ASHTANGA YOGA, VINYASA YOGA AND IYENGAR YOGA.

Yoga is yoga, by whatever descriptors it is described. The apparent polarisation between adherents of this style or that method of yoga is an expression of that very psychological fragmentation from which yoga is designed to relieve us. At the same time, of course, there is yoga and there is that which simulates yoga but in fact is not the real thing. The difference is not one that rests upon the techniques so much as upon the effects. How these effects come about is also not totally dependent upon technique but more fundamentally upon the orientation and attitude within which the techniques are employed: or yama and niyama. It is the presence of sensitive (ahimsa), honest (satya), open (asteya), focussed (brahmacharya), generous (aparigraha), commited (sauca , contented (samtosa), passionate (tapas) enquiry (svadyaya) into their impact (isvaraparanidanah) that allows the techniques of yoga practice to deliver its fruit.

Ashtanga Yoga is being practiced whenever the eight limbs of yoga presented in Patanjali's Yoga Sutras provide the context and the guiding light of sadhana. The techniques utilised in Iyengar Yoga and Vinyasa Yoga can be practiced outside of this context. Likewise the teachings of Goraksha, Gheranda and Svatmarama cannot be defined as falling within this category. Ashtanga Yoga, therefore is not the be all and end all of yoga. No single approach can be. That is exactly why there are so many. Of course passionate adherents of any particular school or method will be convinced that theirs is complete in itself. But if they have not sampled other schools and methods to a similar depth they are not in a position to make this judgement. They are of course entitled to say that it is enough for them, and make a commitment to that method without exploring others.

However there is a debate emerging about the relationship between, the validity of and the comparative merits of Iyengar Yoga and Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga. As a student and teacher who has explored both with equal passion and commitment I would like to offer some insight derived from my experience. For 18 years I studied with Iyengar trained teachers, including Iyengar and his daughter, and participated in a teacher training course, but did not take the assessment. I never felt that I quite understood the subtleties of alignment that my teachers were presenting. I often could not see what they were describing in their presentations, nor feel it within my own body. I couldn't help but feel I was stuck somewhere on the surface of yoga. Nevertheless I gained a great deal from the method and that can clearly be seen in my practice.

Then I unintentionally found myself in a class presenting the Primary Series of Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga. All of the 55 postures were familiar to me but their context was not. The breathing method, the bandhas, the jumping style, the physical and psychological continuity, the sweat, the surrender provided a context in which my body began, at last, to express more fully and deeply what my Iyengar teachers had been trying to instil in me with regard to alignment. The effect of the vinyasa practice on me was to shift that knowledge from my brain to my body. At last I felt I was practicing yoga. Despite my enthusiasm for the feel of vinyasa practice I did not become a practitioner of Vinyasa Yoga. Just as previously I had never been a practitioner of Iyengar Yoga. The vinyasa techniques were there, the alignment of Iyengar was there, and for me they served only to clarify, enhance and expedite each other. As a student of both the Iyengar method and the Vinyasa method, I am simply a practitioner of yoga.

However once i discovered ashtanga vinyas yoga my passion was to get the better of me. I soon created a reckless imbalance in my practice, doing sequences of up to 300 asana in six hours practice. I did not give enough emphasis for the nourishing inversion section of the vinyasa sequences. Eventually all the jumping, the heat and sweat were no longer purifying me of toxins but draining me of moisture and energy. I became dehydrated, depleted and physically exhausted. But worst of all I became psychologically exhausted, and lost the ability to recognise the imbalances I was creating, until finally, at the point of breakdown I stopped. My body refused to allow me to practice any more, and would insist that I sat in meditation, or laid myself over a chair in ardha halasana, and other supported postures. While doing these poses I explored the nature of the bandhas and realised that I had not been correctly applying them. In error I had been creating hardness where there should have been softness: especially in the brain. It was this hardness, I realised, that was damaging me: not the techniques. I had been misapplying the techniques by my faulty attitude. The essence of this attitude was greed. I wanted to know more, to feel more, to be more than I was. This ambitiousness was creating an insensitivity to the subtleties of technique, and resulting in a subtle but insidious form of violence. And although i was using some of the techniques of yoga, i was not practicing yoga. I was breaking all of the yamas and niyamas every time i went to the mat.

My commitment is to the liberation of all sentient beings. This becomes focussed in my passion for yoga. Within that passion I have tasted many and explored some methods of spiritual practice, or yoga. I am left gratefully indebted to B.K.S. Iyengar and his students, my Vinyasa teachers and my meditation teachers all. But I am not able to cling to this style or that. Nor to say that this is better than that. Only that both Iyengar and Vinyasa yoga have benefited me immensely, and any harm I have come to in my practice is a result of my own lack of judgment, and not the techniques of any given school, or style of yoga.

As my practice draws on both methods, so too does my teaching. And observing my students now, compared to when my orientation was either more exclusively to Iyengar or Vinyasa Yoga, I see that they also benefit from an approach that draws on both methods. For this allows students to utilise the singular advantages and to counterbalance any attachment to a limited aspect of either method. While Iyengar Yoga places great emphasis on the effects on awareness of aligning the various body parts accurately, only too often students get caught in the method and never feel the effects. They remain caught in their anatomical and intellectual bodies and never go deeper. While Vinyasa Yoga places emphasis on the breath and the bandhas only too often these are misunderstood, applied aggressively and result in superficial practice that is gymnastic rather than yogic. It was only through the sensitivity and understanding of relationships gleaned from the Iyengar method that I was able to, eventually, discover how to breathe and use the bandhas. It was only by being taken deeper for longer as a result of the challenge of the vinyasa continuity that I was finally able to embody the principles of alignment and feel their effects. Without Vinyasa Yoga my understanding of alignment would be far less even that it is today. Likewise without Iyengar Yoga my understanding of the breath and bandhas.

I do not suggest by this that either Vinyasa yoga or Iyengar yoga are inherently limited or superficial: simply that each individual brings to both methods their own limitations which can be brought into sharper focus by the use of more than one mirror. This becomes especially important when that individual does not have the ongoing daily presence of the guru to reflect to them where they are abusing or shortchanging the method. And I can't help thinking that had I known only one style, though I would be full of ideas about it, I would have no real experience of yoga, and nothing solid therefore to offer my students, for technique alone is not enough.

london 1993