Archive for the 'History' Category Page 2 of 2

Newer Entries »

Parsing “Namaste”

Published on August 24, 2008 0 Comments

A pithy, energetic, and not-too dumbed down article (I mean, c’mon, we’ve had 10-years of that style of yoga reporting–the, ‘wow, it’s really weird, but I kind of like it,’ stuff) on the cultural background of Om, Hatha, and other fundamentals of yoga class. Nice to see yoga in the “grammar” section, though it’s not exactly grammar. B.K.S. Iyengar does more parsing of “Om” in the intro to his classic book, Light on Yoga. It’s more of a history lesson. But who’s counting?

The writer, Jaimie Epstein, a Jivamukti-trained yoga teacher, former copy editor and sometime-stand-in for William Safire’s “On Language” column for the NYT Magazine, says that Hatha yoga’s, “present-day roots go back to the Nathas, an Orc-like breed of mercenaries in medieval India who resurrected the methods of hathayoga in the hope of developing the supernatural powers, like invisibility.”

The article is a handy little primer with personality on the various styles of yoga popular right now and how they got there, and of the poses you’ll find in it. “After an hour or so of pretending you’re three-cornered and sitting like a hero, you’ll get to play dead in savasana, corpse pose, which isn’t a gruesome nod to slasher movies but a way of allowing you to experience the lightness of total surrender.”

Lastly, be sure to check out the line of figures in poses at the top of the article. The one third from the end seems to have aquired an extra thigh joint.

in History.

Kundalini Comes to Small Town

Published on May 19, 2008 0 Comments

Yoga in small-town USA is not news–but a major figure like Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa, spiritual leader of little-reported-on Kundalini yoga, visits Long Island, NY and most of the town shows up–that’s news.

Scene at St. Mark's United Methodist Church, c/o Herald

She radiated a tranquil aura as she spoke to the group who hung on her every word.  “All the answers are within,” she said.

The event helped raise money to build the Peki Hospitality House in Ghana, West Africa.

Read about Gurmukh’s May 19th visit to St. Mark’s United Methodist Church in Rockville Center, NY on Herald Online Community Newspaper.

in History.

Did the Beatles bring yoga to the West?

Published on February 28, 2008 0 Comments

The answer is no, but they were cool about it. How Stuff Works  website hosts two short articles on  the Beatles and the Maharishi as well as the influence of Indian gurus like BKS Iyengar on the development of yoga in the west.

Read the articles here. 

in History.

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi Passes

Published on February 6, 2008 1 Comment

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the controversial Indian guru–briefly adopted by the Beatles–who introduced Transcendental Meditation to the West, died Feb 6, 2008 in the Netherlands. He was in his 90s.

“The Maharishi was both an entrepreneur and a monk, a spiritual man who sought a world stage from which to espouse the joys of inner happiness. His critics called his organization a cult business enterprise. And in the press, in the 1960s and ’70s, he was often dismissed as a hippie mystic, the “Giggling Guru,” recognizable in the familiar image of him laughing, sitting cross-legged in a lotus position on a deerskin, wearing a white silk dhoti with a garland of flowers around his neck beneath an oily, scraggly beard.”

Read the full obituary in the NYTimes.   

in History.

Boys do Yoga

Published on September 5, 2007 0 Comments

No date given.

in History.

Copyrighting Yoga Poses–an ABCD perspective

Published on July 8, 2007 0 Comments

On May 7, 2007, writer SUKETU MEHTA wrote in the New York Times with a rare Indian perspective on the yoga craze, particularly the craze to copyright poses or sequences of poses instigated by yoga bad boy Bikram Choudury. Choudury has lived in the US since the 70s, and according to one Indian friend of mine, is a classic south-asian businessman.

Mehta says,”I GREW up watching my father stand on his head every morning. He was doing sirsasana, a yoga pose that accounts for his youthful looks well into his 60s. Now he might have to pay a royalty to an American patent holder if he teaches the secrets of his good health to others. The United States government has issued 150 yoga-related copyrights, 134 patents on yoga accessories and 2,315 yoga trademarks. There’s big money in those pretzel twists and contortions — $3 billion a year in America alone.

“It’s a mystery to most Indians that anybody can make that much money from the teaching of a knowledge that is not supposed to be bought or sold like sausages. Should an Indian, in retaliation, patent the Heimlich maneuver, so that he can collect every time a waiter saves a customer from choking on a fishbone?”

Read the whole story on the New York Times site: “A Big Stretch.”

in History.

