Beginner's Resources for Yoga?
Jul. 31st, 2020 08:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ecosophia
I'm closing in on the final details for my manual of occult training, and I find there's one thing I don't know enough to include: a couple of good introductory books on hatha yoga. Since I know I have some yogins and yoginis who read and comment on my journal, I figured that this is the place to ask!What I'm looking for specifically are books for complete beginners that provide the kind of information that will help people figure out whether yoga's what they want to do. Something with good illustrations and a lot of tolerance for varying levels of physical fitness would be helpful! Students of the manual will be encouraged (though by no means required) to take up some kind of body practice. Most of the ones I recommend are things that I've done myself; yoga isn't on that list. but I've had several readers indicate that it goes very well with the Sphere of Protection and discursive meditation, the two keystones of the system of occult training I'm setting out.
So, yoga-literate readers -- what book would you hand to somebody who didn't know the first thing about yoga? Inquiring archdruids want to know.
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(no subject)
Date: 2020-08-01 01:40 am (UTC)A couple resources
Date: 2020-08-01 02:16 am (UTC)The other quicker and more beginner friendly resource would be Isha Foundations free Upa (Pre) yoga course though in video format, about an hour and a half which covers a simple set of practices that strengthens the muscles around the spine, doing some knee rotations and wrist rotations, AUM chanting and a simple meditation. The whole set once you learn it takes like 25 minutes to do. I teach those in public libraries to children above 12 and the elderly with good results. The course can be taken at home too (with some advertising and promotion of other programs in the end of the video if you see them through YouTube).
The APMB goes way deeper into explaining the whole set of Hatha Yoga practices though but also requires a more sustained effort to build your own practice and some caution as not
(no subject)
Date: 2020-08-01 03:31 am (UTC)Jim
(no subject)
Date: 2020-08-01 03:33 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-08-01 03:58 am (UTC)This is tough because there are actually some very good books out there on Yoga and Qi Gong/Nei Gong. I'm not sure how beginner-ish some of these are. Certainly the Bihar books and Dr. Jwing-Ming's books are quite advanced, especially in laying down the foundations behind the praxis.
So in no particular order
1. Tibetan Yoga of Movement: The Art and Practice of Yantra Yoga by Chogyal Namkai Norbu and Fabio Andrico - [ISBN: 9781583945568]
2. A Systematic Course in the Ancient Techniques of Yoga and Kriya by Swami Satyananda Saraswati - [ISBN: 9788185787084]
3. Asana Pranayama Mudra Bandha by Swami Satyananda Saraswati - [ISBN: 9788186336144]
And even though you requested Yoga books I think it would be a shame to disqualify some of the best "yoga" books I've ever read just because they don't come from India.
So here's
4. The Roots of Chinese Qigong by Dr. Yang Jwing-Ming - [ISBN: 9781886969506] - this is the most beginner-ish oriented of Dr. Ming's books that I own. His other books I own are (no-joke) like college textbooks they're so hugely in-depth when it comes to "yoga" and chinese tantric traditions. Dr. Jwing-Ming is China's JMG imo. :P
5. Daoist Nei Gong: The Philosophical Art of Change by Damo Mitchell - [ISBN: 9781848190658]
6. Qigong Empowerment: A Guide to Medical, Taoist, Buddhist, Wushu Energy Cultivation by Master Shou Yu Liang and Wen-Ching Wu - [ISBN: 1889659029] - this book has some rare info along with illustrations and photos I haven't been able to find anywhere else.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-08-01 04:27 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-08-01 04:37 am (UTC)I wish I knew a good book like that! Tried yoga 10 years ago but every system I found seemed to be for people who were already flexible which I definitely was not.
Introduction To Yoga
Date: 2020-08-01 06:06 am (UTC)Hittleman had a video series on PBS way back when, in the time when PBS had almost no original programming. Don’t know if any of the video content is still available.
The book is crisp, clear, and uncluttered with the, ahem, claptrap that yoga got burdened with over the years.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-08-01 06:23 am (UTC)I've been practicing yoga mostly by this book alongside CGD for more than 3 years now with very good effect. So far it's been only asanas, and for the first year I was very particular to drop all chakra and energy related work altogether. I'm planning to keep adding asanas and eventually basic pranayama, bandha, and possibly mudra, maybe one exercise a month, to at least test them for compatibility. So far so good!
If it's not too off topic to ask... How would one approach adopting yoga exercises specifically for CGD? Not just to be compatible while practiced several hours apart but to be fully complementary and strengthening each other?
(no subject)
Date: 2020-08-01 07:42 pm (UTC)My guess is that as long as you don’t get as far as chakra meditation and kundalini practices they could mesh pretty well since they strengthen the material and etheric portion of the aura. Asanas done in a particular sequence with the proper bhandas also increase your sensitivity and are meant to sync your bodies to the solar system. Like surya and chandra namaskar to sync with the cycles of the sun and moon. I don’t know how it plays out with CGD yet though.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-08-02 06:01 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-08-03 02:25 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-08-18 12:07 pm (UTC)I am a newborn with CGD and magical training as a whole, practicing everyday for 2 months now. Around the same time as taking up the daily training, I began to exercise Qi Gong directly after my LRP ritual. I had no side effects until now, where I now might have a Qi imbalance.
