asana ( actually including breathing practices) for thirty odd years perhaps before your 'required' to worry about anything else. Of course you can still dip into some good books, the shastras, explore some pranayama and some meditative practices, nothing wrong with that, in fact it may well inform your asana practice somewhat, deepen it, but your not necessarily obliged to go there (but then why wouldn't you). Focusing on your asana only, on 'just asana' is considered appropriate, it is yoga.
For me personally at fifty with many years of hard travel and labour behind me ( those odd, physically demanding, jobs picked up while travelling and later working my way through Uni, building walls, roads, houses etc.) my body carries a lot of old nagging injuries, makes sense to reign my practice in a little. I'm more than happy with my Ashtanga Primary and 2nd series with the odd Advanced posture thrown in for seasoning (Manju's approach). Besides, less feels more.
And I relish pranayama and what a joy to look ahead to decades (with luck) of study, reflection and contemplation, the more mediative practices to accompany my beloved asana practice....
And yet, perhaps those stages ebb and flow, I was feeling I was in a mid-life stage of practice and yet, just recently, there's been a freshness to my asana practice as if that mid-life stage is feeding back into the more youthful stage, revitalising it.... perhaps the stages don't follow each other but are layered one on top of the other, nutrients filtering down, revitalising, giving new growth....
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Notes:
Of course 'Nathamuni's Yoga Rahasya' was actually written by Krishnamacharya who clearly retained a profound love of asana pretty much to the day he died (aged 100), but then he also had a great love of study and pranayama from an early age. And do we really need any justification for our asana practice.
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And here's some Purcell, Dido's lament,
When I'm laid in the Earth, from the most allegorical of operas Dido and Aeneas (stick with it for the
Remember me at the end)
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Thank you again to Ronald Steiner and team of ashtangayogainfo for giving me permission to include their expandable transliteration