The Value of Not Doing

by Richard Rosen

Enso by Torei Enji

I recently discovered in my files an interview I did with Richard Rosen in 2008 for a book I never wrote that was going to be all about Savasana (great idea, right?). As he always does, Richard had some wonderful things to say, so with his permission, I’m going to share them with you today. Because my questions weren’t particularly compelling and what Richard said was so beautiful, I’ve edited and reorganized the interview at tiny bit so it reads as a single statement. Thank you, Richard. —Nina

In my early years as a yoga student, I really didn’t understand Savasana, I thought it was a waste of time. I sort of tended to either cut it short or skip it completely. And I think a lot of classes—a lot of teachers—still tend to do that. They don’t really give time to Savasana in their classes. As I got older as a yoga student I began to appreciate the value of the practice at the end of a yoga session, and I spent 15 to 20 minutes in Savasana at the end of a practice, which is a good chunk of time relative to the rest of my practice.

Teachers want you to feel like you’re doing something. And a lot of people don’t understand or appreciate the value of not doing. But a lot of traditional yoga is just that. The idea is that you’re already doing something that is interfering with your self awareness, your self understanding. And that rather than doing something to fix it, what’s really necessary is to undo what’s getting in the way, which means a need for a surrender, a letting go. To a certain extent that’s what you get a taste of in Savasana. It’s just stopping doing, and letting what’s being interfered with come out. 

What comes out for me is, like Popeye says, “I am what I am.” I just get a feeling that I’m closer to myself. At my stage of yoga development, I feel very keenly that there’s a separation, that I don’t really know who or what I truly am, and that when I perform Savasana well that I get a clearer sense of the underlying truth of myself, the underlying being.

It’s a contrast to the way I usually feel, which is sort of there’s a lot going on in my head and I’m not exactly aware of the present, I’m not connected to the sounds around me, I’m not connected my breath, I’m connected to anything that’s really happening in the moment. There’s always a distraction of some kind. I’m thinking about this or that. I’m thinking about what I have to do. And so there’s a lack of presence. Whereas the experience of Savasana is a clearing away of all of that static. Like in the old days when the analog radios would have dial—a little bar that would move up a down a range of stations—and you would turn it. In between stations you would get a hissing sound, and as you approached a station the music or sound would come in more clearly. I also think of yoga asanas as being like tuners, where as you approach the essence of the pose, say, the static begins to diminish.

I think there’s a lot of static in the brain that interferes with your connections to your surroundings. It’s a distraction in a way. It’s like you’re trying to concentrate on something and somebody’s playing music outside. It takes you away from the direct perception of what’s going on. In Savasana, at least momentarily, that’s turned down, quieted. So I think the way I would describe my experience of a well-performed Savasana is that the dial gets a little bit closer to where the station actually is and the interference goes away and the music of the self comes in more clearly.

When I come out of a well-performed Savasana, I feel very quiet. My senses are more receptive. I feel more expansive. I feel bigger. Physically I feel taller. And when I walk out of my practice room after a well-performed Savasana, I feel more in tune with my surroundings. Colors are brighter. Sounds are clearer. I feel more alive.

Richard Rosen is a yoga teacher and writer from Berkeley, California. He is President of the board of the Yoga Dana Foundation, which supports Northern California teachers bringing yoga to under-served communities. Richard has written three books for Shambhala: The Yoga of Breath: A Step-by-Step Guide to Pranayama (2002), Pranayama: Beyond the Fundamentals (2006), and Original Yoga: Rediscovering Traditional Practices of Hatha Yoga (2012). He also recorded a 7-disc set of instructional CDs for Shambhala titled The Practice of Pranayama: An In-Depth Guide to the Yoga of Breath (2010). For more information about Richard and the workshops he teaches internationally, see http://www.richardrosenyoga.com/. 

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The Benefits and Drawbacks of Yoga as a System: Georg Feuerstein Interviewed by Richard Rosen, Part 3

When Georg Feuerstein died in 2012, I wrote an appreciation of him, Georg Feuerstein, 1947-2012, saying how much his work meant to me and how, even though I’d never met him, I considered him one of my teachers. Now I have learned of the existence of a very long, unpublished interview with him that Richard Rosen did way back in 1996. Richard has now published the interview in full on his website richardrosenyoga.com, but he has give me permission to include excerpts from it our blog.

