A famous Teacher/Guru once landed in a cold German winter dressed only in a piece of cloth. Dignitaries who were there to receive him offered a coat, but he answered he did not need it because he generated his own internal heat.
I cannot remember where I read that or who the Guru in question was, but the story has been powerful enough to stick with me. Can you imagine? Landing in Kennedy Airport in February and going: nah! I don't need a coat, thank you.
This was one of the most mind-blowing things I came across while taking up Asthanga yoga: the instruction that by using proper breathing (ujjaji breath), I would actually help my body generate enough heat to not only sweat, but by the time the core poses came around (Bujapidasana, Kurmasana and Supta Kurmasana, Garba Pindasana and Badokonasana), have enough liquid pooring from my pores that I would be able to, say, slide my hands easily into garba pindasana.
I am amazed by how long it took me to surrender my pre-conceptions of what I thought proper breathing was, and actually take on the technique. Even though it was offered from day one:
7- Becoming Super EfficientA Real and Clear Way to Happiness
8- I am Grateful for My Gunas
9- What Yoga in Mysore Means to Me
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| Mount Kailash in Tibet, where Shiva is said to be sited at the top, constantly meditating |
GENERATING INTERNAL HEAT
This was one of the most mind-blowing things I came across while taking up Asthanga yoga: the instruction that by using proper breathing (ujjaji breath), I would actually help my body generate enough heat to not only sweat, but by the time the core poses came around (Bujapidasana, Kurmasana and Supta Kurmasana, Garba Pindasana and Badokonasana), have enough liquid pooring from my pores that I would be able to, say, slide my hands easily into garba pindasana.
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| Sliding hands in while attempting Garba Pindasana |
- Breathe slowly, and in a controlled way,
- Count 5 for inhale and 5 for exhale -this helped me in the beginning, while trying to "get it"-
- Close the glottis gland so you will make the Darth Vader sound
- Engage bandhas
- Don't make it so loud that it can be heard from the street, if you can hear it that is enough
The good old mind! Oh! It loves to resist, to think it knows better.
Since it took me so long to surrender to the technique, it also took a while to learn to generate internal heat, but eventually, as it is the case with all practices over a long dedicated period of time, it all came together. These days I find myself sweating right away. It does happen!
Of course winter does not help, and sometimes, when the weather is very cold and the heaters don't quite work as hard a practice may come and go with no sweat, but this is more the exception.
A great way to notice how much internal heat is generated, at least for me, it is when I am trying really hard and working on the practice in the cold winter of New York's December and then suddenly the find myself in the drenched humid and extra hot Mysore room of, well, Mysore, South India at the Asthanga Yoga Research Institute.
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Sweating the intermediate series in Mysore.
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As the temperatures change so abruptly, and the Mysore shala is so incredibly hot, one can find oneself sweating in places like the skin around the tibia (front of the lower leg below the knee), yes that area can sweat!
Yoga turns the practitioner into a scientist of its own body. It makes us go within and explore our inner landscape and how it is deeply connected to our mind. It shows us clearly and in every practice: the places that scare it [mind], the places where it refuses to go, the places where it throws tantrums.
Then, through proper technique we learn to go further into the laboratory while keeping an equanimity attitude towards whatever the mind comes up with.
Learning that heat is generated internally is one of the ways we turn the laboratory in fire and work with these new, sometimes extreme conditions. It is practice for what comes afterwards, when we step out of the mat and the fires fee; more real, and even hotter in the world outside the Mysore room.
REASONS WHY I AM GRATEFUL FOR ASHTANGA YOGA:
Then, through proper technique we learn to go further into the laboratory while keeping an equanimity attitude towards whatever the mind comes up with.
Learning that heat is generated internally is one of the ways we turn the laboratory in fire and work with these new, sometimes extreme conditions. It is practice for what comes afterwards, when we step out of the mat and the fires fee; more real, and even hotter in the world outside the Mysore room.
REASONS WHY I AM GRATEFUL FOR ASHTANGA YOGA:
8- I am Grateful for My Gunas
9- What Yoga in Mysore Means to Me
'Yoga turns the practitioner into a scientist of its own body'. Ye Yes, love that about it, always fascinating. Nice series of posts Claudia, enjoying them.
ReplyDeleteThanks G
ReplyDeleteyes, sweating around tibia - hehe -i could not quite believe when it first happened ;-) ivana
ReplyDeleteSame here! I watched in disbelief as the water poured from them!
ReplyDeleteDear Claudia,
ReplyDeleteThe Guru in the quote was Dhirendra Brahmachari and the anecdote happened in Moscow.
The
inner heat is teach today in the west by yoguis like Wim Hof (Holland).
And in the east is mastered (and some times teach) by the many
disciples of Brahmachari, like Wentseslao Eftimov (Bulgaria). North
India, Nepal and Tibet are also places where a form of inner heat is
practiced by the "White Sheet" monks. They call it Tummo (a meditation
where great amount of heat is produced).
In Mysore, the
disciples of Krishnamacharya (and their disciples) teach Ashtanga
Vinyasa Yoga. Inner heat is produced during this practice as a result of
the vinyasa (the coordination between breath and movement) and the use
of Ujjaji. But a great part of the heat conservation (and sweat) is due
to the context in wich the practice is held (now a days closed Shalas in
a preety hot city).
That explains why sometimes it can be difficult for you to sweat doing the same practice in a slightly colder enviroment.
Ujjaji as teached in Mysore certainly is a good entrance technique for the inner heat.
The
kind of inner heat that Brahmachari was referring in that anecdote is
not the one created by the practice of Ujjaji. In a cold context it is
best not to concentrate in the transition between asanas, but in the
more subtle transition between the four stages of a breathing cycle
(exhalation, retention with no air, inhalation, retention with air).
These retentions are known in yoga as Kumbhaka (the hold of the breath
with full and with empty lungs). And there resides the secret of the
inner heat that Brahmachari was referring in that case.
An
experienced Ashtangi can easily learn the inner heat technics that are
now a days preserved in the places and by the teachers mentioned before
(and others).
Even do Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga is a very
complete way of development, it may happen that an Ashtangi find
interesting for example the hability to expand her or his practice to
cooler enviroments, depending not on specially aconditioned Shalas to
preserve the heat. Specially for the North American and European
ashtanguis that live in cold enviroments (when they are not living in
Mysore) :)
In my personal experience trough the years, the discovery of the inner heat practice was the most precious gift.
Even
do it is greatly extended in the former soviet union countries, it is
yet relatively unknown to people in the west, mainly because of
historical facts.
I reccomend this teachings from the heart.
I beg your pardon for my english, since it is not my mother tongue.
Om Shanti
Matias Mino