NOTE: this blog doesn't seem to share on fb these days but my active movements blog does, this post is also there https://activemovementyogaathome.blogspot.com/
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| Tangkou Tan |
The movements in this post, and Simon Borg-Olivier's's Spinal movements generally, might be practiced as a stand alone practice, a second practice, a moon day or rest day practice, a practice when recovering from injury or, in a shortened form, as a ten minute warm-up before the Sury's.
I think I've practiced them as pretty much all of the above.
In this post I want to give a shout out to a student of Simon Borg-Olivier's, Tangkou Tan. I only just stumbled upon him, mentioned in an instagram post by Lauren at suthernyogipdx.
See this blog post by Tangkou Tan on Lauren's blog
On checking Tangkao's Bio I saw that he was a dancer, he'd studied, practiced and I'm assuming performed ballet, he had also studied movement in actors workshops with Jerry Grotowski ( see appendix).
from the YouTube notes
One vertebrae at a time?
"I still remember the first time when I heard Simon Borg-Olivier talked about mobilizing the spine, that spine has 24 movable joints.. it is the most important part of the body to mobilize… and he talked about “moving the spine one vertebrae at a time”.. and naturally I took it as an “expression” rather than literally. However practicing and especially teaching spinal movement for the past 4 years has led me to explore the subtlety of spinal movement for the sake of not repeating and also to find ways to teaching it better… until lately I have received comments that I was actually “moving the spine one vertebrae at a time”.
Looking back, It was a fun and rewarding process perhaps because I never had any expectation yet there is a constant attempt to bring my awareness to places where awareness was not and could not be found. I consider those areas as “darkness” and my awareness as “light”, therefore it was and still is an ongoing project to bring more “light” into my system. There is a lot to say about light, the Sun, the source of light is “life giving”, it shines on everything until “there is nothing new under the sun”, and there are less bad things happening under the sun, even in the laboratory certain chemical process simply cannot proceed under the light. There is also much to say about the connection between awareness and energy, represent by Shiva and his eternal consort Parvati.. but that is a different subject…
The first part shows my attempt to mobilize the spine, the best I can, one vertebrae at time.. notice there are two ways, the first one is pushing spine backward and upward (result in spinal flexion) while the second one is pushing the spine forward and upward (result in spinal extension).. and then the movement is reversed.
The last part shows a few rounds of Yoga Synergy spinal movements while attempting to initiate the movement from the core and move “one vertebrae at a time”.
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See this blog post by Tangkou Tan on Lauren's blog
MOVE FROM THE CORE-REALIGN WITH NATURE AND HARMONY
On checking Tangkao's Bio I saw that he was a dancer, he'd studied, practiced and I'm assuming performed ballet, he had also studied movement in actors workshops with Jerry Grotowski ( see appendix).
I don't dance, despite going to the ballet whenever I could in London, sitting up in the slips at Covent Garden but there have been times practicing Simon's spinal movements where I've become somewhat carried away (I'm sure this goes for anyone who has practiced Simon's movements for any time alone) and thought it was....dancelike, or could be. What if a dancer practiced Simon's movements, what would that look like, well, see below.
Simon talks about a Vertebrae by Vertebrae wave action, I'm in awe of how Tangkao seems to achieve this.
Simon talks about a Vertebrae by Vertebrae wave action, I'm in awe of how Tangkao seems to achieve this.
I find it impossible to separate Krishnamacharya from movement, from the jumping in and out of postures, the sun salutations but also in the 1938 documentary video ( see appendix 2) where we see Krishnamacharya moving through vinyasas in inversion. We see something similar in Krishnamacharya's student Srivatsa Ramaswami who shares his teachers instruction under Vinyasa Krama, moving in and and of a posture, each time a little deeper into the posture, postures followed by a counterpostures.
I see Simon's movements entirely constant with Krishnamacharya ( as you would expect of a student of Iyengar and Jois) especially when I return to Krishnamacharya's tadasana sequence, less flowing perhaps but all about movement.
Videos from Youtube and also on Tsunkao's website https://artanvaya.com/about/
For those of you who haven't seen my earlier posts on Simon Borg-Olivier, Simon is stripping down our practice of yoga, taking these extreme forward bends and side bends and twists that we practice and simplifying the movements, what you see above are forward bends of the spine, back bends, twists and perhaps they are sufficient.
See my previous posts on Simon, visit Tangkou's blog, he gives an introduction to each of these videos, explaining what he feels is going on.
In my own practice I look to take these movements into my practice of asana, in inversions.
UPDATE
New videos - On one leg
from the YouTube notes
"Exploring core initiated movement is very much a process of unblocking the blockages and allowing the movements to “flow through”, a great exercise to balance tension and relaxation.
This video shows an improvisation based on Simon Borg-Olivier’s “Spinal Synergy” practice. The movement begins with a spinal twist and then adding a lateral extension. As this core initiated movement increases its range of motion, it becomes obvious that the hips are tracing a figure 8 shape m, as well as the combined movement of the arms. Later on, spinal flexion and extension are added unilaterally to make more figure 8".
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Tangkao Tan's Bio from https://artanvaya.com/
"Tangkao’s first experience with yoga was 20 some years ago while still active as a dancer. Out of curiosity, he tried a yoga class at the legendary White Cloud Studio in New York. The class was taught by Ms. Hilary Cartwright and known back then as “Yoga class for Dancers”. Although many years would pass before he returned to yoga again, the sensitivity of the practice and attention redirected towards within left a profound impression on him.
