Ashtanga versus Iyengar

[Guest guest]

Thank you Alan, thank you dantrishan (great

answer, I printed out your post!) and k jemijo for

helpful comment and advice.<br><br>Once upon a time, when

I started doing Iyengar Yoga three years ago, I

knew nothing about Ashtanga, never even heard about

it. Germany is still sleeping. But I was impressed by

the photos of BKS Iyengar doing the postures in his

"Light on Yoga". The Iyengar community is well organised

and established in this country already, and the

Iyengar Yoga Association of Germany has a neat website at

<a href=http://iyengar-yoga.freepage.de

target=new>http://iyengar-yoga.freepage.de</a> (in German only,

sorry).<br><br>One of my

favourite books was, and still is, "Yoga The Iyengar Way"

by London-based senior teacher Mira Mehta

(www.yogicpath.mcmail.com). In one chapter of her book she gives a brief

introduction into a dynamic form of yoga she calls "Jumpings".

She presents a modified version of Surya Namaskar A,

and then adds several other postures to it, i.e.

balancings, forward bends, twists, sitting and standing

poses. She also presents a "balance and forward bend"

sequence with all poses linked together (though not

through vinyasa, which she doesn`t mention) meant to be

done at the end of a practice session to enter

Savasana. The linking of the asanas with moves of the Sun

Salutation interested me, so I surfed the net in search of

books about some kind of dynamic yoga, finding David

Swenson`s manual at last. The large spiral-bound hardcover

was love at first sight, the commentary was upbeat

and promising, so I bought the book. My intention was

to make my Iyengar sessions a bit more dynamic,

using Swenson`s tome as a source of inspiration only.

But if you start dynamising some parts of your

practice, you end up dynamising every bit of it, so that`s

how I found to Ashtanga Yoga. <br><br>Iyengar is

slow-paced, striving for perfection in the postures and

correct alignment in the smallest details. Ashtanga is

fast almost to the point of recklessness (my personal

view!), and keeping up the rhythm in the flow seems like

being more important than alignment. I eventually gave

up Iyengar, you can`t mix the two, it`s either or.

But I am still convinced that Iyengar is the better

approach during pregnancy, menstruation, and if suffering

serious physical disabilities and illness, so Ashtanga

and Iyengar can complement each other.<br><br>I live

in the Frankfurt area, so Hari Gaertner may be an

option. I think he is a student of Lino Miele. Lino

himself also offers workshops in Germany sometimes, must

check out. In my hometown there is an Iyengar teacher

only, but his classes bored me somehow.

[Guest guest]

Hi,<br>Don't forget that the Breath is most important in Ashtanga!<br>T.