Guest guest Posted July 5, 2001 Report Share Posted July 5, 2001 PS: "Wheel" is not even the correct English translation for urdhva dhanurasana, the more correct translation being "(Upward) Bow". "Wheel" - that's English for chakrasana. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted July 5, 2001 Report Share Posted July 5, 2001 I wonder if certain asanas have arbitrary names, eg urdhva dhanurasa/cakrasana. Is this posture one of the alleged 84 "classical" asanas of hatha yoga? I don't know, and I don't really feel like researching it.<br><br>I suspect that urdhva dhanurasana may be known as "the wheel" in English because of the presentation of hatha yoga by those who first popularized it in the West. So, "the wheel" seems a more user-friendly term than the mouthful of UD. <br><br>In used bookstores, I've discovered an incredible number of yoga books that were written in the 50s and 60s. A lot of them take a simplistic approach to the names given the asanas. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted July 5, 2001 Report Share Posted July 5, 2001 That's so funny. Why do all the Kripalu bunnies call it wheel? Some of my other favorite cute little american nicknames for poses are: 'Helicopter Pose' (a much watered down variation of prasarita padottanasana), Thread the Needle pose, oh I have to shut up... I am really obnoxious. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted July 6, 2001 Report Share Posted July 6, 2001 I did research thi a bit, in the sense that I read a book by a guy who had tried to - "The Yoga Tradition of the Mysore Palace" by N.E. Sjoman. The book caused a bit of a controversy when it came otu a couple of years ago because the guy was basically arguing that the written evidence for any highly developed, complex asana systems as an integral part of yoga, such as we have today, is very scappy. Which may well be true but isn't my point.<br><br>My point is that the book - which incidentlly I didn't think was at all well written or researched - compared some modern asana names with ones that are used in the few old texts that do discuss asana. And although a lot of the asanas are recognisably the same from their descriptions, many of the sanskrit names aren't. He also points out even between two closely related and very well documented 20th century yoga schools - astanga and iyengar, both presided over by direct students of Krishnamacharya - there are slight differences in asana naming.<br><br>So no, there ain't no standard or consistency. But since what we are interested in here is astanga vinyasa yoga "in the tradition of Sri K. Patthabi Jois", it makes obvious sense to me to use his version of the sanskrit naming. That way there's no ambiguity the way there is when people use different versions of English nicknames.<br><br>After all, even the videos and books that some people seem to think you can learn from instead of a real teacher, do use the sanskrit names - at least the ones I've seen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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