Iyagny Newsletter

IYAGNY NeWsLeTTER Dear Members, It’s hard to believe that we are over halfway Pulling together as a community is through the year. We’ve had some won- especially important right now, as Mary derful workshop150 W. 22nd experiences Street, 11th Floor with Laurie Dunn, our senior teacher, responds to New York, New York 10011 Blakeney, MatthewTel. 212 691 9642 Sanford and many the challenge of cancer. Mary looks forward of us attended the National Iyengar Yoga to being a presence at the Institute as soon Convention in May as is prudent and possible. She continues with Geeta Iyengar. to be an inspiration through her blog, We’ve had some www.marydunn.blogspot.com where you Pulling together as a community is real successes to can read her words and the wonderful especially important right now report, including stories, poems, and ideas and thoughts The Namesake that have come forward. movie premiere event and party, and our third annual Yoga-thon, as well as participation in events at ABC Carpet and Donna Karan’s Urban Zen Initiative. James Murphy Director, Iyengar Yoga Institute of New York So thanks especially to all of you “behind the scenes” who are members of the board, summer 2007 who volunteer to produce events, coordi- nate the catering, clean the studios, write articles for the newsletter, work on commit- tees, and all the many ways that we come together to keep the Iyengar Yoga Associa- tion of Greater New York a thriving organi- Below: Sage Patanjali zation and regional hub for Iyengar Yoga. ©William Irwin - IrwinPhoto.com Events such as the Yoga-thon provide a time that people can socialize in the space when normally they are rushing in and out of class. It is a great boost in building community. laurie blakeney: hidden mysteries by julia shaida "Have you ever practiced in such a way as not to proceed further?" —Prashant Iyengar, Yoga and the New Millennium (Laurie Blakeney visited the Institute been the student who, in doing forward February 2-4 and gave four interrelated bends, needs to stay with the concave classes. She is the owner/director of the spine, the head still lifted. Look for me in Ann Arbor School of Yoga and, for the Parsvottanasana, you would see me hov- past 23 years, has traveled annually to ering uneasily in the air—perhaps fretfully Pune to study with the Iyengars). reaching to the floor— dreading the next blowout of the hamstring. I started with recognition when Laurie In the past year there have been no blow- Blakeney said the apana vayu organizes outs, and my lower body has started to the movement of the legs. And yet what feel more integrated. There was one expe- was a vayu? I wasn’t sure. I thought I rience in particular that helped me. I was had heard the word “apana” before. Did in class and Parsvottanasana was the next it mean exhale? pose. I didn’t want to do it—I had recent- ly strained my right sacroiliac joint, and I Laurie showed the region of the torso— was sure I would reinjure myself. “Let me the abdomen from the pubic bone to the see,” the teacher said. I carefully lifted my navel: “The apana vayu is the governor chest, created a big concave spine and of the lower body. When the governor started to bend forward. “Stop,” she said. is absent the legs cannot integrate “Start over.” She came up behind me and their actions.” This sounded familiar to pressed the front hip bones together as me—legs that didn’t quite know their I bent forward. She made length through direction, that lifted the knee-caps only the belly for me. My back released, my to jam the pelvis. hamstring released. I had been over-con- caved in my low back. What I needed was In my fifteen years of doing yoga, I a softening, a flowing, a gentle hollowing have had a series of low-back injuries as of the exhale of the breath. and many upper-hamstring pulls. I am muscular. And I am tight. I have 2 I had been missing my governor: the She began the Saturday class on twists consolidate can I withdraw the efforts apana vayu. with a series of hip openers, Baddha but still do the same pose? In other Konasana variations with a block, and words, can I do the same pose with less- Vayu comes from the root vaa, to Gomukhasana. It is common, she said, er efforts. This leads toward maturity.” “move” or “blow.”Vayu is often trans- for us to experience our legs and pelvis lated “wind.” Ayurvedic texts describe as one “leg-hip-torso clump.” The apana In exploring the vayus, I transform my five vayus: apana, samana, prana, vayu helps differentiation to come, so eagerness to progress, my determination udana, and vyana. (See the illustration.) the spine is freed for the twist even as to “do