{"id":4686,"date":"2014-11-12T11:12:47","date_gmt":"2014-11-12T16:12:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/matthewremski.com\/wordpress\/?p=4686"},"modified":"2014-11-12T11:12:47","modified_gmt":"2014-11-12T16:12:47","slug":"wawadia-update-18-one-hundred-years-of-yoga-in-one-big-apple-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/matthewremski.com\/wordpress\/wawadia-update-18-one-hundred-years-of-yoga-in-one-big-apple-day\/","title":{"rendered":"WAWADIA Update #18: One Hundred Years of Yoga in One Big Apple Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

Please consider supporting the fundraising campaign<\/a> to support the book that is emerging from this research.<\/em><\/p>\n

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I spent October 13th<\/sup> in Manhattan, doing two interviews for the #WAWADIA project. I\u2019ll tell the story of that day here, and then publish excerpts from some of the source interviews soon.<\/p>\n

My first meeting was in the morning with Lindsey Clennell, a 40-year practitioner of yoga from Britain, and an award-winning film maker to boot. I wanted to ask him about the documentary that he\u2019s making with his son Jake, called “Sadhaka”. The film is an homage to the legacy of his teacher, B.K.S. Iyengar. I was especially interested in asking about the visual metaphor that opens the gorgeous trailer they\u2019ve released to help promote their project. (The trailer is linked below.) In the metaphor, Lindsey and Jake compare the work of Mr. Iyengar on the human body to the work of a local stonecutter carving an icon of Hanuman.<\/p>\n

The first words of the trailer belong to the grizzled artist:<\/p>\n

One cannot begin work on a sculpture without courage. The nature of a stone is that it is strong. To transform it into a sculpture, and see God within it, requires immense strength. If one gives up or is daunted by the strength of the stone or injuries, the sculpture will never come to life.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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That evening, I ate take-out noodles off of Leslie Kaminoff\u2019s treatment table in his office at The Breathing Project<\/a>. Joining us were Amy Matthews and and their long-term student and assistant Sarah Barnaby.<\/p>\n

This wasn’t my first visit. I\u2019d interviewed Leslie about six months before about the possible role of better anatomical education in injury prevention. This time, I was eager to ask Amy about the work she does to integrate the latest research in infant developmental movement into asana.<\/p>\n

An IDME<\/a>-trained practitioner, Amy runs a Friday morning class for caregivers and their infants from newborn to walking. “The focus of the class,” as she wrote to me by email, “is a little bit of facilitating baby movement, and a lot of educating the caregivers about how to support the babies in their learning and being. Many adults — mostly asana students — can observe the class, and discuss afterwards how the principles might apply to their own movements.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Amy\u2019s work reminds me of this passage in the Jnaneshvar-Gita<\/em>:<\/p>\n

That is called [yogic] action of the body in which reason takes no part and <\/em>which does not originate as an idea springing in the mind. To speak simply, <\/em>yogis perform actions [called asanas, kriyas, bandhas, and mudras] with <\/em>their bodies, like the [innocent, natural, sahaja] movements of children. <\/em>(1210\/1987; thanks to Stuart Sovatsky for the reference)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So we have the stonecutter, and the baby-whisperer. The values of the entire last century of modern postural yoga would seem to oscillate between these two icons. On one end of the m\u0101l\u0101-string, a harsh discipline seeks to reconstruct the person into a worthy vehicle of devotion. On the other end, we\u2019re encouraged to release every discipline and habit that has obscured the original ease and pleasure of movement. Modern yogis slide back and forth on that string, like beads, in constant dialogue between the desire for a new self and a primal memory.<\/p>\n

On the train back to New Jersey that night, my brain swirled with the contrast of the two encounters. At 10 am, Lindsey had served me English Breakfast tea (probably from Harrods, it was that good) with cream and honey in his tidy Greenwich flat as he regaled me with his stories of asana\u2019s recent history. At dusk, Leslie tipped what looked like expensive tequila into my Thai pomegranate lemonade and twirled around in his office chair, grinning broadly as we listened to Amy paint her picture of asana\u2019s near future.<\/p>\n

As I stepped out into the night fog of Morristown, I realized: this day is like the book itself<\/em>. It has to cover at least a century of asana theory, for sure. But more importantly, it has to cover a century of paradigmatic shifts in just about everything having to do with how we feel<\/em> asana, from the ways in which we feel effective pedagogy on the studio floor, to how we feel the very origin and purpose of the body. It has to move between times and cultures, interrogating traditionalists and innovators, seeking clashes and harmonies. It has to be careful not to confuse tradition with reality, or novelty with progress. It has to be careful not to throw the baby in with the stonecutter \u2013 to somehow keep them separate, and separately valued for what each offers each yogi in their time.<\/p>\n

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The trailer for Lindsay and Jake Clennell\u2019s upcoming documentary \u201cSadhaka\u201d seduces with its rich visuals, elegant BBC pacing, and contemplative edits. The first time I watched it I was really happy that an intelligent story had found an expert teller, and some funding. But as I drifted off to sleep that night, I replayed the visuals in my mind, and somehow they felt off.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the generously-long excerpt, which the Clennells have posted to help attract investors…<\/p>\n

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