Kundalini Yoga: Sat Nam, Chakras, and Working Up the Prana
Last night I took my first non-Vinyasa Yoga class, which was Kundalini Yoga. Our regular teacher Lynn - perhaps the best Yoga teacher I've ever had - is on leave to have a baby, so we got a substitute, and she's a Kundalini specialist.
Kundalini Yoga, from what I can tell so far, is based upon releasing energy that becomes blocked in our Chakras. Chakras are like energy points along our spine which run from the bottom of our tail bone to our upper crown. Repression, stress, problems, poor posture, injury, depression, etc., can cause energy to become blocked in one or more of these areas. With Kundalini, you work on releasing the energy bottled up at the base of your spine (the Kundalini "snake" which through Yoga you uncoil) so the life energy found in breath ("Prana") can travel through all Chakras and to all portions of your body, and life.
The class was a very different experience, unlike any Yoga I've done. We chanted. We sang. We breathed fast through our noses. The pace was fairly brisk, though not too fast, and we were told to keep going to complete the exercises. We were told to keep our eyes closed, if possible. Instead of doing a single pose and holding, like in Vinyasa, we moved continuously through the postures, back and forth. There was very little stillness, except at the beginning and end.
Out teacher was a serious woman: her body seriously wrapped in white robes and her head in a large, very well constructed turban. She was young, perhaps in her 20's, attractive but intense, a little holy maybe. I was taken at the way she spoke, seriously, deeply, with a purpose. No fluff or irony. The only word I can think of to describe the sound and tone of her voice is religious.
What she had us doing, this practice, felt like religion when she spoke of God being inside me, me being God, and how to accept and trust myself in that respect: trusting myself, God, and the universe. The whole while my mind kept trying to critique such talk as silly, nonsense, new age speak; yet on another level, another voice inside me said to not worry about this language and resistance to the holy unseen, to just trust myself and let go. That's perhaps what Yoga (this and all other forms) is in fact all about: Letting go and trusting your body.
It is odd to think how hard it was for me to allow myself to to sing, chant, and breath loudly, as she wanted us to - she even said that a weak breath is a sign of a weak personality! Oh yeah? I'd show her. I breathed up a storm!
I also learned a new saying, which was nice after so many years of the tired old Namaste: “Sat Nam” which roughly translates to “I honor the Truth of your identity, which is the same as mine and makes us one.” Sure, sounds a little cornball (especially the weak, wimpy-ass, therapy-ish, support group word "honor"), but how hard would it be for me to objectively, with a large measure of disinterestedness, take the words at their face value?
My overall impression? I like this Yoga. One of the last things she had us do, in our cool down lotus breathing pose was, she said ”I want you all to ask for a blessing from God, but please do it without language." I was floored. How was I to ask for anything without asking in words? This was the closest I’ve ever felt to praying.
Last night I took my first non-Vinyasa Yoga class, which was Kundalini Yoga. Our regular teacher Lynn - perhaps the best Yoga teacher I've ever had - is on leave to have a baby, so we got a substitute, and she's a Kundalini specialist.
Kundalini Yoga, from what I can tell so far, is based upon releasing energy that becomes blocked in our Chakras. Chakras are like energy points along our spine which run from the bottom of our tail bone to our upper crown. Repression, stress, problems, poor posture, injury, depression, etc., can cause energy to become blocked in one or more of these areas. With Kundalini, you work on releasing the energy bottled up at the base of your spine (the Kundalini "snake" which through Yoga you uncoil) so the life energy found in breath ("Prana") can travel through all Chakras and to all portions of your body, and life.
The class was a very different experience, unlike any Yoga I've done. We chanted. We sang. We breathed fast through our noses. The pace was fairly brisk, though not too fast, and we were told to keep going to complete the exercises. We were told to keep our eyes closed, if possible. Instead of doing a single pose and holding, like in Vinyasa, we moved continuously through the postures, back and forth. There was very little stillness, except at the beginning and end.
Out teacher was a serious woman: her body seriously wrapped in white robes and her head in a large, very well constructed turban. She was young, perhaps in her 20's, attractive but intense, a little holy maybe. I was taken at the way she spoke, seriously, deeply, with a purpose. No fluff or irony. The only word I can think of to describe the sound and tone of her voice is religious.
What she had us doing, this practice, felt like religion when she spoke of God being inside me, me being God, and how to accept and trust myself in that respect: trusting myself, God, and the universe. The whole while my mind kept trying to critique such talk as silly, nonsense, new age speak; yet on another level, another voice inside me said to not worry about this language and resistance to the holy unseen, to just trust myself and let go. That's perhaps what Yoga (this and all other forms) is in fact all about: Letting go and trusting your body.
It is odd to think how hard it was for me to allow myself to to sing, chant, and breath loudly, as she wanted us to - she even said that a weak breath is a sign of a weak personality! Oh yeah? I'd show her. I breathed up a storm!
I also learned a new saying, which was nice after so many years of the tired old Namaste: “Sat Nam” which roughly translates to “I honor the Truth of your identity, which is the same as mine and makes us one.” Sure, sounds a little cornball (especially the weak, wimpy-ass, therapy-ish, support group word "honor"), but how hard would it be for me to objectively, with a large measure of disinterestedness, take the words at their face value?
My overall impression? I like this Yoga. One of the last things she had us do, in our cool down lotus breathing pose was, she said ”I want you all to ask for a blessing from God, but please do it without language." I was floored. How was I to ask for anything without asking in words? This was the closest I’ve ever felt to praying.
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