Vinaysa vs Hatha | Motion vs Stillness | Yoga is Life

When people realise I am yogi, the question i get is "what kind of yoga do you do?". I often want to start that answer with a smile and a long explanation- but I then think it might come across as too pretentious and arrogant and end up answering with a plain " I do all kinds - hatha, vinaysa, but the core of all  asana practice of all yoga is hatha yoga". And that's true - any kind of physical asana practice (ashtanga, bikram, power, vinyasa) is all Hatha - which is a perfect balance of the Sun (Ha) and the Moon (Tha) - the hot and cold energies, the male and female present within each of us, the need to be willful and also let go - prevalent not just in human beings, but anything you see around you in nature. Every ying has it's yang, every night circles back to a day. I see this confluence a natural way of being - for no-one and nothing can stay static in it's own form forever. This impermanence scares people - it has scared me many a time in the past. We are all so used to our set ways of living, we dread changes, we scoff at phrases like "change is the only constant" and assume they're only meant for t-shirts. But in our busy lives, if we were to stop and just be - we'd notice, nothing in us is static - the fact that we are alive is because for every breath in there is a opposite release in an out-breath.

When we start recognizing the quality of impermanence in all that we see, in all that we do, in all the experiences we live, in everyone we meet and in all that we are - life doesn't have to be a struggle. Of course, while I think these thoughts to myself and write these words down, I'm very mindful that I'm at a point of certain privilege & well-being to afford these ideas. 

I went to a yoga retreat to Nepal as a part of Routes of Yoga, with my teacher Daphne Charles. And it has so happened that every time I join Daphne (and Anton) for a trip - I'm going through some upheaval of sorts in life - personal or professional or sometimes both. Nepal was much needed - such a fresh breath of air (literally and metaphorically) from the suffocation I was beginning to feel in my life. I wanted to switch my phone off and throw it into the woods so that no one (especially from work) could contact me. Over the last few months, work has brought with it a huge sense of dread and anxiety and fear. Extreme fear. Nothing I was doing was good enough for those around me. And a place of comfort and safety and friendship was turning into a place I wanted to avoid. Considering so much of our waking hours are spent work - if you're not enjoying that aspect of your life - you're pretty much screwed.

I guy I had dated had once told me - at no point in time are your work and personal life ever in perfect harmony. And that we should get used to something or the other being off-balance. For a long time I believed that. Until I started doing yoga, I guess. And then I realised, there is such a thing as perfect balance - and that perfect balance also brings with it a little bit of imperfection. If I hadn't had that realisation or if living in my own sense of balance had not become a way for life for me - i probably would have thought what i was facing at work was a factor of my earlier thought process - work wasn't great because everything else in life was more or less ok. 

So, I didn't throw my phone into the Himalayan woods, and did the next best thing - said on my out of office responded that I was in a place of absolutely NO phone signal and was completely unreachable and then kept my phones aside. I have been a miserable photo taker so even photo ops didn't entice me to touch my phone. I was so repelled by that piece of technology that even having it in my line of sight made me shudder - and I don't mean this as a figure of speech - I was having physical reactions to any object that reminded me of my job. Thankfully, I did manage to take it out when we went trekking one day because in spite of my reluctance of capturing a moment on your phone instead of enjoying it in the now, I got this gorgeous untouched picture from that trek:

Many mornings waking up without an alarm, doing pure yoga outside of a studio setting with a teacher i love, eating meals with some lovely friends, staying on the foothills of the Himalayas, drinking many hot cups of Nepali Chia, visiting sacred monastries, finding sacredness & purity in daily living and all that's around me fulfilled my heart like no hi-tech city with all it's physical comfort could ever do. Everything that modern city life has robbed me of, Bali replenishes in my many visits there. And the same thing happened with Nepal. One day i woke up to a realisation that changed my life as I knew it - the fear that had always accompanied me all these years was suddenly not as overpowering. It was still a beast - but a tiny beast that I had the courage to deal with - instead of something I needed to hide away from.

