What is Classical Yoga?
What is classical yoga? About 15 million Americans take yoga now and they spend an estimated $20 billion on yoga and yoga related products. Due to its popularity, many yoga schools have emerged in the past 5 years. Even the ones who are registered with the Yoga Alliance, only need to document 20 hours of study time and the required minimum of ten hours of contact or instruction time to fulfill the philosophy and ethics requirement to graduate 200 hour level teachers. That’s 30 hours to absorb the depth of Classical Yoga! For someone who has studied it regularly for 30 years, this requirement will hopefully begin a lifetime of joyful exploration. I regularly assist in teacher trainings or continuing ed workshops for teachers and am encouraged by the enthusiatic hunger for these timeless teachings like the Bhagavad Gita.
Classical Yoga includes the 108 Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, Advaita Vedanta (these three include Jnana, Bhakti and Karma Yoga), Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras (Raja Yoga) and Hatha Yoga texts like the Hatha Yoga Pradipika. Related books can be found on the Resource page on my web site. Classical Yoga addresses not only the physical body but the energetic, mental-emotional and intuitive bodies as well. Most importantly, Classical Yoga includes the witnessing aspect of being fully human that transcends the other bodies. In addition, it includes chanting, pranayama and meditation. Classical Yoga schools are connected to a historic lineage of realized yoga masters. It is the mental and spiritual yoga.
The assembly line hatha yoga schools promoted by the fitness industry are usually not linked to a yoga master and tend to focus only on the physical body. Many focus on flowing from pose to pose which can play into the restlessness of the typical American who has difficulty slowing down. In Classical Yoga, you have mastered asana if you can hold it for three hours in comfort! Many of these schools are doing watered down versions of Ashtanga Hatha Yoga, Iyengar and Viniyoga, which are very deep hatha schools connected to Yoga master Krishnamacharya. I had the pleasure of attending his Viniyoga School in India and studying with his son and grandson. I have also trained with several leading Ashtanga and Iyengar Yoga teachers in America. What they typically are not doing is the meditative, integrative and holistic approach of Master Sivananda who has had equal influence on Yoga in America with Krishnamacharya. One of his students Swami Satchidananda founded Integral Yoga which influenced Dr. Dean Ornish to model his reversing heart disease program on the yogic lifestyle. I am recognized as a senior teacher in this system. You can read an excerpt of an article I wrote for the Winter 2007 issue of Integral Yoga magazine titled When Hatha Meets Raja at www.iymagazine.org which highlights my approach of integrating classical Yoga into a hatha class and using the asanas or postures as a context for exploring the teachings of Jnana and Raja Yoga. Other authors include Master Sivananda, Pema Chodron, Dr. David Frawley, Stephen Cope, Nischala Joy Devi, and Swami Satchidananda. For more about my training and these schools please go to the Welcome, About and Resource pages at www.plashayoga.com.
The popular names for these light versions of Hatha, Ashtanga and Viniyoga are Vinyasa, Flow Hatha, Dynamic Hatha, Power Yoga, YogaFit, Yogalates, YogaMotion, Yoga Fusion, Aerobic Yoga, Hot Yoga and even YogaButt! There are even hybrids like Yoga-Pilates-Resist-A-Ball, Yoga-bar for Weightlifters and Yo-Tai-Pilates done in a swimming pool. God bless Yankee ingenuity and the quest to make a buck. Now, there can be benefits related to any practice but adding something like weights to hatha yoga might add the benefit of bulging biceps but if it ignores the mental and spiritual practices than many other benefits have been lost. In terms of Classical Yoga, they are skimming across the deep ocean of teachings (even the one in the pool) that help to root out the causes of stress which start in the mind. It is the chatter filled mind that can prevent one from reconnecting to the divine presence within. Hatha Yoga without Classical Yoga as a foundation can release the effects of stress but may not root it out. As the Hatha Yoga Pradipika says back in the Middle Ages, Hatha Yoga is the ladder to Raja Yoga. I hope that all types of hatha yoga styles will lead aspirants to the glories of Classical Yoga.
