Kate Taylor's Yoga Site

Musings from day 3 of the David Swenson Worshop....

David has all these great sayings and stories that he shares when he teaches. On the first day he told us that we should strive to do our practice like a zen calligrapher who uses the minimal amount of ink to convey the most beauty and harmony. A similar analogy he used was to practice yoga like a cat - i.e. using the least amount of energy required for any action.

This is really important in Ashtanga if you want to end up with more energy at the end of the practice than when you started. Which reminds me of another story he told us about David Williams - he says that David W. talks about increasing "his bars" - referring to cell phone bars. His goal in yoga is to increase the prana or life force in his body - at the end of practice, we should strive to have more "bars" than when we started. For those who practice yoga, hopefully you know of this strange phenomenon of leaving a very challenging asana class and feeling as if you could climb a mountain. The reasons for this are varied, but a lot of it has to do with the breath and its effects on the parasympathetic nervous system. I have found that if I stay focused on my breath throughout my practice. I am bringing more energy/prana in than I am putting out, even if the practice is strong. On days when I am scattered and just muscle through the practice without a good breath, I am drained and tired.

When I was in India, I kept waking up at 3 or 4 am each day even though I did not need to be at the shala until 6:00 am. At the time I was confused by how little sleep my body seemed to need when I was putting it through much more physical rigor than it was used to. Now I am pretty sure that the extra prana in my body was responsible for the unexplained energy and mental alertness I felt throughout my trip. Coincidentally, I have been waking up at about 4:00 am every day I have been in Florida, even though our workshop does not begin until 8:45 am. Hmmm....