Last week I read an interesting piece about alignment and its relative importance to yoga.
It was written by an Indian woman who reflected on the eight-limbed path and asana’s limited role in the grand scheme of the yoga practice.
I wholeheartedly agree with everything she wrote but of course have to add my two cents.
I am a “yoga” teacher because that is the name given to the exercise practice that I teach.
At this moment, I could work at a gym or open a studio and try to sell “exercise” classes or come up with a special name for my type of yoga, but I don’t think anyone would show up.
What I do is called yoga, but I teach is an exercise routine loosely based on traditional yoga poses with a very specific emphasis on alignment and posture.
I think this is a legitimate approach but not genuinely yoga.
I’m not saying that all yoga teachers are like me but I wonder what the percentage is.
And I might add that I’m not ignorant of yoga philosophy.
When I first began taking, and then teaching yoga, I dove fairly deep into the literature especially three of the more important ones: The Bhagavad Gita, The Ramayana, and the Yoga Sutra.
Having run several teacher trainings using these texts I became wonderfully familiar with their content.
And I love them.
Especially the Ramayana with the awesome monkey Hanuman who I revered from the minute I entered Jivamukti Yoga Center in 1995.
But at the heart of the matter I am a Jew with a healthy (I think) antipathy for all religions.
I am fond of all of their philosophies and appreciate many of their rituals, but I also choose not to believe.
And yet I am a yoga teacher.
What is a boy to do?