Here’s the third excerpt, which is about the risks of making an ideology of yoga. Personally, I think Georg's overall message here is very important. How about this for a quote?

"If a system helps you grow, wonderful. If the system closes you down, shuts down your experience and your potential for further development, look at it and say, “Thank you very much, it’s an ideology. I don’t need it.”

—Nina

RR: I’m always trying to impress on my students that classical yoga is a system; it’s a very logical and beautifully thought out way of seeing the world. I’m wondering what the benefits and the drawbacks are of a system. I’m thinking of Krishnamurti, who said, “Truth is a pathless land.”

GF: My take on this is that if we “have a system,” the risk of making an ideology out of it far outweighs the benefits of a system. Because we always reify everything, we always think, “This is how reality is.” All philosophical systems are simply convenient devices to look at something. In our time we can perhaps appreciate that more than any other time, because we’re confronted with so many different systems, and we realize that none of them are the truth. Historically we have more because of our higher level of education than in past centuries—we have more an appreciation that none of these systems amount to reality.

RR: You’ve mentioned in one of your books that we’re more aware now, because of the discoveries of modern physics, how relative all these systems are.

GF: We’re viewing reality through our own lenses, thinking it is reality, but what we see is not reality, what we see is a filtered image. I think the benefit of some system like yoga darshana is simply that it gives us a plausible structure for understanding the yogic process. If we anxiously cling to the idea that there are endless, numberless purushas in liberation, and then there is prakriti separate from all of that, it’s an ideology, it’s not reality. I would say the same thing about Vedanta, if we believe that liberation is the melting of the individual self with the ultimate Self, it’s also just a way of expressing something that’s not like that.

RR: Because you can’t really put an ineffable experience like that into words—it doesn’t translate.

GF: You can’t. We need to have some crutches, so from my point of view it’s good to look for the crutches that make sense to you. If that crutch happens to be a particular yoga philosophy, fine. If that crutch happens to be Christian theology, fine. If it happens to be Heidegger, or Husserl, or Jung, fine, no problem. As long as the system you have can reasonably accommodate the experiences you encounter and can reasonably accommodate possible experiences. If a system like Materialism excludes a whole range of possibilities—dismisses those experiences as nonsensical, or false—you exclude yourself from the experience. Then you diminish your own being. If a system helps you grow, wonderful. If the system closes you down, shuts down your experience and your potential for further development, look at it and say, “Thank you very much, it’s an ideology. I don’t need it.”

RR: So a system is a guide.

GF: It’s a guide. There is another criteria: if a teacher insists that you swallow lock, stock and barrel his particular brand of teaching without you being allowed to critically examine anything—like the famous saying over the door of Rajneesh’s ashram, something like “Leave your mind with your coat outside”—this is already an indicator to beware, you are expected to be swallowed up by an ideology. You are not engaging the spiritual process. The spiritual process will not demand of you to take on any philosophy; on the contrary, the spiritual process will show the ultimate irrelevance of all philosophies, all theories, all concepts. The truth is pathless, but there is a path to the truth. There has to be a movement to it recognizing what the truth is, and that movement is structured in different ways by different traditions.

In Tibetan Buddhism you have the marvelous Lam Rim teaching, which are the stages of the path, a highly developed, almost formulaic, system of understanding each aspect of the path, far more complex than the eight limbs of classical yoga. As a student it makes perfect sense to encounter this, but it doesn’t mean to say that this is reality. Reality is nirvana; it’s beyond anything that can “blow,” it’s a blow out. [laughs]

I would recommend that if people do practice yoga, they have to practice within a context in which it has been transmitted for millennia. That context is highly diversified, which I have always tried to show in my books. There’s so many yogic approaches, so many different traditions, schools. Unless a yoga practitioner encounters that to some degree, and is enriched by that, there will always be the delusion that the way I’m doing it is the way.

If you, say, join a Bhakti cult, then everything suddenly is filtered through that lens. This may work for some people; it wouldn’t work for me. I would always want to have an overview. This Bhakti approach, this Jnana approach, this Karma approach, all the other approaches, well, what do they share? Really then be informed more by the commonality between traditions than the differences. Appreciate the differences and value them as something that allows the practitioners of that tradition to propel themselves on the path. Essential crutches on the path, but they don’t necessarily have universal validity.

RR: So take on the system, but don’t immerse yourself. Keep your perspective.