When I came back to Singapore, whatever little semblance of peace that was left at work was snatched away from me & I found myself completely naked. Ironically I was also told that I was promoted - and that fact that the promise of a higher salary (and a promotion I had worked so hard for at the cost of my personal life) made me realise that nothing is going to keep me happy here. The erosion of trust with my co-workers had left a mark so deep in my heart - that no amount of surgery (not that anyone was trying) would mend it. Some relationships once damaged can't be patched back together - sadly. The shock and hurt that accompanied me in the months of November were thankfully not made worse by fear - since I had already dealt with that in Nepal :) I now had the space in my heart, mind and soul to deal with everything else since i wasn't rendered powerless by the fear of fear. 

Two trips to India, many more cups of chai, the comfort of friends and family, many train rides across the heartlands of India, the sound of wedding music, the cheer and laughter of winters in Punjab, the clear blue skies laden with stars in Coorg, hugs from my parents, the purity and comfort of my childhood - still ringing in my grandmother's house, Coffee plants with heavy branches all endowed with the almost-ripe fruits, ready to be picked, my mom's gorgeous food, the familiarity of India and the sun, the warm winter sun that gives to you more than takes away from you, made me whole again. I had no faith in India, I had vowed never to return, I didn't see the point of living in a country that can't afford its citizens the basic necessities of life, I didn't see how others lived there, I failed to understand why sensible people who were living comfortably  outside of India in better conditions would want to uproot themselves to go back "home". I was arrogant and stubborn, I thought myself above India and Indians that live in their country - but in all my so called completeness of a better life, I realised if there was one word that defined my existence in Singapore, it was hollow. 

Hollow is a scary word. And when you realise you are living that kind of life you should do something to change it RIGHT AWAY. I don't mean to say I don't love Singapore, I love it, I truly do - but sometimes the very things you love, are the unhealthiest for you - be it a bad relationship or fried chicken! 

All of these realisations, the need to change, the process of being, and flowing, imbibing the qualities of a stream, that flows, wherever the terrain takes it would have scared the hell out of me were it not for my yoga practice. The title of this post is actually inspired by this school i practice in sometimes, which deems all of Vinaysa yoga as crap and calls it mindless - because true yoga, they say, is Hatha.

While I've mentioned before that no one can refute the second point of my previous statement, the first point is a pretty arrogant take on yoga. What yoga is to me, is not what yoga is to you. And that acceptance and space to allow others to live the kind of yoga they want to live should increase the more yoga you do or the more yogi you become. I find joy in vinaysa, for me it's like a dance, I see every small movement in the world similar to vinyasa, I think Hatha yoga itself encompasses the essence of vinyasa - breath in breath out. Vinyasa yoga has taught me to flow, it has taught me that life doesn't have to stop at something, that it's ok to move on. Vinyasa yoga has taught me that you never know what surprise life has in store for you at the next bend. You could either be flying in Veerabhadrasana 3 or you could be stuck in that dreaded Utkatasana for the next five breaths - and that both of those asanas teach you something. 

Vinyasa yoga allows me to teach my students the art of movement and grace - while holding stillness in their hearts and minds - it for me satisfies the mission that the asana practice tries to fulfill - to prepare our minds and bodies for meditation. I am in a meditative zone as I  flow through surya namaskars - every cell in my body is dancing with joy as I complete that salutation to the sun. Vinyasa yoga makes me the happiest. And that is ok. 

A lot of my studio practice is still pure Hatha yoga and I see why that particular school and teacher calls vinyasa mindless - and I often tell new students to start with only hatha classes for a bit before adding in a vinyasa class in their practice - i myself go back to Hatha when I want to inculcate mental and physical strength. But nothing gives me the joy that a vinyasa practice gives me. 

I used to say to myself "there is a time in life to be still, and there is a time in life to be in motion". But how many of us realise, that even in stillness, we are in motion. 

Namaste.