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Hello,
do you think yoga is an indian, less mental, more bodily version of the taoist energetic system? Where organs and energy routes are purified through gentle stretching and awareness…
I ask because of this yin approach and many obstacles I encountered in learning the HT system, maybe it was not meant for me in the first place. I have a yoga school very close to my home, but what I read of the HT system is still attractive (Health!)Thanks
Dear Sly,
Possible not to your surprise I did find a solution to that too….I mixed both, and named it
RELAX YOGA
I teach that as a perfect combination (for me) of hatha yoga and dao yin yoga, in my own way.
The rule in my teaching is: enjoy yet I want dedication during class, which comes very naturally, I never ask for it but there is never much talking, everyone is inwardly, eyes closed and focused.Because I had several classes and wanting more time for myself I asked one of my students to take over a class. She is more yang in her approach, much more flexible than me, doing the excercises much more strict, like they are taught in the traditional hatha yoga and in a few weeks that group dropped to 1 or 2 people. Finally I cancelled that group.
People who come to my relax yoga are drawn by the simple, slow stretching and movements, yet you need internal force to do them, but we build that up slowly and we always end the class with meditation. A stretched body is more open and it is more easy to relax and go into meditation. I never guide the meditation because the body needs to learn to be still, it has to refind that knowledge by just having patience and patience and patience and gradually the body starts to remember that state of being.I think it is good though, to take ‘traditional classes’ and feel how they can be applied on you, and gradually adapt them on your own body and energy.
I am very happy I took traditional hatha yoga and in my early years the HT teachers I had were very yang and strict. I am grateful for their teaching, but being frustrated I started to ‘feel’ what I needed and changed it.Wendy
Hi Sly,
Just adding to what Wendy has said which is excellent personal; expierience:
I found that ultimately the teachers understanding of the posture’s and theory will be
either a success or a frustration for the student. Its nice if you can be in a small class where postural alignment will be done so you can feel the postures correctly, and to aviod possible overextension or injury. Daoist Yoga (Postural’s) generally follows 5 element system beginning with earth and procceding to wood, fire..et cetra. Theres usually 3 postures built ontop of each elemental root posture.I recommend a simple routine 15 postures at most in the beginning. Daoist Yoga is about relaxing (following less is more; as a rule) and being peaceful.
It was said that Chen Tuan Daoist Sage had wrote:
“Bu Qi Zi Ran Zhi”
“There is no time limit in achieving a natural state of being”
By holding in your heart/mind what you want by “constant”, & “dilgent” practice you will arrive into the natural state. This is your destiny, to work directly with the life force & to harmonize with the great Dao.
We must understand that we are unique individual’s and that our time frame is totally dependent on our individual expierences & what we have learned from them.
We are on our personal path (Dao) with no time limit to attain. No other individual has the same path, so there shoul be no desire or want’s to compete to get to a point
We simply relax into what we are practicing and studying and we will find our own personal path to the original source. Is there any other goal worthy of such effort?
You might want to check out karin sorviks dvd (taohealing.com) or Mantak Chia’s approach.
SL
Hi
>>>”do you think yoga is an indian, less mental, more bodily version of the taoist energetic system? Where organs and energy routes are purified through gentle stretching and awareness…”
No I don´t think this is the right description. Sometimes the taoist way is described as more bodily oriented. In the taoist system we work with the body and with grounding more in the beginning to achive a safer path. To say the indian yoga is more bodily I believe is a way to see just a part of the Indian yoga system. We have for instance a Indian yoga system that is totaly mental without physical exercises, (Is it bakhti yoga, I don´t remember for shore) So the Indian yoga system is much more than just Hatha yoga, where you do much stretching and awarness, there are other methods also, with other names in the Indian yoga system!
The main difference as I have heard betwean Indian and taoist yoga is that in the taoist yoga you are more grounded, you just not work with the energy up to the head, but have also a downward flow. The grounding in the taoist yoga makes the spiritual journey goes slower but safer. So you do exercises to live longer, healt issues, so as to make it possible to reach the higher realms in this slower practise during your lifetime. By living longer!
So a taoist practioner should be more down to earth more into the real life. To take the heavenly realms and make them reality here in the real life on earth. While the Indian yoga practioners are more into the spiritual and not necessarly take it into the real life. More genuinly clean spirituality.
As from what I have heard, the beast thing is to do both Indian and Taoist yoga in combination. Beacase you learn the safety from the taoist path and you learn for instance to keep much energy in the head as you do in the Indian path.
>>>>I ask because of this yin approach and many obstacles I encountered in learning the HT system, maybe it was not meant for me in the first place. I have a yoga school very close to my home, but what I read of the HT system is still attractive (Health!)”>>>>>>
I think that both the Indian yoga and the taoist yoga might have yin and yang approaches in them. They are both complete system involving different paths and possibilities for different kind of persons. Thats what I believe.
With regards Swedich Dragon
I took a class in yoga, where the teacher taught to sing tones with which the chakras clearly resonated. But when we reached the upper chakras, we went upward (out of the head) and upward again. My presence was still in the body, but the attention was drawn to these high areas above the body. Then, the process changed, and the tones made the attention go down to the base of the spine. I didn’t like the experience, though.
The teacher in the yoga school nearby teaches a kind of yoga very similar to yours, Wendy. He says ‘We don’t sweat’ 🙂 It’s a slow, very attentive process, where one tries to find the balance between yin and yang, work and idleness, doing nothing and reaching for a result.
I was puzzled by the softness and easiness of the approach, and I told him if he knew the saying ‘no pain no gain’. He smiled and drew a diagonal cross in the air with the finger, like a X.
We end the class with meditation too.
🙂Because it was like having a lot of pulsing energy in the head, my barycenter was out of place, and going on with the meditation, I felt like top of the head was being opened by force. At that point I gave up and waited with the attention in the head for the medtiation to reverse and get back to the root chakra.
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