GF: Keep your perspective, the understanding that we need crutches but ultimately we need to throw them away. Whatever concepts we use are Band-Aids; we need them because otherwise we’d bleed to death. We put them on, we stop the bleeding, but after we healed, we should take it off. “I never was sick! It was an illusion.” [laughs]

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The Spiritual Intent of the Teachings: Georg Feuerstein Interviewed by Richard Rosen, Part 2

Matsyendranath

When Georg Feuerstein died in 2012, I wrote an appreciation of him, Georg Feuerstein, 1947-2012, saying how much his work meant to me and how, even though I’d never met him, I considered him one of my teachers. Now I have learned of the existence of a very long, unpublished interview with him that Richard Rosen did way back in 1996. Richard has now published the interview in full on his website richardrosenyoga.com, but he has give me permission to include excerpts from it our blog.

Here’s the second excerpt, which is about what we will miss if we just focus on practicing the asanas.

—Nina

GF: Take the asanas from their spiritual context—I would use the term advisedly—is fateful, because it shortchanges the student who thinks they are doing yoga. Whereas there is this vast background that is really designed to uplift the person from their present state of ordinariness of confusion of basic human suffering and need. Uplift them from that into something far more sublime and give them a vision of who they could be. And it is reducing yoga to a level . . . that’s what it moved away from. That is why it was designed. 

Health.... I have nothing against cultivating health. People say, “You are down on exercise.” I’m not. It is important to cultivate that, especially if you feel the need for it. It is important to cultivate in the same way an intelligent mind to be informed about what is going on, not just live like a zombie, but be up on events, see what this life is about.

But more important than any of that is to see who we are in spiritual terms and to do something about that. Because without that there is no way we can relate to the rest of it in any deep sensitive way.

RR: It just becomes an exercise without any firm basis.

GF: It just becomes a shell. You are exercising the shell; you are training the dog. And you salivate when the bell rings. But beyond that, there is nothing. There is no sense that behind that brain there is a great mind. Behind that great mind there is a great reality. People are not told about that. So the hunger for something more remains. And since there is no pointer in the right direction they will continue to look for happiness in the wrong places. And continue with their cycle of suffering.

When you have understood enough about the traditions, then there is a desire growing in yourself to reduce others’ suffering, like you want to reduce your own. And be a compassionate presence in your work, in your life, in your family life.

RR: I like the way you always relate the teachings to a larger picture, not just yourself you’re concerned with. It’s other people; in fact, it is the whole planet.

GF: We are everyone. The sooner we understand that, the better. Because right now, even our consumption pattern, we live in total isolation and delusion. We think that this is what we deserve. We deserve this great lifestyle we have in America. By the way, not everybody has it in America—there are many, many hungry people on the streets who used to have good jobs—but I think we delude ourselves into believing that we deserve any of that. We delude ourselves into believing that this is how it is pretty much around the world. Pretty much around the world is hunger and frustration. You just need to go to any country in Africa and Asia and you know you encounter what is really happening.

If we think in isolation, we will suffer isolation. We cannot grow. We need to have a sense of our place in the midst of things. To be able to pick up a paperback on the Rig Veda or the Gita or the Upanishad or Kashmir Shaivism is a tremendous privilege. It is not just plunking down your money to get a book. It is a privilege to have that book, to get that teaching. You don’t have to travel for six months to find that teacher who holds the teaching.

RR: You don’t have to prove yourself.

GF: You don’t have to prove yourself in pain sitting in front of the door [laughs] and the teacher says come back in a month. So I think the quicker we understand that all of us are in this together and that this realm we are in is not a pretty sight. There are nice moments, but on the whole, it is not a pretty sight. We must have not only responsibility for our own upliftment, but for everyone else, because on our own, we are not going to make it. That is part of the process. We have to care for everyone.

RR: That gives a more universal definition to yoga, to the word union, you are aware of your union with everything around you.

GF: It is not a traditional definition. The yogi has always been primarily concerned with his/her own liberation, but the whole moral laws of Yama are how the yogi relates to the environment, the social environment, and there is always profound concern. The concern is to manifest higher values in the social relationships, especially non-harming. How little we respect that law, in so many ways. Even going on the bus and not yielding your chair to someone in need. We just ignore others. Or you walk by someone obviously unhappy, you give a smile, even if you don’t know the person, you know? Give a grin, nod, whatever. This is non-harming. Anything else...if we withhold our own energy we have already failed in the spiritual process.