correctly,” into an inward penetra- Over the course of the weekend, Laurie the legs can ground more effectively. tion. Strangely enough, I make less mus- explained that the apana vayu, located cular effort. But what have I done? I have in the abdomen, and the prana vayu, On Sunday, as we moved through a allowed the wind, the breath, the cosmic in the chest, are wedded. The apana variety of vinyasa sequences, Laurie energy, to teach. vayu (which means literally “downward breath”) is more associated with exhala- tion, the prana vayu (“filling up breath”) "It is in the known poses, the with inhalation. Laurie wove into her teaching the role simple poses, that the 'hidden these two vayus played in twisting, back- bending, and in vinyasa sequences. mysteries' reveal themselves." She emphasized the importance of dwelling in familiar poses to explore these aspects. Taking on more challenging poses, she said, is like taking on new pointed out how the apana and prana territory. “One must stay and colonize vayu can link unlike poses (for instance, the area already taken. It is in the known in a series like Tadasana, Uttanasana, poses, the simple poses, that the ‘hid- Adho Mukha Svanasana, Navasana, den mysteries’ reveal themselves.” Utkatasana, Ustrasana, Adho Mukha Virasana) and bring grace and coherence So what are some of the qualities of the to the changes. activated apana vayu? It is a movement of the breath at the back of the abdomi- As I have worked in my practice with nal organs, which brings a lengthening the vayus since Laurie’s workshop, I in the belly and a settling back of the have been reminded of her phrase “the organs. It brings a feeling of emptiness hidden mysteries.” What is mysterious or hollowing in the belly. Laurie had us about the vayus? What keeps them do Adho Mukha Virasana and imagine a hidden—in plain view? For that matter, beach ball in our belly. Breathe in along how have I learned, really, to stop injur- the back surface of the beach ball, she ing myself? said. And as you exhale, let the muscles of the back soften and broaden out from In the booklet New Millenium, Prashant Illustration from Astadala Yogamala Vol. 2 p. 100 the spine. Iyengar talks about “consolidating” our poses. “How much effort have I put in the pose,” he asks, “and in order to 3 matthew sanford workshop: reflections by tracy young Salamba Sarvangasana. perched on folding chairs—in wheel- chairs. This was not your everyday I am curled over my shoulders, my Institute crowd; it was more diverse, a hands digging into the warm dough of gathering to celebrate yoga outside of the my lower back as I pry loose one index studio—and beyond the able body. finger and tuck in the hem of my shirt before my stomach escapes. Pressing my The air on the eleventh floor felt ionized, heels toward the ceiling, I strain upward, as all eyes focused on the platform where trying to find the right combination of a slightly paunchy, scruffily bearded, muscle, balance and will that might twinkly-eyed man unlocked his wheelchair allow me to rest, however briefly, in the so he could roll around while he talked, pose. Asana: to abide in. How can I rest? then threatened to dive into the mosh Sarvangasana is challenging—and it pit because the platform was slanted. freaks me out with its close-up of what I “Mine was a mind body injury,” Matthew find most dismaying about my middle- said moving past the horrific details of aged body. Chin to chest, I could easily his injury and rehabilitation to spend the drown during a particularly fulsome hot next two hours talking primarily about flash. My thighs look…hideous. Is my his struggle with conventional medical pose even remotely perpendicular? And thinking. He described how at one point Photo: Jennifer R. Sanford on and on and on. he decided it would be a good idea to amputate his legs since they were "use- Yogas citta vritti nirhodha.1 less." The crowd sighed. Everyone under- stands self-loathing, the feeling that the The chatter quiets, ever so briefly, and all body has betrayed us. I can hear are fifty other people breath- ing and the soft whirl of the overhead “But the body doesn’t fail you.” Matthew fan. Then I am startled by unexpected said as if he knew what we were think- squeak of rubber tires on the bamboo ing. “It’s the mind that fails, the body floorboards. The squeaking tires belong keeps trucking along.” He described his to a wheelchair that belongs to Matthew realization that alignment and precision Sanford, a yoga teacher from Minnesota, could increase mind body integration in who has come to the Institute this last spite of paralysis.

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