Ashtanga yoga
About consciousness. About personal choice. About a female subject. About Tantra and family relationships.
About consciousness
What is primary, being, or consciousness
This eternal philosophical question is directly related to our life. Being is the conditions in which we live. Being includes everything – the place of residence, the surrounding material environment, finances, the people around us. Any observant person can easily notice that among the materially wealthy people, not all people with good inner qualities are far from being. We can say the same about unsecured people. One can cite as an example the life of a criminal in prison – the prison itself will not teach the criminal the true human qualities. The life of a thief in the wild can, in fact, differ little from the life of a criminal in prison. The scenery may be different – he may have a good house, a servant and security, but it will be just a well-decorated prison, because the consciousness of such people, both in the wild and in the prison, will be the same. Continue reading
Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga (part 3)
Practice Format
According to tradition, two forms of training are used in Ashtanga yoga: Ice class and Mysore class.
An ice class is a lesson that is held at the expense of the teacher. The whole group synchronously performs the sequence, rebuilding their breath under this score. Practitioners perform the same asanas, following the instructions of the teacher. The teacher calls the asanas, marks the beginning of the inhalation and exhalation, gives instructions on how to build up the asana, hold the bandhas and direct your gaze (drishti).
The Mysore class (got its name from the city of Mysore, where the ashtanga yoga school founded by Pattabhi Jois is located) is a lesson in which the practitioner, independently of others, performs a sequence in the rhythm of his breathing, at a pace convenient for him. Continue reading