RR: I remember you making the point about ahimsa, that it is a positive force. It is not just withdrawing and avoiding violence, but it is something that you actively do.

GF: We extend our own life energy to others. I think that in the ideal of the bodhisattva that has become a nicely polished diamond. In previous teachings it was largely implied. But there it was made the idea of the practice, that, yes, we must strive for liberation or enlightenment ourselves.

We must do that—that is the spiritual process—but who do we do it? We do it to uplift everyone, because we cannot bear the idea that all these beings are related to us. We are related to them. We only look at our own family nowadays, and even then…. But in the past, there was more of a sense of belonging to a larger group, whether a clan, the village. Now we don’t have that. We isolate and exclude. In spiritual practice we must then come back—especially in our times—come back more to a sense of “we are everybody.”

To read more of this interview, see Interview with Georg Feuerstein.

Richard Rosen is a yoga teacher and writer from Berkeley, California. He is President of the board of the Yoga Dana Foundation, which supports Northern California teachers bringing yoga to underserved communities. Richard has written three books for Shambhala: The Yoga of Breath: A Step-by-Step Guide to Pranayama (2002), Pranayama: Beyond the Fundamentals (2006), and Original Yoga: Rediscovering Traditional Practices of Hatha Yoga (2012). He also recorded a 7-disc set of instructional CDs for Shambhala titled The Practice of Pranayama: An In-Depth Guide to the Yoga of Breath (2010). For more information about Richard and the workshops he teaches internationally, see http://www.richardrosenyoga.com/.

Georg Feuerstein, Ph.D. became interested in Yoga in his early teens and studied Yoga philosophy and history ever after that . He did his postgraduate studies in England and authored over 50 books—not all on Yoga. His major works are: The Encyclopedia of Yoga and Tantra (Shambhala 2011), The Yoga Tradition (Hohm Press 2008), Yoga Morality (Hohm Press, 2007), The Deeper Dimension of Yoga (Shambhala), and The Bhagavad-Gītā: A New Translation (Shambhala 2011). For more about Georg and the work that is continued by Brenda Feuerstein, see traditionalyogastudies.com.

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Finding Your Teacher: Georg Feuerstein Interviewed by Richard Rosen

by Nina

Ellen Fein, Age 65
Breathe2Change.com

When Georg Feuerstein died in 2012, I wrote an appreciation of him, Georg Feuerstein, 1947-2012, saying how much his work meant to me and how, even though I’d never met him, I considered him one of my teachers. Now I have just learned of the existence of a very long, unpublished interview with him that Richard Rosen did way back in 1996. Richard has now published the interview in full on his website richardrosenyoga.com, but he has give me permission to include excerpts from it our blog.

Here’s the first excerpt, which discusses how to find a good teacher and when you need to walk away.

RR: The teachings are suited to the capacity of the student rather than just give a blanket teaching to a large group of people. That’s one of the reasons why you want your own teacher.

GF: So the teacher who knows you will also know where your boundaries are, where your limitations are and he will constantly prick the balloon. Constantly, if he is a good teacher. At the same time, if he is a good teacher, he will also provide enough nurturing for you to continue with this ordeal. It is a rite of passage.

RR: You can’t just pull out the stops and let the person flounder.

GF: You have to know what you’re doing, and I think the bad teachers, of which there are many in evidence, are the ones who just pull the rug and then say, “oh, tough luck.” And leave the person to their own devices. At the Foundation we get people who have kundalini problems, genuine kundalini problems because it was awakened but then the teacher didn’t see it through. Because they are not capable of seeing it through. It is very easy to do. Awaken something, and then where is the help? This particular danger in teaching has always existed. I translated a little
passage from the Kula-Arnava Tantra which talks all about bad teachers, teachers who cheat, pretend, etc. They are in the majority. 

But there is also the misconception I think that we have in the west which I often hear when I go out and talk to students, that there are not enough good teacher. “Where is my good teacher?” “There are so many good students, but not enough good teachers.” My view on that is always the same. Very forcefully I tell them that there are a hundred times more good teachers than there are disciples. But if you don’t see, the teacher could stand right beside you and you wouldn’t know he is your teacher. Your own delusions are in the way. So if we have a bad teacher, who is to blame? Us. No one else.

RR: For not being discriminating.

