Day 6

Date: 10/6/2016
time: 2:30
instructor: Annie Stiver
style: Iyengar

To start, I did not really like Iyengar style. Historically I've practice flow sequences and Iyengar was a completely different situation. I didn't like the pace, it was much too slow for me, and the instruction style was also not ideal. The steuctur of instruction almost made the class feel teAcher oriented, as if we were supposed to sit and admiringly watch Annie do the moves and really let her skill sink in before attempting to do the same move ourselves. Annie seemed nice but I can see how, in a different class with a more traditional instructor, a reverence can form for the "all knowing" wiser-than-you instructor can form. I am also inclined to think that it takes away some of the purpose of yoga. Yoga is meant to be introspective, but the structure of Iyengar makes it feel a little egotistical in that you're trying to reach the instructors superior level. As a side note I did also very much dislke Annie's attempts at explaining the internal physiological outcomes of each move, particularly every time she said a move was enhancing our nervous system or increasing connections between our hemispheres (meanwhile that particular move was almost completely lateralized and certainly doing nothing for inter hemispheric coherence). While I'm sure Annie was simply following her Iyengar script, it was unproven assumptions probably made by Iyengar himself and it does nothing but 1. Spread misinformation about our bodies and how we can affect them, and 2.  Perpetuate the stereotype of pseudoscientific yogis who think their practice works on such wildly specific levels and changes the body in ways that have never been observed in science.
In terms of ritual practice, I wouldn't say my personal practice is ritualistic. I practice yoga very sporadically, oftentimes (before this class) once a week at most. I typically look to yoga for stress reduction, so I use it as needed. I will say that my practice was more ritualistic in high school. During the summer before my senior I started practicing yoga daily. I would wake up early in the morning and start my day with the same beginners level yoga flow video tape. While the practice didn't change very often, it did feel special. I started my mornings with what felt like a cleansing practice to wake me up and get me prepped for the day. I fell out of this pattern come the winter track season, but I do often think back to my more ritualistic practice as a time of overall health and well being. Ideally I'd like my practice to become regular, although perhaps not ritualistic. I, like Nick from Enlightwn Up, am apt to look at yoga as much more than an enriching physical practice. I do not expect or want to find God in my practice. I do not want to form a dependency to my practice. I do yoga because I enjoy the practices, I enjoy the people, and I enjoy how it makes me feel. I don't want to adhere to a strict schedule or depend on yoga as anything more than something I do to enjoy it, which I think ritualizing it might just do (ritual being more significant than simply repeated pattern).