Day 4: Finding Yourself in Someone Else's World

Yesterday I was having a casual conversation with a friend about the different schools of yoga. Well, as casual as any conversation can be on this topic with me right now! I started explaining the different approaches and what each school seems to emphasize in the physical postures and he asked, “How do they come up with this? Why would Bikram be all about building strong thighs and Anusara all about standing on your hands?”

Truthfully? I think the sequences develop from the founder’s personal “world: (call it their obsession or fixation or path). It may be what their body needed and so they develop a whole system or program with that emphasis.

Now I’m sure that Bikram or John Friend would say that they don’t obsess about one set of muscles over another but when you immerse yourself in their yoga programs as intensely as I have, you do feel like you’re entering someone else’s world. And some worlds you want to keep coming back to, others you visit once or twice and that’s enough.

In today’s class, I tried to meet myself in the Anusara body. Those “sparkling” hands, the hyper-extended upper chest and of course, the endless wobbly attempts at holding handstands. While in these handstands I just keep hearing “forceful”, defying gravity, defying standing on your legs. Kind of Super- Hero energy. Despite all the talk about heart openers (which feels about as effective as wearing a Happy Face pin) I felt a lot of effort to prove something, but what? Hmmm—

Six Days of Intense Anusara Yoga

• Day 3: One Size Fits No One
  
• Day 4: Finding Yourself In Someone Else’s World
• Day 5: Who Says?!
  

[tags]anusara,yoga practices,bikram,yoga programs[/tags]