GF: Exactly. I think to approach a teacher we need to do as we do with everything else. When we buy a car we go through the works, not just look at the color. You find out before you put the money down. Same with a teacher. Find out, and then even when you have committed to a certain degree you find out some more for a period of time to see, okay, how is the teacher responding to me. How am I responding to that teacher? Is there a connection? And so on. And the teacher does the same.

RR: Can you give some criteria people can use to look for a teacher? In deciding on and choosing a good teacher. Are there specific things to look for? Or is it more of a feel?

GF: No, I think people like Wilbur and others have put a list together. Frances Vaughn also I think. Of who are the teachers who qualify as good teachers. I don’t recall all the criteria, but I think one criterion for me personally would be is this teacher part of a recognized tradition and lineage? In other words, who is that teacher’s teacher? Very important. Because, if you have a wild card, you don’t know.

RR: No responsibility to anything.

GF: Yes. There is no environment for them to have to prove themselves. They are only talking to the student, which is a one-way street. So that is one thing. To look at who has made that teacher. Who is he responsible to? The second criterion I would say, what are your instincts about that teacher? What is the gut reaction? If there is doubt about the teacher’s integrity, if there is doubt about ability, why commit? At the same time you have to make sure it is not your own stuff that you are reacting to. It is a very subtle thing.

I would also look at the biblical saying about the fruits, “by their fruits you shall know them.” Talk to others. If there is confusion, chaos and pain around a teacher, it is likely that the teacher is the cause of that pain and confusion.

RR: It all flows from the source.

GF: Yes. Around great teachers there will always be people who are confused and in pain and all that, because they don’t discriminate. They allow people to come in whoever they are if they have the karma to be there. And they help to whatever extent they can, but you will also find in a group, in a community like that, people of worth. Who have passed through the process. 

The other thing I have done—my whole experience with Da Free John, before I set out on this adventure, which I knew was totally crazy because it would challenge me in every conceivable way—but I entered it open-eyed. I understood I was doing this for a very specific reason, in my case. I wanted to have this confrontation with a very strong teacher who would challenge me in ways that no one has challenged me before. But I made a deal with myself that after a certain period of time, a number of years, whatever, you look at the situation. 

If there is a sense of basically feeling good about the involvement, even if there is pain, you decide to renew your contract with yourself in a way. But if you find it has just become a nightmare or you feel you haven’t grown in the preceding period, it is time to leave, say goodbye, it’s not for me. This is what happened in my case. I felt I wasn’t growing anymore. I had grown for four or five years and then I felt I reached a plateau having to do with my perception of the teacher. There was a level of trust I couldn’t reach. 

So when that happens, when you can’t open up to the teacher on that deep inner level, there is no way that relationship can flourish. No way. Transmission will not continue. I realized that this is what was happening. I had to say goodbye. I think anyone who is wise will look at their life after a period of time and say, “how am I doing?” Rather than just go with the status quo and hope for the best. There has to be an intelligent process of self-examination, which has to be continuous anyway.

RR: Although difficult to sustain in an environment like that. When you get close to someone like that, it is easy to give yourself up and give yourself over and stop thinking for yourself.

GF: That then is the childish response. A good teacher will not tolerate it. Because you always have to think for yourself. Always. You always have to make your own mistakes. The teacher can point out to you that you are about to make a mistake but if you feel you have to make it, to find out for yourself, you have to do it.

To read more of this interview, see Interview with Georg Feuerstein.

Richard Rosen is a yoga teacher and writer from Berkeley, California. He is President of the board of the Yoga Dana Foundation, which supports Northern California teachers bringing yoga to underserved communities. Richard has written three books for Shambhala: The Yoga of Breath: A Step-by-Step Guide to Pranayama (2002), Pranayama: Beyond the Fundamentals (2006), and Original Yoga: Rediscovering Traditional Practices of Hatha Yoga (2012). He also recorded a 7-disc set of instructional CDs for Shambhala titled The Practice of Pranayama: An In-Depth Guide to the Yoga of Breath (2010). For more information about Richard and the workshops he teaches internationally, see http://www.richardrosenyoga.com/.

Georg Feuerstein, Ph.D. became interested in Yoga in his early teens and studied Yoga philosophy and history ever after that . He did his postgraduate studies in England and authored over 50 books—not all on Yoga. His major works are: The Encyclopedia of Yoga and Tantra (Shambhala 2011), The Yoga Tradition (Hohm Press 2008), Yoga Morality (Hohm Press, 2007), The Deeper Dimension of Yoga (Shambhala), and The Bhagavad-Gītā: A New Translation (Shambhala 2011). For more about Georg and the work that is continued by Brenda Feuerstein, see traditionalyogastudies.com.