In the late 90’s a severe back injury forced Tangkao to stop dancing and for two years he sought treatments of both Eastern and Western medicine without much improvement. He remembers clearly how one sunny afternoon, he sat down on the floor and closed his eyes, without knowing what he was doing he began to bring his attention and breathing to the area of injury and pain. Two days later, he noticed an improvement he had not experienced from any previous treatment. It was a revelatory moment and he verified for himself that the power of healing lies within.
In 2010 Tangkao took his first 200 hours teacher training in Shanghai, China at Yogi Yoga, a branch school of kaivalyadhama Yoga Institute of Lonavla in India. Upon completing the course, Tangkao was invited by the director Yogi Mohan to join the faculty, thus embarking on the ongoing journey of yoga learning and teaching.
The fact that most yoga practitioners from the west (outside of India in general) have a very “unnatural modern body” as Simon Borg-Olivier describes, is rarely considered seriously. “One becomes stronger through yoga practice if one survives it” has become a painful norm. While the idiom “sukham sthiram asanam” is often spoken about, it relates mostly a seated meditative postures, rather than asana practice in general.
At that stage in his practice, it became clear to Tangkao that his yoga practice was disconnected from the yogic scriptures for it rarely served to create the yogic state described in these texts—the state in which the body is rejuvenated and the mind reaches a clear meditative state. The truth is that yoga practiced at that level differs little from common physical exercises such as sports and various forms of gym workouts.
In 2014 Tangkao met Simon Borg-Olivier, who has co-founded Yoga Synergy, a Sydney based yoga school with Bianca Machliss. Simon and Bianca are both physiotherapists and with their decades of yoga practice, learning and teaching, they made the incredible and daring connection between classical yogic scriptures and modern science and medical studies such as those by Neils Bohr and Constantin Buteyko. Through their hard work and research, asana practice found its unique and proper place in the yogic path and the applications of yogic techniques such as mudra, bandha and pranayama also came alive, but this time under the light of modern anatomy and physiology. After completing two Yoga Synergy on-line courses, Tangkao participated in a 200-hour teacher training with Simon and Bianca in 2015.
This experience changed Tangkao’s practice completely. Although already a yoga teacher trainer at that time, he was convinced for the first time of the value of Hath Yoga (physical yoga) practice and the importance of proper yoga teaching in order to deliver it promised benefits. It was with this new mindset that he decided to open his own studio Morning Star Yoga in Northern California in spring 2017.
At Morning Star Yoga, Tangkao worked closely with a small community in the rural, fire-threatened Northern Sierra Foothill. Working with an older age group, his teaching has gradually condensed into two fundamental buildingblock principles taught by Simon Borg-Olivier: spinal focused active movements (see post) and relaxed natural breathing(see post). The core initiated movements (see post) become an expression of harmony and a balance of freedom and discipline.
As a dancer and dance teacher, Tangkao is fluent in ballet technique. From experience, he is aware of the way harmony in body movement influences a person’s internal state. With this new-found understanding inspired by Simon Borg-Olivier’s remarkable teaching, Tangkao has begun to incorporate his early acting training—based on the Polish theatre legend Jerzy Grotowski who aimed to create an ideal actor’s body that is free, organic and ready to take any form(role)— into his yoga practice. The synthesis of his years of experience in dance, acting and yoga have led to a practice that is kind and respectful to the body while placing the mind and soul at the creative heart of healing and harmonious movement.
As the new year 2019 begins, Tangkao has renamed his yoga school “ArtAnvaya” to better represent his new vision
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Tangkao is a E-RYT 500 yoga teacher registered with Yoga Alliance and has completed two separate 500 hours yoga teacher trainings and has received almost 2000 hours of yoga related training courses.
A former dancer and a specialist in 18th century Baroque dance, Tangkao holds BA degree on Dance Pedagogy and for many years trained in Jerzy Grotowski’s movement based acting techniques. The variety of his experience has creatively enriched his understanding of body movements".
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APPENDIX
I mentioned above that Tsangkao studied movement at Grotowski's actors workshop here7s a video I found giving perhaps an idea of those workshops
Ryszard Cieslak of Grotowski's Laboratory
A more recent presentation of these exercises.
Appendix 2
Movement in Krishnamacharya's inversions.
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Appendix 3
A ten minute version of Krishnamacharya's tadasana sequence as taught by Srivatsa Ramaswami
Appendix 4
My own attempt below at trying to work towards this 'Vertebrae by Vertebrae' wave action, it's hard, like starting to work on jump backs.
Appendix 5
Posts and links on Simon Borg-Olivier and yoga Synergy
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Trikonasana , past, present and future. (Includes a section on Simon's Trikonasana instruction).
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What is it about Mudra? Also... Simon Borg-Oliver on Janu Sirsasana and an intro to Simon's new 84 key postures course (includes a concrodance of Ashtanga and the 84 key asana course).
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Interview with Simon Borg-Olivier: Breath, Kumbhaka, Bandhas in Ashtanga and vinyasa Yoga. Yoga Rainbow Festival 2014 Almost the same as the above post but with a full transcription.
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Two minute (just about) niralumba sirsasana (unsupported headstand) made possible by spinal breathing
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Simon and Bianca's website and online courses
and their quite excellent blog
About Simon
Simon own page
This page includes links to online courses including two new ones, one of pranayama and another on 84 Postures for Strength, Flexibility, Fitness and Longevity. there is also talk of a new book and online course on Ashtanga.
Preview of Simon's excellent book Applied Anatomy and Physiology of Yoga
