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Ashtanga vinyasa yoga is a style of yoga as exercise popularised by K. Pattabhi Jois during the twentieth century, often promoted as a dynamic form of classical Indian (hatha) yoga. Jois claimed to have learnt the system from his teacher Tirumalai Krishnamacharya. The style is energetic, synchronising breath with movements. The individual poses (asanas) are linked by flowing movements (vinyasas).
An āsana is a body posture, originally and still a general term for a sitting meditation pose, and later extended in hatha yoga and modern yoga as exercise, to any type of position, adding reclining, standing, inverted, twisting, and balancing poses. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali define "asana" as "[a position that] is steady and comfortable". Patanjali mentions the ability to sit for extended periods as one of the eight limbs of his system. Asanas are also called yoga poses or yoga postures in English.
Tirumalai Krishnamacharya was an Indian yoga teacher, ayurvedic healer and scholar. He is seen as one of the most important gurus of modern yoga, and is often called "Father of Modern Yoga" for his wide influence on the development of postural yoga. Like earlier pioneers influenced by physical culture such as Yogendra and Kuvalayananda, he contributed to the revival of hatha yoga.
Sun Salutation, also called Surya Namaskar(a) or Salute to the Sun (Sanskrit: सूर्यनमस्कार, romanized: Sūryanamaskāra), is a practice in yoga as exercise incorporating a flow sequence of some twelve linked asanas. The asana sequence was first recorded as yoga in the early 20th century, though similar exercises were in use in India before that, for example among wrestlers. The basic sequence involves moving from a standing position into Downward and Upward Dog poses and then back to the standing position, but many variations are possible. The set of 12 asanas is dedicated to the Hindu solar deity, Surya. In some Indian traditions, the positions are each associated with a different mantra.
Uttanasana or Standing Forward Bend, with variants such as Padahastasana where the toes are grasped, is a standing forward bending asana in modern yoga as exercise.
Tadasana, Mountain pose or Samasthiti is a standing asana in modern yoga as exercise; it is not described in medieval hatha yoga texts. It is the basis for several other standing asanas.
A vinyasa is a smooth transition between asanas in flowing styles of modern yoga as exercise such as Vinyasa Krama Yoga and Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga, especially when movement is paired with the breath.
Mayūrāsana or Peacock pose is a hand-balancing asana in hatha yoga and modern yoga as exercise with the body held horizontal over the hands. It is one of the oldest non-seated asanas.
Kurmasana, Tortoise Pose, or Turtle Pose is a sitting forward bending asana in hatha yoga and modern yoga as exercise.
Mulabandhasana is a sitting asana in hatha yoga.
Ashtanga Namaskara, Ashtanga Dandavat Pranam, Eight Limbed pose, Caterpillar pose, or Chest, Knees and Chin pose is an asana sometimes used in the Surya Namaskar sequence in modern yoga as exercise, where the body is balanced on eight points of contact with the floor: feet, knees, chest, chin and hands.
Modern yoga is a wide range of yoga practices with differing purposes, encompassing in its various forms yoga philosophy derived from the Vedas, physical postures derived from Hatha yoga, devotional and tantra-based practices, and Hindu nation-building approaches.
Yoga Body: The Origins of Modern Posture Practice is a 2010 book on yoga as exercise by the yoga scholar Mark Singleton. It is based on his PhD thesis, and argues that the yoga known worldwide is, in large part, a radical break from hatha yoga tradition, with different goals, and an unprecedented emphasis on asanas, many of them acquired in the 20th century. By the 19th century, the book explains, asanas and their ascetic practitioners were despised, and the yoga that Vivekananda brought to the West in the 1890s was asana-free. Yet, from the 1920s, an asana-based yoga emerged, with an emphasis on its health benefits, and flowing sequences (vinyasas) adapted from the gymnastics of the physical culture movement. This was encouraged by Indian nationalism, with the desire to present an image of health and strength.
Yoga Makaranda, meaning "Essence of Yoga", is a 1934 book on hatha yoga by the influential pioneer of yoga as exercise, Tirumalai Krishnamacharya. Most of the text is a description of 42 asanas accompanied by 95 photographs of Krishnamacharya and his students executing the poses. There is a brief account of practices other than asanas, which form just one of the eight limbs of classical yoga, that Krishnamacharya "did not instruct his students to practice".
The Path of Modern Yoga: The History of an Embodied Spiritual Practice is a 2016 history of the modern practice of postural yoga by the yoga scholar Elliott Goldberg. It focuses in detail on eleven pioneering figures of the transformation of yoga in the 20th century, including Yogendra, Kuvalayananda, Pant Pratinidhi, Krishnamacharya, B. K. S. Iyengar and Indra Devi.
