The skinny on Shadow Yoga – part 2

Tags

Asana, dandasana, glowing, Hatha yoga, philosophy, Prasarita Padottanasana, Shadow Yoga, Shandor Remete, virasthana, Yoga, Yoga teacher

[Read part 1 first]

Have you ever considered your body’s limitations as ‘just how things are?’, only to discover that it’s not really true? It was never true; but it’s just what we thought of ourselves and our body. Yet, despite that realisation, we still give little consideration to our other limitations – of the body or mind.

And I’m not just talking about lack of flexibility in your hips (for example). I mean, things like… the physicality of ankles that seemingly do not touch when you’re seated in dandasana (feet straight out in front of you). How can that change when its about how your body is made? Or do you just *think* that’s how it is on a very deep level?

My body aches desperately from the very hard work asked of us. Even with movements I dread because I can’t quite do them properly and because they require much strength, I’m willing to try again and again. In this, I found that what I think I know about my body is shifting. And I realised it wasn’t my body being built a certain way that stopped me – it was just my thoughts that said so.

Right in the moment when I realise this, I leap ahead of where I thought I was at to discover the truth. My body wants to weep while it celebrates, too…

~Notes from an immersion, January 2010

Shadow Yoga was developed by Shandor (Zhander) Remete – he has a background in Iyengar Yoga and martial arts, but developed the Shadow Yoga practice and philosophy from reading early Hatha Yoga and Tantrik texts. All of these influences can be observed in the practice, but Shadow Yoga is something else again.

When first coming to the practice, everyone learns a series of “warm up” exercises, as shown in the video below. While some of these actions may appear simple and unimportant, they in fact establish patterns of movement that are important later in the practice.

Now, because Shadow Yoga is so complex, I’ve decided to use the format of a very traditional way of teaching Tantrik philosophy – with an outer, inner and secret meaning (where secret just means hidden or less obvious) – to describe what I know so far.

(This is just a way to help me organise my thoughts on various aspects of the practice a little better!)

Also, please note that the below observations are from my experiences – what I’ve been taught and what I’ve learned. I reserve the right to update this list at any time if what I learn changes over time 🙂

• Outer – Including: set forms of movement and asana; a focus on correct movement of joints and limbs; pre-asana asana (that help you do asana correctly and without injuring yourself); building physical strength; and learning to move without forcing yourself, because this is not a competition…
• Inner – Including: a strong focus on breath work and correct use of Uddiyana bandha, (Bandhas = locks, there are four of them and Uddiyana is the abdominal contraction) which is practiced every class and eventually there’s meant to be a 1:1 uddiyana contraction with each movement. Everything about the practice is designed to reduce excess apana vayu, which is the energy/chi responsible for processes of elimination in the body. This correlates to toning of the digestive system, increased agni (digestive fire) and increased flexibility of one’s joints (ankles, wrists, hips etc).
• Hidden – This is the hardest part to describe accurately, because it’s going to be different for everyone. But to summarise, I’d say it involves the deconstruction of physical, energetic and emotional limitations, resulting in all kinds of experiences that may or may not seem related at the time.

For example(s):

One class, I vomited part of the way through, but not because of anything I ate! Other times I’ve simply found tears rolling silently down my face. And I can’t count the number of classes I’ve walked out of at the end and found myself unsure of who or what I am. Or I realise part way through that my feet or the crown of my head are tingling wildly.

Note: as stand-alone experiences, none of what I described in the last paragraph is important. It’s not like I’m all whooo, I’ve just had a “mystical experience”, let’s burn some incense and talk about it… Not at all! Rather, I see them as indicators of internal activity that I sometimes barely understand the meaning of and try not to over-analyse…

These classes tend to bring on some very intense energetic, emotional and physical sensations for me. Not every single class, but a fair portion of them. And way more than any other type of yoga I’ve experienced to date. It might not be like this for other people, and some yogis may have similar experiences by doing another form of yoga all together. But for me and at least for now anyway, Shadow Yoga is the bomb.

The classes are investigative, in a way I’ve rarely come across. Sometimes we do a lot of asana and others it’s more like a workshop, a kind of question and answer session with asana in between. It’s not a class for those who wish to hide; you enter the studio to discover more about the practice each time. To break down the way you are moving and to observe others, too. A bit like a science lab instead of a competitive-who-has-the-best-asana environment.

Often I find myself thinking I won’t be able to do something we’re asked to do. It looks hard, and it is hard when each movement is being studied so intensely. But then I realise I can. Perhaps not as gracefully as I’d like at first. But eventually it comes and I am elated.

As both a yogini and a yoga teacher, my experience of Shadow Yoga is that it helps correct some long-held bad habits in my practice and invaluably, it deepens my knowledge of yoga and bodily movement. Oh yeah, and it helps me shift all kinds of suppressed energy, which can only contribute to better health (lately I get told that I’m “glowing” a lot!).

One example of this is my somewhat hyper-flexible knees. For years I simply thought I couldn’t hold prasarita padottanasana for long because it hurt my knees – a standing, deep forward bend can put a lot of pressure on them, especially those that hyper-extend. Now, whether it’s because I never really expressed my issue with this pose before or if it was just down to less than perfect instruction (and I’m sure when I start teaching, I will be guilty of this for a while!)… but for a person with crazy knees, it’s not a good idea to advise them to pull up through their hamstrings and quadriceps. That’s because the natural tendency of over-extending knees when doing so, is to lock, leading to eventual ruination!

