Swami Satchidananda – Yoga with a master

Description

This the “classical sequence” for beginners of Hatha Yoga, it’s not the usual American “gym style” yoga.Practice it everyday for half an hour every day for a while and you’ll see the benefits in your hormonal / glandular system and in your “Inner Harmony”.I had the pleasure to meet Swami Satchidanda in 1992 and I must say I was impressed by his humor, vitality and intelligence.You can check by yourself.

 

This DVD presents a classical hatha yoga class taught by the late Sri Swami Satchidananda, a major figure in popularizing yoga in America back in the 1970s. He was the yogi brought from India by Peter Max to address the crowd at the Woodstock Music Festival in 1969, and later started a large ashram in Virginia. He died in 2002, so the class was recorded some time prior to that. The Swami does not perform the asanas, but moves around the room giving instruction and adjusting the students poses.

 

The class is composed of six students of varying ages and abilities. The asana section opens with chanting “Om” and “Hari Om”, moves on to eye exercises, and then three rounds of sun salutations. The Swami gives instruction for the first round, the next two are done at an increasing pace. The sun salutations are the only standing poses on the DVD, the rest are done in a seated or prone position. After this, the class moves on to backbends (cobra, locust, bow) and forward bends (single and double leg), then into shoulder stand. (Regarding this asana, the students on the DVD are using the old style thickly-padded exercise mats. If you are using a regular sticky mat rather than one of these, I would proceed with caution, and recommend looking at a book or video by an Iyengar method teacher to see how to use blankets as cushioning for this pose). Next comes fish pose, wind relieving pose, seated twists, lotus (or half lotus) and concludes with yoga mudra. Short relaxation periods are frequently interspersed between the asanas.The asanas are followed by a guided relaxation section done while laying down, including muscular tensing and releasing exercises, body scan meditation, breath meditation, and then savasana in silence.

 

Next pranayama is taught in a seated position, including long, deep breathing, kapalabhati (short, rapid exhalations) and alternate nostril breathing. The class closes with chanting “Om Shanti, Shanti” three times and the sutra about “moving from unreality to reality” in Sanskrit and English. According to the notes on the DVD, this system was called Integral Yoga, because the Swami wanted to try to combine the eight limbs of yoga. This is real yoga, as taught by an Indian guru (complete with a long gray beard and orange robe) and does not eliminate the chanting and meditational aspects as is now done in a lot of American “yoga”. If you are looking for an extremely vigorous workout in order to get firm buttocks and washboard abs, you might want to try “Insanity” instead. On the other hand, if you are looking for “Sanity,” this DVD might be more helpful.

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