Sunday, May 15, 2011

Is Ashtanga practice by itself sufficient for a core-centered practice?

Recently, the subject of core work/engaging the core in yoga practice has come up in the blogosphere, sometimes tangentially, sometimes more directly. For example, Megan's recent insightful post on the difference between yoga and Pilates has sparked an interesting conversation on the relative merits of the two disciplines. In a recent article in Elephant Journal, Sadie Nardini also suggested that many yogis have superficial practices, i.e. practices that do not engage and come from the core, but basically consist of disparate and disjointed movements of various parts of the body. Nardini claims:

"...there’s a lack of depth to many people’s practices, physically, but also on every other level of being. If we’re not touching our cores on the mat, it’s likely that we’re challenged by issues of inner strength and stamina outside the studio too.

Many yoga practitioners are practicing from the outside in and the sky down, instead of the much more powerful directions of inside out and earth up. And I’m glad they are, at least when they come to me, because it’s so incredible to turn a pose inside out and watch people finally, and near-instantly begin to rock their Crow poses, handstands, Warriors and so much more."
 
Why is it so important to work and move from our core in asana practice? Nardini offers one obvious answer:

"If you want to do yoga when you’re 90–or even in a year, you’ll be smart to stop relying on outer body muscles and your joints to do this practice."

All this talk of moving and working from the core is really compelling and impressive (I'm not being sarcastic--I really mean this!). However, being a semi-hermetic Midwestern Ashtangi who mostly practices by himself, except for short trips here and there to study with senior teachers, and whose knowledge of anatomy is far from extensive, I can only approach this issue from the perspective of my own Ashtanga practice and experience. So the question I would like to pose here is: Does the Ashtanga method, especially its focus on engaging the bandhas, possess the resources to give a practitioner a core-centered practice? Or, to pose the same question more straightforwardly: If one practices only the Ashtanga method (and practices it correctly, of course!), would one be able to achieve the kind of core-centered practice that Nardini talks about? Or does the Ashtanga practice need to be supplemented with another mind/body practice in order to achieve such a result (What would this supplementary practice be? Pilates? Taichi?)?

From my as-yet-limited experience with Ashtanga, I personally feel that if one pays close attention to the breath, drishti and bandhas in practice, the core will take care of itself. I feel this from my experience in developing my jumpthroughs and jumpbacks (JTJB). I feel that, over the last couple of years, my JTJB has become less muscle-intensive, and my breathing during JTJB has also become less constricted (although it is still not as relaxed as when I am standing in Samasthihi; but maybe I'll get there some day :-)). The other day, for example, as I was jumping through into I-forgot-what-asana-in-primary-series, I could actually feel a certain softness in my triceps; I could feel that what was really "powering" my jumpthrough wasn't sheer arm-power, but something... deeper than that. I take this as a sign that, if I keep mindfully working on my bandhas in all postures and transitions, my practice will one day become almost completely core-powered and be much less muscle-powered than it is at present.

Does any of this make any sense? I hope it does; I'm basically just writing off the top of my head (then again, I almost always write off the top of my head these days; but this is a topic for another post).    

I guess I'll leave you with the question which started this post: Is Ashtanga practice by itself sufficient for a core-centered practice?     

15 comments:

  1. I can't remember whose blog I read, but it was a male Ashtanga yoga teacher who wrote that he had been practicing Ashtanga for a few years and had gotten pretty far with the asanas, but when he went to a senior teacher's workshop, the teacher watched his practice and told him that his bandhas were not engaged in his asanas, which totally shocked him. So the question is not a matter of yoga style. It's how much your first yoga teacher emphasized the importance of engaging your core. I noticed my Ashtanga teacher would remind people to "draw the navel in and up" every 5 minutes, whereas some other yoga teachers would talk about it once at the beginning of class and that was it. I've been to Sadie's workshop and she has her way of describing to students how to engage the mula bandha. Basically people need lots of reminders until core engagement becomes a habit.

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  2. Great post!...thinking about writing a piggy back post later...you always provide such food for thought. :)

    Yes, I think Ashtanga is enough to learn to direct movement from the core...but not if you're in a hurry. I think eveyone can learn it within this practice, but some body types will take longer to start to internalize it than others. I'm on the sloooow path, but I understand it a little better all the time

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  3. In a led class I remind the students about the bandha in every vinyasa and in almost every asana as well. In every Adho Mukha Svanasana I tell them to look to the navel and suck it in towards the spine. In every sitting asana I tell them to ground the tailbone and lift the pelvic floor....and so on! Slowly they (and myself, in my own practice) will get it! I'm sure! This practice is ABOUT getting to the core!

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  4. Yyogini, I think what you say makes sense: Perhaps it is not what style one practices, but how and to what extent one is able to engage the bandhas/core 24/7. I've never been to any classes or workshops with Sadie. It'll be interesting to go to one, and learn from her.

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  5. Interesting, Christine. I'm not sure if the moving-from-the-core learning curve has that much to do with body type, though. I could be wrong, but I feel that it is more about the intention of the individual practitioner.

    Helena, I also tend to agree that if people stick with the practice for long enough, they will slowly come to see that working and moving from the core is a more effective and safe way of doing the practice. In this sense, I think the practice works from the outside to the inside.

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  6. Nobel, I totally agree with you, yes, if one focuses on the proper method, the core, the internal part, and everything else takes care of itself. I know this because of the changes in my own being, I cannot speak for anyone else, but it is my case.

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  7. Well said, Claudia. On the whole, I agree with you. But I also have some more things to say about this whole thing. See my next post...

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  8. I like Sadie, but I think her workshops are more for people who shy away from too-serious yoga teachers and rigorous yoga styles like Ashtanga. She's also good at teaching yoga teachers how to be creative with words and provide clearer instructions for beginner yoga students. I think Ashtangis are in pretty good hands with the senior teachers we have.

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  9. Yes, Yyogini, I get the sense that Sadie is very creative and conscious with her choice of words and instructions. Which is really great. And I also think that we have no shortage of equally talented senior Ashtanga teachers. Hmm... maybe I'll try to see if I can time my next moon day so that I can be somewhere where I can take a class/workshop with her... :-)

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  10. Tks for this. It gave me the kick I needed.

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  11. You're welcome, yoginicory :-)

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  12. I would recommend checking out some of Sadie's youtube videos before deciding which workshop to take. For example, maybe her backbending workshop could help you refine your dropback technique:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kh57dfUDL28

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  13. Thanks for the headsup, Dhr Bibberknie. I'll check out her videos!

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  14. This post is really a refreshing one . For a long time I have also been exploring whether "Ashtanga Vinyasa Practice" was complete in itself or whether it needed a "supplementary practice" like Pilates / Tai Chi /Core Yoga to make it complete ?I think the answer to it lies in "the depth" with which one does the Ashtanga Vinyasa Practice .It is true that some people have the natural ability to "engage" the "bandhas" right from the beginning of their practice while for some others it takea s longer time .Thanks for this refreshing article .

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  15. Thanks Krishna. Yes, I now think that Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga by itself has everything that one needs to access the core; it's a matter of how deeply one understands the practice. I also think it takes most people a while to understand what the bandhas are about: One of my teachers told me that Richard Freeman once told her that he only started to "get" the bandhas after twenty years of practice.

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