Is co-ordinated breath and movement new to Yoga?
Submitted by Rich Horn on Tue, 14/04/2009 - 10:09.
A statement in a book (Mind Body Sport by J Douillard) claimed that Surya Namaskar was traditionally the only Yoga practice to co-ordinate breath and movement.
Can this be true?
I was discussing the point with a friend and wondering just how innovative/new our 'viniyoga' asana practice is?
Any thoughts?
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Krishnamacharyas reference
I remembered Ramaswami talking about this so I asked him if he could answer this question. In reply he gave me part of an article he wrote in which he desribes a time when he asked Krishnamacharya this question.
"What about breath synchronization, another important ingredient of Krishnamacharya’s Vinyása Krama? What about mental focus on the breath while doing ásana practice, central to vinyása yoga? None of the yoga schools teaches yoga in this manner and no classic Hatha Yoga texts mention breath synchronization in ásana practice. Where can one find references to these?
This was one of the few questions I asked my guru: Is Vinyása Krama an old, traditional practice? Krishnamacharya quoted a verse indicating that reference to this practice can be found in a text called Väddha Sátápata and also in the Yoga Sâtras of Patañjali."
The whole article can be downloaded from NamaRupa magazine.
Have you got a link to the article?
Hi Steve,
No search facility that I can see on the namarupa website.
Do you have a link to it?
NamaRupa link
Yes, here it is.
http://www.namarupa.org/magazine/nr06/downloads/05_NR6-Srivatsa.pdf
Thanks
Ok, so reading this, Krishnamacarya's interpretation is that Patanjali recommends breath-body co-ordination in asana in YS II.47.
In which case the claim in my other (infinitely less masterly) book is incorrect.
Thanks very much for posting the file, very interesting reading.
I'm jumping in without
I'm jumping in without reading the link. However, Krishnamacarya's intrepretation of II 47 is just that....his interpretation. I'm guessing he links ananta to the breath, but other commentators do not make this connection.
Breath and vinyasa
Yes, that is correct, YS II.47 defines this aspect of breath.
In The Yoga Makaranda, Krishnamacharya said that, "In yogasana, pranayama and the mudras, the vinyasas handed down from ancient times should be followed. But, nowadays, in many places, these great practitioners of yoga ignore vinyasa krama and just move and bend and shake their arms and legs and claim that they are practicing asana abhyasa."
This is in India in 1934. I wonder what he would think of some of the contemporary 'yoga' practice?
Krishnamacharya's rationale on breath in asana
I knew I had some further notes from Ramaswami's course on this subject, so will share that with you.
With regard to YS II.47 Krishnamacharya interprets this sutra differently from other teachers.
prayatna-saithilya-ananta-samapattibhyam
prayatna = effort. This is a technical term refering to jivana prayatna which means effort of life, which is breathing.
saithilya = smooth
ananta = breath (from Sanskrit ana = breath)
samapattibhyam = focusing on it. (samapatti=total concentration).
Interpretation: By making the breath smooth and long, and by focusing the attention on the breath, the perfection of posture is obtained.
YS II.46, II.47 & II.48 are the sutras on asana so these verses must be viewed in that context. The parameters of asana are explained.
So to conclude:
Krishnamacharya always taught asana with coordinated breathing.
He said it was an ancient practice.
He based these principles on the interpretation of YS II.47 I have outlined.
He said that other ancient texts, such as Vaddha Satapata, refered to this.
For further elucidation please read the NamaRupa article and p.18-20 in the preface of Ramaswami's book The Complete Book of Vinyasa Yoga.
Ramaswami explained to us that the Yoga Sutra assumes a certain knowledge. For instance, asana is not given great coverage, apart from the parameters. This knowledge is already known or can be found elsewhere, from texts (like HYP)or teachers.
In chapter one, many of the terms are technical ones derived from Samkhya, not general Sanskrit terms.
Ramaswami said that Krishnamacharya was a rare individual in that he was both a great scholar and an accomplished practitioner of Yoga.
I offer this with sincere respect to my teachers, and with humble apologies if any errors are present.
How was it lost?
If Krishnamacarya taught br/movt coordination to all his students, and his students were those who brought yoga to the west, when and why was it lost?
His descrition of practitioners who "move and bend and shake their arms and legs" is funny, it sounds like the Shakers! However yoga is now often taught as getting into a posture and staying there with the occasional admonition to "remember to breathe"
Breathless
It appears from the comments that Krishnamacharya makes in the Yoga Makaranda that he considered the general state of Yoga practice in India to be poor and that important aspects of Yoga were already missing. Krishnamacharya tried to master and then transmit the ancient teachings to keep them alive.
Iyengar was the first of Krishnamacharya's students to have a major impact on Yoga in the West. Breath awareness is not a focus of his practice. Asanas became a focus of Yoga with a very physical approach and little attention to the breath. Many other aspects of practice that we know well are also absent from Iyengar's teaching such as vinyasa krama, counter posture and the elaborate variations. Iyengar had asana lessons with Krishnamacharya for ten or fifteen days over a two year period.
Ashtanga Yoga as taught by Pattabhi Jois uses ujjayi breath and synchronised breathing so does adher to the basic parameters we know.
I can't say about all other school's of Yoga, although the classes I have been to do not seem to resemble in any way the method of vinyasa krama that we have learnt.