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Diving Deeper into Prana

by Baxter

When I want to dive a little deeper into any yoga-related topic, I feel blessed to work with one of the smartest and well-studied yoga teachers in America today, Richard Rosen. Richard is the owner of the Piedmont Yoga Studio in Oakland, CA, as well as author of two books on pranayama (a word I will let him define in a moment) and a Shambhala audio series on pranayama, as well as a new book on the earliest yoga poses Original Yoga (see here to read the introduction). To experience Richard’s writing firsthand, in addition to getting one of his books, you can sign up to receive Piedmont Yoga Studio’s monthly email newsletter (see piedmontyoga.com/). He always includes a fascinating article on some aspect of yoga, which I always learn a lot from!

When I asked Richard if he had written anything specifically on prana, or energy, he immediately sent me a twelve-page word document on pranayama that contained some intriguing kernels of information about prana that I thought would complement our initial look at prana last week (see May the Prana be with You). If you read that post, you'll see that I was not too far off in my definition of prana last week if we look at how Richard frames it:

“Prana is not specifically the breath, but rather the “life force,” a subtle energy that pervades the universe and manifests, in one important way, as breath and breathing”

He mentions breathing here, because he is ultimately interested in prana’s relationship to the yogic practice of pranayama. There are a lot of definitions of pranayama floating around out there. If you take a public class, you might think it refers to simply watching or observing your breath. Or you might think it refers to one particular way of breathing, namely taking a longer in breath and out breath. If you have been a student of Pattabhi Jois’s Ashtanga yoga, you might equate pranayama to the Darth Vadar-like breath technique known as ujjayi breath. And you’d be partially correct, as all of these things are part of the branch of yoga practice known as pranayama.

View from First Bridge by Brad Gibson

But let’s step back for a moment and take a look at Richard’s definition of the word. We have his take on prana, but what about the second half of the term, ayama?

“Ayama means both “extension” and “restraint.” I think of pranayama as the conscious, intelligent cultivation and refinement of the life force through the medium of the breath.”  

Because we in the west have such a love affair with yoga poses, that is, asana, we have come to equate yoga with asana. As Richard points out, “you might be surprised to learn that traditionally pranayama is considered the central practice of hatha yoga.”  So if pranayama is the central practice of yoga, what kind of boon does it promise if we actually start to practice it regularly? Richard points out many documented (meaning they are mentioned in the source books on hatha yoga we have available to us) benefits that come from regular, consistent practice, done over a long time, including such things as stoking the digestive fire, appeasing thirst and hunger, opening the sinuses, curing may diseases and conditions, and purifying both the gross and subtle energy systems of the body. In addition, prana and the practice of pranayama are said to destroy illness and increase longevity. The ancient yogis were interested in this because it gave them more time to achieve their yogic goals.

Richard  also points out some more benefits that we should eye with a bit of skepticism, such as making you look like you are sixteen, making you a second God of Love, and bestowing even more extraordinary mental and physical powers. For us regular “householders,” what can we realistically expect from a regular breath practice? This of course depends a bit on what you put into it!  Richard states:

“It’s likely that you’ll become more aware of, and gain greater control over, your everyday breath. Why is this a benefit? It’s already well known and widely accepted that your breath and your mental states are closely related, that the former reflects and can be used, to a certain extent, to influence the latter…. With the instrument of your breath then, you can monitor and modulate you psychic “temperature” throughout the day, cooling yourself down when the mercury rises, and heating yourself up when it drops off.”

Both Richard and I have heard from students who claim their work with prana via breath has resulted in a more relaxed and energized life on and off the mat. And, finally, Richard concludes: “all this to say that your breathing will become less effortful and more efficient.” Realistically, the more efficient and responsive your respiratory system is, the better you are able to handle stress. The lower your stress levels, the more beneficial the effect of yoga on the aging process. It all seems to come full circle once again. From my vantage point, I love the fact that so many different techniques are available to us under the large umbrella of yoga to assist us as we age!

Next time we look at pranayama, I’ll share with you my favorite summer breath technique, so until then, do what you can to stay cool!

