I took my intro course two months ago and it was a powerful experience. It stretches over six days, four weekdays and a weekend. The weekday classes were about three hours long, while the weekend classes five hours each. In a way, it's a bit like a cross between a workshop and a retreat. It takes you out of your routine and molds your activities around the learning experience.
I took it with a small group, just five people, while Stephanie has about 20 in her course. Sometimes, they give the course to 100 or more people. In India, the course is giving in massive gatherings -- it has to be that way in a country of billions. The core of the AOL practice is the Sudarshan Kriya, a purification process. A longer form is done regularly in a group (60 minutes) while a shortened form (20-30 minutes) is done daily. A summary of its benefits can be found on Lifepositive.com.
You are not supposed to revel what goes on in the classes, but I have found several websites that details what happens. The best summary is Bharani's Revelations.
You can read a long portrait of Sri Sri, Emperor of Air, in Yoga Journal. The DC Chapter will be welcoming Sri Sri next week, May 6. Details are on the site. If I have one reservation about AOL, it's the reverence and adulation with which Sri Sri is held by many of his followers. He is definitely charismatic in a quirky, Hindu way -- kind of a call back to the Beatles and the Maharishi. One thing is sure -- the Art of Living Foundation is a huge international organization, sustaining operations in over 100 countries and reaching into new areas. It gives APEX course for corporate management and staff as well as maintains an aggressive presence on university campuses.
What does AOL add to my yoga practice? It's increased my lung capacity in a really short time; it's increased my alertness; it's given me methods to refresh my mind throughout the day. By giving me greater awareness and sensitivity to my breath, I've improved my concentration and meditation. By coming to AOL and yoga together, I was able to see how much yoga could benefit me. At my first yoga class after the AOL intro course, I was able to get into deep bends and other poses and hold them because I was breathing more easily and deeply. I suppose I could have to come the same condition through other methods, but it would have taken more time.
I have my PDA loaded with about 20 articles that I have been reading at my lunch break. I use iSilox to grab web pages and format them for a handheld. The trick is to first get a print version of the web page to eliminate ads and other non-essential graphics and links.
I came back to this article after reading it two month ago. It caught my attention because it captured my penchant for rationalizing my intellectual queries and my emotional satisfaction with my yoga and meditation practice. Whenever I ease into meditation mode, it's like slipping into a hot bath. You think to yourself -- "This is so right."
But I suddenly realized that there is another level in which this feeling of satisfaction can border on self-righteousness. There can be all kinds of claims about the value of yoga and meditation that cannot be confirmed objectively. You can see it a lot in the "life style" choices that surround these traditions. Do I have to become a vegitarian to follow through on my new yoga-based options. How can you prove some of the claims made about yoga and meditation -- curing back pain, managing mood swings or increased holiness.
The interesting angle is the collaboration between Western science and Eastern wisdom.
You can find out more about this trend by going to Investigating the Mind for the September 2003 conference that brought the Dai Lama to Cambridge, Mass or the Mind and Life Institute, the organization that has been exploring the trend for the past decade or so.
On yoga and related topics, there are plenty of excellent portals, directories and sites on the Web that provide references, pointers and links to other resources. There are people who have put large parts of their books online (for instance, Erich Shiffmann ). Here the emphasis will be on link quality and contextual commentary so that visitors can get a handle on the resources. Today I chance across Vancouver Yoga, a Canadian studio run by Eoin Finn. It has MP3 demos of yoga routines and other resources. It looks like a great place to explore.
In my favor, I am Web-savvy and eager to let others ride on my learning curve. And I am a writer so I do not let web development or graphics get the upper hand on flesh-and-blood accounts of life on the mat. I've noticed on lots of yoga studio websites, Flash-based design and professional quality pictures shows the expert hands of design teams. But these sites seem to me to be expressions of PR, rather than the first-hand accounts of the creative force behind the studio. It would be a lot to ask for a yoga instructor to add web development or writing to his/her skill set (There are probably exceptions to this career trait, and I will point them out when I find them.)
As in any good blog, this is a conversation with those who visit these pages. I hope to implement comments soon to get feedback. This site is more in the spirit of giving back some of the rewards that yoga has given to me in a short time.
Since then, I have been engaged in an effort to speed up the process, even though the idea of racing towards a goal goes against the nature of yoga. I mean that I am trying to remove obstacles to the process -- and when you're a 55-year-old, fully employed adult, there can be a lot of them. You'd be fooling yourself if you thought you could overcome them quickly. But over the past four months, I've seen enough gradual changes to encourage me to think that I can improve my quality of life.
That's one of the reasons that I decided to start up this site -- I wanted a repository for my daily discoveries and resources that I chance across on the Web. Some place that I can point to when I want to help out someone -- just as I do with Peru or tech. This is like leaving tracks or trail markings so that a traveler can find his way.
I have a diary in which I write my experience from my pranayama and meditation practices. But that's for my own personal reference -- a different set of datas than what will be recorded here.
I first became interested in yoga when I was working on my master's degree about two years ago. I was looking for a means of relieving the stress of pursuing a graduate studies while working full time. I wanted to refresh my mind as well as my body, even though I had started going to the gym to get back some stamina. I played around with it, bought a book for reference and followed a DVD. But I was never able to sustain this interest.
In the past four months, I've really stepped up my effort. I've started taking yoga classes at TranquilSpace in Washington once a week. I took an Art of Living course. I have intertwined yoga into my daily routine. This has led to a daily practice of pranayama (breathing exercises). I've also begun a daily practice of meditation. For the first time in ages, I have no problem failling to sleep at night -- I lay my head on the pillow and I am out within 30 seconds. Before I used to toss and turn for what seemed like hours.
What do I want to accomplish with this site? There are some really great resources on the Web about yoga, meditation, spirituality and other truths. I will take the role of a novice feeling his way towards enlightenment and bliss. Supposedly, I will never reach my destination, but the journey will be reported here.