Early modern yoga was the form of yoga created and presented to the Western world by Madame Blavatsky, Swami Vivekananda and others in the late 19th century. It embodied the period's distaste for yoga postures (asanas) as practised by Nath yogins by not mentioning them. As such it differed markedly from the prevailing yoga as exercise developed in the 20th century by Yogendra, Kuvalayananda, and Krishnamacharya, which was predominantly physical, consisting mainly or entirely of asanas.
The standing asanas are the yoga poses or asanas with one or both feet on the ground, and the body more or less upright. They are among the most distinctive features of modern yoga as exercise. Until the 20th century there were very few of these, the best example being Vrikshasana, Tree Pose. From the time of Krishnamacharya in Mysore, many standing poses have been created. Two major sources of these asanas have been identified: the exercise sequence Surya Namaskar ; and the gymnastics widely practised in India at the time, based on the prevailing physical culture.
The history of yoga in the United States begins in the 19th century, with the philosophers Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau; Emerson's poem "Brahma" states the Hindu philosophy behind yoga. More widespread interest in yoga can be dated to the Hindu leader Vivekananda's visit from India in 1893; he presented yoga as a spiritual path without postures (asanas), very different from modern yoga as exercise. Two other early figures, however, the women's rights advocate Ida C. Craddock and the businessman and occultist Pierre Bernard, created their own interpretations of yoga, based on tantra and oriented to physical pleasure.
Postural yoga began in India as a variant of traditional yoga, which was a mainly meditational practice; it has spread across the world and returned to the Indian subcontinent in different forms. The ancient Yoga Sutras of Patanjali mention yoga postures, asanas, only briefly, as meditation seats. Medieval Haṭha yoga made use of a small number of asanas alongside other techniques such as pranayama, shatkarmas, and mudras, but it was despised and almost extinct by the start of the 20th century. At that time, the revival of postural yoga was at first driven by Indian nationalism. Advocates such as Yogendra and Kuvalayananda made yoga acceptable in the 1920s, treating it as a medical subject. From the 1930s, the "father of modern yoga" Krishnamacharya developed a vigorous postural yoga, influenced by gymnastics, with transitions (vinyasas) that allowed one pose to flow into the next.
Gurus of Modern Yoga is an edited 2014 collection of essays on some of the gurus (leaders) of modern yoga by the yoga scholars Mark Singleton and Ellen Goldberg.
References
- 1 2 3 "Srivatsa Ramaswami". Yoga Society of New York. Retrieved 4 April 2019.
- 1 2 "Book Review | Yoga for the Three Stages of Life; Developing Your Practice as an Art Form, a Physical Therapy and a Guiding Philosophy". Yoga Chicago. July 2001. Retrieved 4 April 2019.
- 1 2 Sharonin, Yuri (2012). "Huge variety of Krishnamacharya's teachings - Interview with Srivatsa Ramaswami". Wild Yogi. Retrieved 4 April 2019.
- ↑ Ramaswami, Srivatsa (October 1997). "My Studies with Sri Krishnamacharya" (PDF). Namarupa (6).
- ↑ "Srivatsa Ramaswami". Simon & Schuster . Retrieved 4 April 2019.
- ↑ Brandon, Stephen. "My Studies with Srivatsa Ramaswami". Harmony Yoga. Archived from the original on 4 April 2019. Retrieved 4 April 2019.
- ↑ "About Srivatsa Ramaswami". Yoga Alliance . Retrieved 4 April 2019.
- ↑ Singleton, Mark (2010). Yoga body : the origins of modern posture practice . Oxford University Press. p. 185. ISBN 978-0-19-539534-1. OCLC 318191988.
- ↑ Singleton, Mark (2010). Yoga body : the origins of modern posture practice . Oxford University Press. p. 190. ISBN 978-0-19-539534-1. OCLC 318191988.
- ↑ Silverstein, Bob. "THE COMPLETE BOOK OF VINYASA YOGA: An Authoritative Presentation Based on 30 Years of Direct Study Under the Legendary Yoga Teacher Krishnamacharya". Publishers Weekly . Retrieved 4 April 2019.
- ↑ Mata-Gabor, Sarah (2006). "Reviews | Srivatsa Ramaswami and David Hurwitz. Yoga Beneath the Surface...". International Journal of Yoga Therapy. 16 (1): 101–107.
- ↑ Steffensen, Sharon (September 2005). "Book Review | Yoga Beneath the Surface". Yoga Chicago. Retrieved 4 April 2019.
- ↑ Hann, Joelle (10 August 2006). "For Total Posers: Four Book Reviews". Time Out Magazine. Retrieved 4 April 2019.
- ↑ Chapple, Christopher Key (2008). "Modern Yoga". Religious Studies Review. 34 (2): 71–76. doi:10.1111/j.1748-0922.2008.00256.x.
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