THERAPEUTICS IN IYENGAR YOGA:
‘Your Job is to Put the Student on the Path to Yoga’ By Stephanie Quirk It IS teMptINg to lISt here All the MArVeloUS thINgS therApeUtIc YogA cAN Do—what it can heal, calm, and alleviate —and I know there is a lot of interest in this. This shows people’s interest in the subject. Therapeutic yoga is often seen and understood on this layer of physical ailments only. But I thought I’d take this conversation in a way I hope might be more interesting and point out that therapeutics is actually benefiting all of us in Iyengar Yoga—the teacher as well as the student or patient. A therapeutics class is often seen as one for people who cannot or should not attend a general class. These people come with various diseases, complications, and disabilities and are recommended to the medical class instead. It is viewed as not ‘real yoga,’ but something offered that is manageable for people. But in fact the people attending medical classes are being introduced to yoga in the way we are all meant to follow it. Right from the beginning, their practice of yoga fulfills the aims of yoga (see Yoga Sutras I.2, 3, 4, 5 and II.1) For them, it is imperative that it does so, to reduce the afflictions and bring to a halt the distorting movements in the consciousness. (By consciousness I mean the whole manifestation of consciousness: the organs of action, senses of perception, elements and tanmatras, mind, intelligence, “I”-ness and inward-moving sensibilities.) Within a yoga therapeutics class, all this is undertaken through the implementation of restraint, rectification, extension, balance, “in-line-ment,” and integration. All these qualities are present in the sadhana (practice) the patient is introduced to. Like all practitioners, having undertaken the first steps on the yogic path, he or she still has a long long journey to undertake, but is fortunate to be positioned on the path.
Photo: Todd Semo
9
Spring /Summer
Yoga Samachar
