Ashtanga Brighton Blog

This week saw the start of winter with regards to the morning mysore practice at BNHC.

We’ve moved back to the little room! Strangely the numbers have been around 20 every morning which is great! Normally numbers drop off considerably during winter as there’s no strutting down the beach front scantily clad So this is an excellent start to winter.

BNHC (I promise I don’t work for them!) is also offering a great incentive to those considering committing to practicing 5 days a week:
Do 4 consecutive classes and the fifth is free. How cool is that? Perhaps that has influenced the turnout? Whatever the reason its great to have room full of people to practice with on these cold dark mornings!

Namaste

hello England.

we are in beautiful berlin and its soooooo amazing and inspiring…….

we are here for the Nancy Gilgoff self practice classes and astanga adjustment clinic.   watch out- we may have to practice on you and have been trained to creep up from behind to wrench your knees and backs out for our own pleasure brrrooooooooooohaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrhaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrr (J)!

Be very afraid. Anyway, Nancy Gilgoff has provided some really great insights into the practice that come from her 30 years’ experience and close knowledge of the Jois family.

She says that the ashtanga practice is an ‘energy builder’ - that means drawing energy in, rather than losing it by extending too far and reaching too far out. Instead, she talks about pulling the energy towards the centre of the body (thanks Josetta!) by focusing on the core and curling inwards in forward bends. I used to think yoga was about ’stretching’, and I still think this is how lots of people see it - about elongating the body and limbs. This is a completely different take as it’s about more about drawing the body back into itself - Nancy talks a lot about ‘integration’ of the body.

J again, just flicking through some of myworkshop scribbles-

yeah, its about an internal energy focus, so whereas Iyengar is very concerned with the look of a posture, astanga is more concerned with the internal, breath and bandhas, to let the energy flow (we may start charging for this Guy).  this all makes so much sense.  Ah yeah and she talks about Surya namaskara as your prayer and to use that frame of mind for your whole practice, you can see it as a prayer, grattitude and a connection to the bigger picture…..this takes you out of your ego, which in turn will reduce injury (less “pushing”).

so many beautiful words and ideas from Nancy and lots of fun and laughter too. and the adjustment clinics are tremendously inspiring, even if you dont want to teach, (thou I cant wait personally) you learn so much about the postures and the practice from looking at how to dissect the poses, what each one is doing, where the focus is etc……….

anyho that is it from me, am in yoga heaven, spending pretty much every waking moment talking or doing yoga and eating great vegan food (which is everywhere) and so great to get to know Louise and Shari better and meet other similarly yoga obssessives……..

big yoga love comin at yall

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Look forward to practising at BNHC soon and seeing everyone again - Louise x

Here at last is the link to an excerpt from the Manju Jois interview in Brighton

It’s about 10 minutes long as I ran into some technical problems (a fancy way of saying the recorder ran out of space.) The interview lasted about an hour and I’ll post the list of questions that I asked Manju and his responses over the next few days.

The good news is that Manju enjoyed his stay in Brighton and looks set to come back next year which is fab.

After practice this morning we said goodbye to Laura who’s off to India for… mmm… who knows eh?

So goodbye Laura have a great time in Mysore and we’ll see you in few months, and hopefully read about your adventures on the blog!

It was nice to hang out with a few more people from practice and both David and Josetta had been away so it was good to have them both back too! I’m still waiting to hear how the Nancy Gilgoff workshop in Berlin went as Brighton was well-represented with 3 of our local Ashtangis in attendance.

Shari also mailed me about Nancy’s workshop in Wiltshire on September 26-28, 2008. Check out

Nancy Gilgoff’s website or contact: virabadrasana@hotmail.com.

I’m a bit behind the curve this week and there’s been so much going on.

The week started with Manju’s workshop here in Brighton. The workshop included a led primary pratice in the morning, a led 2nd series practice in the afternoon followed by pranayama, chanting and a Q&A session.

In the break there was also a demo by the London AcroYoga crew which was awesome. I did some AcroYoga at a recent yoga festival near Glastonbury, so I was keen to do a bit more “flying” which was pretty cool. AcroYoga is so much fun and is actually easier than it looks. There’s a workshop at BNHC in early September so be sure to check it out!

On Sunday I only did the afternoon sessions so if anyone has any comment on how they found the led primary lets hear it! Judging from the damp patches on the ceiling I’ll bet it was a good one!

The most interesting bit for me was the Q&A session and hearing Manju talk about Yoga and practice in general. He spoke about the need to relax, breathe and enjoy practice. He also said that if you don’t want to practice then don’t, saying that forcing yourself to practice asana is not yoga. My interpretation of this is that forcing yourself to practice can be regarded as himsa (harm) and we’re supposed to be practicing ahimsa (non-violence). Bringing awareness of how we are in the moment will determine what action would be harmful or not. Basically, chill out!

Manju also spoke about it being acceptable to mix asana from different series and have a more varied practice. Again my interpretation on this is that you need a sufficiently developed practice and relationship with your teacher to gain the most benefit.

Manju didn’t learn asana in any set series but started out copying his father when he was about 7 or 8 years old. His father then gave personal tuition to him and his sister. Most of us don’t have the advantage of learning yoga in this way. To me it really points again to the importance of the relationship between student and teacher which in Manju’s case was father and son too.

Manju also emphasised a balanced approach to practice. Asana is only one of the limbs of yoga. He said pranayama, chanting and scriptures should also be practiced these would then naturally lead to the development of the other limbs of yoga: Yama, Niyama, Pratyahara, Dharana, Dhyana leading ultimately to Samadhi.

Another interesting statement was “mantra is more powerful than asana.”

The question: “What should I eat after practice” which was met with the rather sensible “Your body will tell you”.

There was lots more that I can’t recall at the moment but in the interest of getting this blog up I’m going ot post now and add comment later as stuff comes to mind.

I also interviewed Manju this week and part of the interview will be available for download next week some time.

In the meantime here’s a couple of links to interviews that I read before I interviewed Manju:

Guy Donahaye interviewed Manju in NYC, March 2008

And another excellent interview by Richard Clark, Australia 2005 available as a PDF.

Namaste