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Yoga and Parkinson's Disease, Part 1

by Richard Rosen, guest contributor

A Road Through the Woods by Brad Gibson

When we received a question last week about yoga and Parkinson’s Disease, we turned to our friend Richard Rosen. Richard Rosen is a senior yoga teacher, who has been practicing yoga for 31 years and who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease about 9 years ago. Richard had so many interesting things to say in the response to the question that we decided to make it a separate post. —Nina
Q: Interested in suggestions for yoga for students with Parkinson's.

A: Parkinson’s Disease (I prefer Condition) is a progressive degenerative disorder of the central nervous system. Common symptoms include loss of muscular flexibility, balance, and strength. You may notice that these are the very physical qualities promoted by the physical practice of yoga postures and related exercises. To a certain undetermined extent then, yoga exercises help to not exactly counteract PD symptoms, but go a long way toward at least a temporary amelioration. These exercises (depending on the frequency and intensity of practice) also help cultivate and refine greater body awareness, which in turn (again to an undetermined extent) allows the individual to self-correct certain of the symptoms. I’m hedging everything I say here because, as in all of life, there are no guarantees. Some conditions progress very rapidly, others only gradually. But in any case the sooner a credible practice is established the better it will serve the individual. I can’t stress this enough: once the diagnosis of PD is confirmed, if you’re not already practicing some form of yoga exercise, get started immediately with a competent teacher.

This is a very difficult question to answer in 25 words or fewer as it’s stated here. I would ask first about the students’ condition: are they pretty much at the same level of development, or are some farther along? If the former, are they all still fairly mobile, is their balance still decent, their strength and flexibility? If the latter, how serious is the situation? Do some need canes or walkers? Is the shaking debilitating at times? Different strokes for different folks is the operative approach.

And then I’d need to know something about the teacher, if there is one. Training? Experience? Are there props like chairs and bolsters? What size is the class, if there is one? Are there assistants if there are more than, say, 6 to 8 students? Don’t mean to be evasive here but a PD class is definitely not like an average public class, these are students that need extra attention.

Or are you asking in general about individual students you might be working with in a private setting? Again it’s important to tailor the work to the student’s level of development. Without more detailed information I can only give general suggestions. 

Certainly one of the most useful exercises would be a passive backbend over a bolster or rolled blanket (see here for a photo). We PD people tend to slump after awhile and the backbend helps encourage a long (not "straight") front spine. The thickness of the support would depend on the student, both his/her level of development and previous experience with yoga-influenced exercises (I assume when you say “yoga” you’re talking about asana-like postures; please remember “yoga” is an umbrella term for a wide variety of schools and practices, and shouldn’t be equated solely with asana). Obviously the stiffer the student, the smaller the roll’s diameter should be, and stiffer students will likely need a blanket support under the back of their head to prevent jamming the neck, and should also keep knees bent and feet on the floor to avoid back strain. The roll should be positioned under the lower tips of the shoulder blades so that the arms can lay comfortably off to the sides, not higher than parallel to the line of the shoulders. Initially the student might stay for a couple of minutes, then slowly over time, depending on the student and the seriousness of his/her practice, increase the stay to 5-6 minutes. I should emphasize here that if the student isn’t ready or willing to practice regularly—every day would be ideal—then the exercises will have minimal impact if only practiced once weekly or less.

While in the pose it’s essential that some attention be paid to the breath. Have the student pretend he/she can channel the inhalations slowly and directly into the space behind the sternum (yes, I know that’s where the heart is, I said “pretend”), so that each intake creates more and more space in the upper chest. On the exhalations have the student imagine sinking down over the blanket, so that with each successive exhale, he/she seems to be releasing more and more over the roll.

I’m not, at this point, particularly comfortable going any farther until I learn something more about the teacher-student relationship, the former’s chops and the latter’s needs. Please write to this blog again with more information about yourself and the students, and of what you intend to do with this instruction. 

Richard Rosen is currently the director of Piedmont Yoga Studio in Oakland, CA. He is a contributing editor for Yoga Journal magazine, and is the author of three books, The Yoga of Breath (Shambhala 2002), Yoga for 50+ (Ulysses 2004), and Pranayama Beyond the Basics (Shambhala 2006). He’s also created a set of seven CDs titled The Practice of Pranayama, issued by Shambhala, and Shambhala will publish his Original Yoga, a book about traditional Hatha Yoga, in 2011. (To find out more about Richard and Piedmont Yoga Studio, see here.)

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