Adapting Your Yoga Practice to Suit You Perfectly | Mark Whitwell

New York City NY

18 January, 2021

2:55 AM

Description

Mark Whitwell | Heart of YogaA central principle of the Yoga I received from my teachers is that there is a right Yoga for every person, no matter who that person is. Adapted to age, health, body type, culture, religion, and stage of life. This immediately stood out in contrast to the physical systems I had been experimenting with up until that point. Prior to meeting Desikachar and his father, Krishnamacharya, I had perceived Yoga as a fixed thing that practitioners strive to move towards, rather than the other way around — adapting the Yoga to suit the person. After the first lesson, where Desikachar watched unimpressed while I demonstrated the asana I was so proud of, and taught me how to breathe correctly, it became obvious. Standing in the moonlight on a rooftop in Madras (now Chennai), I could feel that the body loved its breath. And that Yoga was simply our participation in the life that we already are, the participation in the power of life that we are. Mark Whitwell | Heart of YogaI saw all kinds of people come and go from the house, as well as from the Mandiram, which was built by that time. All sizes, ethnicities, ages, men and women, some very ill, some very religious, some with very specific issues. What I noticed is that although Krishnamacharya was a renowned healer and Ayurvedic practitioner, whose hands were revered as having healing powers, he did not dispense Yoga like a pharmaceutical product. The poses were not dispensed like different drugs for different problems. Instead what I saw was how he and his son helped each person find their breath in whatever way worked for them, so they could participate in what was whole and alive about them, identify with that, and participate in their own healing. Looking around at the modern Yoga scene, I do not often see this nuance of adaption. I see a dominant paradigm that describes Yoga poses like individual pharmaceutical ingredients, good for the liver, good for the back, etc, divorced from their context of breath and vinyasa krama, and the placement of the mind in the aliveness of the body. I see people looking to Yoga teachers for healing the way they look to doctors, in a disempowered search for a parent to make everything ok. And I see yoga teachers absolutely burdened in their shared belief that they are supposed to heal or fix their students, rather than enable them to participate in their own health and healing. Read the full article here: Mark Whitwell About: Mark Whitwell has spent a lifetime dedicated to sharing the wisdom tradition of Yoga that he discovered in India as a young man in the 1970s. He was shocked to discover that the breath-based "whole-body prayer" Yoga as spiritual practice learnt with his teachers T.K.V. Desikachar and T. Krishnamacharya was not represented in the US and European "yoga scene." Since then, Mark Whitwell has dedicated his life to sharing the transformative teachings of Yoga as embodied practice with modern people around the world. Mark Whitwell was deeply influenced by his friendship with the sage UG Krishnamurti, who helped him ensure that the yoga he was sharing was participation in Life only, not seeking for a future result (and therefore a denial of the present). Mark Whitwell has offers trainings and workshops in Europe, India, China, Bali, Australia, Fiji, Japan, the US, SE Asia, New Zealand, Africa, the Middle East and Mexico. He is the author of four books, translated into many languages, and founder of the Heart of Yoga Foundation, a non-profit that offers scholarships and educational resources to those who would otherwise not have access to Yoga learning. Mark Whitwell is renowned for being a "voice crying in the wilderness," staying true to the non-commercial heart of yoga whilst moving freely without reaction in the modern circus, unafraid to gently criticise aspects of modern Yoga that mislead or exploit the public. Mark Whitwell has a deep love for the wisdom realisation culture of India, and is forever grateful to his teachers for the treasure of Yoga they passed on. He has three children and four grandchildren, and lives with his partner Rosalind between Aotearoa New Zealand, Fiji and the US.