IntenseDebate - Linda-Sama

9 years ago @ elephant journal: Yoga... - My teacher is gone. ~ ... · 0 replies · +2 points

I am glad that Leslie Kaminoff wrote this, as he said, breaking the code of silence. It is time it comes out even though the powers that now be at the Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram do not speak about this publicly. I have also known for a long time that Sri Desikachar has dementia. Ever since I began study at KYM in 2005 I used to go to Sir's free lectures on Saturday mornings in Chennai after studying all week. When I was there in 2011 I asked the Director of Yoga Studies whether Sir was still speaking on Saturday mornings and the answer I received was only a stern "no" and the subject was changed immediately. KYM has never indicated publicly that anything is wrong with Desikachar yet his condition is known by the still surviving direct students of Krishnamacharya (contemporaries of Desikachar) and (some) of their students.

11 years ago @ elephant journal: Yoga... - Introducing 21st Centu... · 3 replies · +2 points

Carol, I notice in your book that there is no teacher of color...and is anyone over 50? and aren't these writers all from North America? so I am curious as to your choice of teachers who are writing about "21st century yoga".....

11 years ago @ Yoga Modern - The Yogi Doth Protest ... · 0 replies · +3 points

"Shame on the community for being complicit by putting these messed up folks on pedestals. "

couldn't agree more. I had a run-in with Ana Forrest years ago at a yoga conference. let's just say, I was the wrong person for her to pick on. I heard she has mellowed since she got married.

11 years ago @ Yoga Modern - The Yogi Doth Protest ... · 1 reply · +6 points

really, Tanya? "no big deal"? "you should have" done whatever is what people who are abused hear all the time. or that they were too meek or intimidated. talk about blaming the victim.

I teach yoga to trauma survivors and there are MANY reasons why people, female AND male, don't say anything when a teacher makes an inappropriate comment or does a adjustment that they don't want.

you don't know the writer's back story and no teacher ever knows the whole story about any student who walks into their class. just because YOU would act a certain to this particular teacher does not mean it's the right way for anyone else to deal with the situation.

wow. so much more I could say to your comment, but I won't.

11 years ago @ elephant journal: Yoga... - "Yoga for Weight Loss:... · 0 replies · +2 points

‘Nuff said. think about it.

“We live in a society of addiction. Fake desires are created
and pushed on us in the guise of spiritual or self-improvement
ideals, and we do not learn to recognize or act on our real desires. Trying to be something you are not is the cause of human suffering. This is addiction. From the ultimate pop star to a homeless person, we are trying to get somewhere as if we are not already the unadorned marvel of life. The solutions to our plight are usually more of the same: one stronger pill after the other, one exaggeration after the next, as despair increases.” — Mark Whitwell

11 years ago @ elephant journal: Yoga... - Does my six figure asa... · 0 replies · +2 points

yawn.....

11 years ago @ elephant journal: Yoga... - Are Yoga Teachers Bett... · 2 replies · +1 points

did John Friend really write this?

12 years ago @ elephant journal: Yoga... - Bob Meets Baba: Entrep... · 1 reply · +1 points

“Yoga in its former context was…not…about the fantastic, not fantasy”
Even the spare, bare-bones, austere Yoga Sutra itself finds the time to get all excited about:
–Levitation
–Invisibility
–Acquiring the strength of an elephant
–Seeing previous lives
–Walking on water
–Entering another’s body, and
–Traveling through space."

Did you ever think that those "powers" that Patanjali wrote about are used as metaphors and are not to be taken literally?

12 years ago @ Yoga Modern - Women in Yoga: Celebra... · 0 replies · +1 points

I also find that blind spot puzzling. Last year I visited the Temple of the 64 Yoginis (also called the Temple of the 64 Dakinis) in Hirapur, a village outside Bhubaneswar in the state of Orissa. These small temples were for tantric practices, for the acquisition of siddhis or "supernatural powers." Yogini worship was seen predominately between 800 and 1300 AD.

As I said above, it would behoove anyone anyone who calls themself a yoga scholar to learn more about women's contributions to ancient yoga instead of automatically dismissing India as a historically patriarchal culture. From the book "Yogini Cult and Temple": "It appears that the worship of the Yoginis... was one of the significant, though less familiar, cults practiced by the Saktas who believed in the supremacy of Sakti or Power concentrated in the person of the Great Goddess." http://www.exoticindiaart.com/book/details/yogini...

12 years ago @ Yoga Modern - Women in Yoga: Celebra... · 0 replies · +2 points

great comment....

and my students have been saying the same thing for years: "images featuring incredibly lithe bendy women actually discourage those who aren’t young, thin and flexible (the majority of the population) from trying yoga in the first place."

"I believe yoga’s power lies in the spiritual aspects of practice. ,,,,decided to skirt its metaphysical aspects...For a film that explores how women are changing one of the oldest spiritual practices in the world, there was little, if any, direct mention of spirituality at all.. "

that's because it would have made it a totally different movie. Paul Grilley has said, and which I believe, that for yoga to be palatable to Western culture when it began to make a come-back in the 1970s, in order for it to become “mainstream”, spiritual references had to be stripped out for it to become popular.

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