And you don't need to be a pretzel person or a fitness buff to succeed because the most valuable practices are mental and spiritual. I have shared these timeless teachings with students in wheel chairs and they experienced the wellness and wholeness of Yoga. If you can breathe, you can do and be Yoga. What are you waiting for? To start, go to the Class page at www.plashayoga.com.
Many blessings,
Michael Plasha E-RYT 500
Classical Yoga includes the 108 Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, Advaita Vedanta (these three include Jnana, Bhakti and Karma Yoga), Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras (Raja Yoga) and Hatha Yoga texts like the Hatha Yoga Pradipika. Related books can be found on the Resource page on my web site. Classical Yoga addresses not only the physical body but the energetic, mental-emotional and intuitive bodies as well. Most importantly, Classical Yoga includes the witnessing aspect of being fully human that transcends the other bodies. In addition, it includes chanting, pranayama and meditation. Classical Yoga schools are connected to a historic lineage of realized yoga masters. It is the mental and spiritual yoga.
The assembly line hatha yoga schools promoted by the fitness industry are usually not linked to a yoga master and tend to focus only on the physical body. Many focus on flowing from pose to pose which can play into the restlessness of the typical American who has difficulty slowing down. In Classical Yoga, you have mastered asana if you can hold it for three hours in comfort! Many of these schools are doing watered down versions of Ashtanga Hatha Yoga, Iyengar and Viniyoga, which are very deep hatha schools connected to Yoga master Krishnamacharya. I had the pleasure of attending his Viniyoga School in India and studying with his son and grandson. I have also trained with several leading Ashtanga and Iyengar Yoga teachers in America. What they typically are not doing is the meditative, integrative and holistic approach of Master Sivananda who has had equal influence on Yoga in America with Krishnamacharya. One of his students Swami Satchidananda founded Integral Yoga which influenced Dr. Dean Ornish to model his reversing heart disease program on the yogic lifestyle. I am recognized as a senior teacher in this system. You can read an excerpt of an article I wrote for the Winter 2007 issue of Integral Yoga magazine titled When Hatha Meets Raja at www.iymagazine.org which highlights my approach of integrating classical Yoga into a hatha class and using the asanas or postures as a context for exploring the teachings of Jnana and Raja Yoga. Other authors include Master Sivananda, Pema Chodron, Dr. David Frawley, Stephen Cope, Nischala Joy Devi, and Swami Satchidananda. For more about my training and these schools please go to the Welcome, About and Resource pages at www.plashayoga.com.
The popular names for these light versions of Hatha, Ashtanga and Viniyoga are Vinyasa, Flow Hatha, Dynamic Hatha, Power Yoga, YogaFit, Yogalates, YogaMotion, Yoga Fusion, Aerobic Yoga, Hot Yoga and even YogaButt! There are even hybrids like Yoga-Pilates-Resist-A-Ball, Yoga-bar for Weightlifters and Yo-Tai-Pilates done in a swimming pool. God bless Yankee ingenuity and the quest to make a buck. Now, there can be benefits related to any practice but adding something like weights to hatha yoga might add the benefit of bulging biceps but if it ignores the mental and spiritual practices than many other benefits have been lost. In terms of Classical Yoga, they are skimming across the deep ocean of teachings (even the one in the pool) that help to root out the causes of stress which start in the mind. It is the chatter filled mind that can prevent one from reconnecting to the divine presence within. Hatha Yoga without Classical Yoga as a foundation can release the effects of stress but may not root it out. As the Hatha Yoga Pradipika says back in the Middle Ages, Hatha Yoga is the ladder to Raja Yoga. I hope that all types of hatha yoga styles will lead aspirants to the glories of Classical Yoga.
And you don't need to be a pretzel person or a fitness buff to succeed because the most valuable practices are mental and spiritual. I have shared these timeless teachings with students in wheel chairs and they experienced the wellness and wholeness of Yoga. If you can breathe, you can do and be Yoga. What are you waiting for? To start, go to the Class page at www.plashayoga.com.
Many blessings,
Michael Plasha E-RYT 500
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