However, one of the focuses in Shadow Yoga is releasing the body’s weight into the feet as much as possible for the entire practice. And so prasarita padottanasana transformed for me when I stopped focusing on what my leg muscles were doing (of course, they still need to work) and started focusing on my feet! Suddenly I didn’t feel like I was in a war with my knees any longer…

I consider myself to be at the beginning of some kind of very extended journey with this practice. It’s not separate from other yoga I do at all. But it is markedly different, and intense and exacting (not in an Iyengar-y kind of way) – more of a detailed under-the-microscope-study of where my body and mind are at on any given day.

And I am in awe of the power of this practice.

~Svasti

The skinny on Shadow Yoga – part 1

Tags

Acupuncture, Asana, churning, connectedness, massage, orgasm, physio, Prasarita Padottanasana, Prelude, Shadow Yoga, undone, Yoga, Yogasana

True story: If my shoulder could’ve had an orgasm in yoga class tonight, it WOULD’VE!!

Sure, I hear what you’re saying – that’s possibly way too much information for some of you, and certainly for the opening line of a post, right? Okay, okay! Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself here.

BUT seriously folks, this injured shoulder of mine has not had the sort of release it got this evening in the entire time it’s been injured. I’ve tried all kinds of yoga and stretching of course, massage, acupuncture and physio. Truly, I’ve tried a lot of things. And tonight oh, tonight… I found the asana that makes all the difference – the rehab manoeuvre that brings incredible relief (it is of course, still mangled but this REALLY helps). And riding my bike home, so happy was I that I cried and I screamed and hence the opening line of this post! *giggles*

(The asana in question by the way, is a form of Prasarita Padottanasana where each arm clasps the opposite leg while you hold a deep forward bend. I tried to find a photo of it but couldn’t! It makes sense that it helps though: the shoulder is moving in the opposite direction than it normally does and it’s both intense and very releasing! YAY!)

So anyway, this is my next attempt to talk about Shadow Yoga, in a much less poetic, more straightforward manner. Let’s see how that goes, shall we?

I took the above photo with my mobile phone camera before going into class tonight. Just off the main drag of my lil burgh. Once through the door you head up two flights of an old wooden staircase with a large studio off to the right and a smaller one to the left. Luckily, I mostly get to work in the larger one which faces the street with its incoming tram and traffic noise. Not that it matters in that wide-open wooden floor-boarded room…

I’ve been practicing Shadow Yoga for about seven months now. It’s been a bit of a progression through the introduction course, then the introduction to Preludes, before the actual Preludes themselves (which are before the full-on asana practice!).

You see, Shadow Yoga takes quite a different view of asana than almost any other school I’ve come across. Their view is that most of the asana found in your average yoga class is actually quite advanced, because it requires a lot of knowledge about how to move the body and the joints that just isn’t taught in said average yoga class. And so a Shadow Yoga class doesn’t look much like any asana class you’ve ever been in before, and it is incredibly detailed!

There is pre-asana asana, there’s a lot of focus on breaking movements down in minute detail, placing awareness in the joints and the bones, and a huge focus on Uddiyana Bandha. And yet it is very hard work! Really hard, no matter how much yoga you’ve done before.

There’s a series of forms to learn, kind of like they have in kung fu (although the moves are yoga-ish, not kung fu-ish) and they’re very specific. Nothing it seems, is included in a Shadow Yoga form without purpose. And part of the work is unravelling what everything means to you – letting the forms wash over you and play out in your mind and body.

And how.

A couple of weeks back, I had to work out if I was going to step up into my first Prelude class or stay where I was in the Prelude Introduction series. You might think that given my years of yoga experience, I’d just naturally want to move forward, but… not necessarily. There’s so much to learn!

Because I couldn’t make up my mind, I had quite an involved phone conversation with the teacher I’d been working with up til now (moving forward would also mean a change of teacher – hello attachment issues!). And I confessed that I always find myself feeling excited but also just a little bit terrified before every class.

She asked me why – and to be honest, I hadn’t even tried to answer that one for myself before her question.

So I was surprised to find myself saying this: Because I never know how I’m going to leave each class. Sometimes I want to cry, or throw up, or I feel really energised. And sometimes I just feel completely undone and not sure what to do with myself. I don’t even know how to write about it all properly right now, and I’ve tried…

In response, she said: Well you know that Shadow Yoga is a physical form and that it also works on your organs and your energy/chi. But it ALSO works on your emotional body, and if it’s churning up so much stuff for you like that, then you know the practice is working. So it’s a good thing to feel terrified…

!!DING!! [That’s the sound of lights turning on in my squishy lil brain]

Because of what we talked about (a lot more than just the above snippet), I eventually decided that I’d move into the Prelude class. But also, I’ve found a way to start explaining Shadow Yoga to myself (and any readers of this blog) more succinctly. And while I still find each class incredibly exciting, I’m not quite as terrified any more (even if I still find myself in some state of un-done-ness at the end). It’s all good!

To summarise, and before I dig deeper into my explanation, Shadow Yoga is the nitty gritty of yogasana. It’s a very serious and intense class, and yet we often laugh. We work without yoga mats for better grip and more connectedness and yes… that’s how I’d put it… Shadow Yoga is connectedness like no other kind of asana class I’ve come across to date.

What’s in a shadow anyway? Light falls onto an object, a shadow sits behind the object or form. Hidden. But does that make it insubstantial or unimportant? I think not! A shadow is the underside, that which we don’t normally pay attention to. But if there was no light, there’d be no shadow. So it’s the other side of what’s seen and known. The less obvious, but part of the same.

[Read part 2]

~Svasti