Synthesis in Yoga
“I keep all recipes handy when I cook and
synthesize my own that suits my taste”, a friend told me. Recipes, perfected by
personalization, could be modified to fit our palate adding to an ever-expanding
world of culinary art. I happened to be
in a discussion on innovations in television. OLED screens was the topic. I
remained oblivious to those techies with jargons flying over my head. My time
with Best buy (and YouTube- my go-to place for similar research!) told me,
“OLED is the latest in television.” Then why one brand significantly expensive
than the other if all have similar display technologies. “The expensive one is
using smart technology to display the scene”, another friend told me. I was
bowled again. He also mentioned about machine learning, artificial
intelligence…and dissected recent advances in technology to the dummy’s level.
I was fascinated how algorithms concocted sensible judgements based on data;
how data driven we are; and how machines could “think”, and potentially, like
us- to form ideas, opinions, judgements, reasoning based on our experience.
A parallel story materialized in my mind-
the evolution of yoga. From its humble beginning with 74 poses, this art, science
and the philosophy evolved into millions of yoga poses with the infusion of
anatomy, physiology, energy centers, internal locks, and the knowledge on the intricacies
of human brain function. Yogis ventured to innovation sprouting crowd-sourcing.
We learned from the data (experiences and documented ones). Disseminate poses to the lowest level, listen
to your body, be innovative and be a master yogi; open your mind (unlike
machine learning, we don’t need anybody to feed the data, we can do it
yourself!) and be a synthetic yogi!
I have taken detox as the theme of my
classes for now. I encourage you to be innovative and synthesize your own poses
listening to your body. I will suggest few poses that you may personalize in
your journey on detox (make them your veer-bhadras). Remember: yoga is
limitless. Detox through yoga practice is an ever evolving science; yoga poses
with unique characteristics quality them to be in the realm of detox. Listen,
learn, focus, practice, meditate and make them your own, the rest is guaranteed
in the path and promise of yoga. Few suggestions:
A)
Various breathing techniques
utilizing as many muscle s and muscle groups. Please be mindful on the
complementary benefits of deep breathing- internal organ massage; endocrine (thyroid,
parathyroid and thymus system massages.
B)
Poses that access
abdominal muscles and organs. Complement them by coupling with flexional and
rotational poses. Utkatasana, parivritha utkatasana, januseershasana,
parivritha januseershasana are examples. Look for “parivritha” in the name, it
is bound to have some detox benefits.
C)
Poses that activate lymph nodes.
Fish, veerasna, suptaveerasana are
examples.
D)
Inversions, preferably
after C.
E)
Enhance basal metabolism
by recruiting major muscle/ muscle groups in poses. Warriors and goddess are
examples.
F)
Enhance aerobic capacity.
One of my favorite pose is pavanamukhtasana.
G)
“Therapeutic duo”
combining flexion and extension in the lower abdominal to upper thoracic areas.
Combine dwipata pidasana, sethu bandhanasa, matsyasana and backbends with
pavanamukthasana and halasana.
Accessing all these poses in a day, a week
or a month may be hard to (even) seasoned yogis; now you know why I say, “Yoga
is a journey”. Blessed to be with you!
Love,
Jay