Vanity Fair does Yoga Justice

Published on July 2, 2007 0 Comments


Early May 2007 Vanity Fair posted this exceptional photo-essay of contemporary yogis and yoginis. It is the first time in recent memory that a mainstream publication has commented intelligently on our obsession with yoga as well as explored where it came from. Of course it’s also glitzy and glamour-oriented, with a cast of usual characters – Christy Turlington, Sharon Gannon, David Life, etc – but it’s also pretty great, with some lesser-known teachers like Kundalini’s Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa, teacher’s teacher Dharma Mittra, plus Indian luminaries, BKS Iyengar, Sri Pattahbi Jois, and TKV Desikachar.

Check out the entire slide show here and buy the issue of Vanity Fair to see the other remarkable images.

in History and Trends.

Tao Porchon-Lynch in Westchester

Published on March 10, 2007 0 Comments

Waiting outside the studio, in a noisy, busy, Saturday-morning suburban gym, Porchon-Lynch was hard to miss–tall and slender, in a crushed black velvet top, and tight leggings, elegant salt and pepper hair, and a gaggle of students around her.

I put my mat at the top of the class, near hers, and was grateful to be so close– I could barely hear her over the bump, grind, and demolishing music coming from the gym outside.

We began seated with some side stretches. I’d never done many of them. She kept her eyes closed in quiet concentration. Before the class was half over, we were doing challenging poses like krounchasana (crane pose), and sage-broken-in-eight-places. She didn’t warm us up much for these so I wasn’t surprised that most people in the mixed-level class of suburban professionals and parents could not do them. I could only do them because I practiced last night, and they were still challenging for me.

While I worry about overstretching muscles that aren’t warm enough, to my amazement, she nimbly demonstrated peacock pose, flying her legs up off the ground as though she were lifting strands of hair. She did it on her thumb-tips with her fingers in extreme flexion. I can barely do that pose with my palms flat. (I did wonder if she used that hand variation to combat arthritis.)

It made me think that –like Iyengar–Porchon-Lynch’s body learned these poses young and THAT is why she can still do them. How much does the body change after 35?

Her sequencing, however, was mind-boggling. What was her logic? We did a series of standing poses only on one side, and another series only on the other. She apologetically announced, in her hushed voice, that we had run out of time because there was so much she wanted to show us and it wouldn’t all fit into the hour.

She talked through our 5 minute savasana, final relaxation, about the energy centers in the body. I couldn’t hear her very well, but when I peeked up at her, she had her eyes closed, deeply entranced in guiding our journey through the body. Her gorgeous necklace of Ganesh flanked by two suns, and her large lapis lazuli ring, plus the hot pinkish-red nail polish on toe and finger nails announced someone passionate, eccentric, devoted, spirited, and very alive.

One-by-one, her students hugged her as they filed out of the room. Afterwards, she told me that she used to be a film maker, and 7 of her films were made in India. She used to pal around with Aldous Huxley in California, and she left India in 1939, one year before my own mother was born there, in New Dehli. She still has many friends in India, and leads retreats there every year. The next one—a combination of yoga retreat and tour of who she knows in Inida—will be in October, 2 months after her 89th birthday, and one month after the monsoons.

Sounds like a trip not to miss.

in Culture, History and Research.

Tao Porchon-Lynch, yoga genious in Westchester

Published on March 10, 2007 0 Comments

On the recommendation of the Equinox gym PR person, Robert, I headed to Scarsdale today, Saturday morning, for an hour-long yoga class with Tao Porchon-Lynch. It sounded enticing–Prochon-Lynch had been profiled in the Washington Post and NBC for her unusual life. She had not only studied with Mr. Iyengar in India, she’d been born in what was French India, Pondicherry, and had practiced yoga since she was a girl. Not to mention that at 88 1/2 years old, she’s almost as old as Iyengar himself. 

in History.

Get a PhD in Yoga?

Published on December 19, 2006 1 Comment

India-trained professionals in ayurveda and yoga are looking for work. Follow this link.In India you can get a doctoral degree in yoga (SVYASA, Bangalore is one place offering this) or a masters in applied yoga science at Bihar Yoga Bharati, Munger, Bihar and at other universities, too, probably.

What do they teach yoga PhD students? Sanskrit, anatomy, physiology, sutras? Like our typical one-month training spread out over 4 years? Or something completely different?

Will Americans be tempted to go to Pune, Lucknow, and Mysore, not just to improve their bodies and breathing, but to get advanced degrees in yoga?

Food for thought.

in History.
Newer Entries »