I have practiced yoga for years, and loved the practice. Moving my body is very important to me, along with my magical training. Though, I want to do it correctly without harmful repercussions.
What do you recommend in terms of beginning a yoga (or other movement practice if you have had success) with daily CGD? Also, If you have any information on the timing of the practices, say moving the movement practice a few hours after ritual, or being able to practice back to back.
Thank you for your time!!!
Sydney
(no subject)
Date: 2020-08-01 03:23 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-08-04 05:46 pm (UTC)I’ve had a difficult time finding a good basic manual of hatha yoga, but I enjoy referring people to Genevieve Stebbins’s Dynamic Breathing and Harmonic Gymnastics: A Complete System of Psychical, Aesthetic, and Physical Culture (1892), and I’ve been trying to get my hands on Cajzoran Ali’s (an American woman) “Divine Posture Influence upon
Endocrine Glands” 1928.
What worked for me was learning a set of asanas from Rodney Yee’s video ‘Yoga for Energy” 2000. It doesn’t get into chakras or into breathing exercises much, which meant that there wasn’t much to get in the way of learning the DMH breathing and subtle energy practices.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-08-01 06:09 pm (UTC)I also second the recommendation for "Asana pranayama mudra bhanda", and would include Light on Yoga by BKS Iyengar, which is a fairly complete book for beginners and can point some directions for deeper study.
Tibetan yoga of movement
Date: 2020-08-01 06:25 pm (UTC)It teaches a Tibetan Buddhist system of physical yoga suitable for people without initiation, emphasizing the effects on one's breathing.
The main difference from popular forms of Hatha Yoga is that the flow of the movements and the breathings are a lot more emphasized. This is the closest you can get to the more esoteric forms of yoga from a book IMO.
It's not a "copy" of Hatha Yoga. According to research by James Mallinson, physical yoga as a systematic practice with the cakras, channels and so on probably originated in a Buddhist context before 1000 CE too, and later developed over the centuries.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-08-01 06:45 pm (UTC)"Asana, Pranayama, Mudra, Bandha"
Date: 2020-08-01 08:06 pm (UTC)Originally bought directly from the teacher who came from a branch ashram to teach a yoga course in my local area more than 25 years ago. Then 10 years ago bought a second copy from a bookshop to take with me on my travels so that even if something happened I would always have the original.
More than a course this book is a reference, but a very practical one at that, with lots of advice about under what conditions are appropriate to perform each particular practice and what benefit can or cannot be expected from it.
Sorry if I'm late the the party!
Date: 2020-08-01 10:14 pm (UTC)Ron M
(no subject)
Date: 2020-08-02 05:35 am (UTC)Seconded, with addendum
Date: 2020-08-03 02:43 am (UTC)-Katsmama
Magic for Gardeners?
Date: 2020-08-03 02:29 am (UTC)Green Wizard’s Field Report – Yesterday, I rented a skid-steer loader with a rototiller attachment to deal with a Brobdingnag compost heap. The tiller did a good job of turning very rough material into a 20X60 garden bed. Unfortunately, a wet summer and a rainstorm cut the festivities short. Oh, well. I have a rake to deal with what’s left to do.
Anyway – Aside from picking the first Saturday that was favorable from The Old Farmer’s Almanac, I performed no religious or magical rites. Do you know of anything I could do while gardening to properly align my efforts with divine will and show my appreciation for the gods’ favor?
(I’m reading The Druidry Handbook with favorable early returns, and The Celtic Golden Dawn is – naturally – the official magical system of the GWB&PA… so, I guess I’m heading that way. Quite a step from agnostic green mechanic…)
And my other report from the field – I thought rattling off a poem every Friday for a few weeks would be easy, but… nope. As I said, reading “In Praise of Johnny Appleseed” is like being in a rugby scrum just before it starts moving. It doesn’t feel impossible, though. Magical traction, right? So, how do I get more force on my push?
Rusty… err… Cobalt Eldritch Puppy, rather.
PS – Any chance you might expand your remark on progress and Kabbalistic Tree of Life in your “Perpetual Progress” post on the 28th of last month?
(no subject)
Date: 2020-08-03 02:31 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-08-03 01:49 pm (UTC)Fra' Lupo
(no subject)
Date: 2020-08-03 03:29 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-08-03 10:33 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-08-03 11:13 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-08-07 04:06 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-08-04 01:48 pm (UTC)It's VERY friendly towards people with mobility limitations, injuries, low general fitness levels and those not starting out with the stereotypical lithe yoga body. The author was a professional wrestler who discovered yoga as a way to help rehab from all the injuries he suffered in the ring. He makes modifications to suit his large, muscular body and helps others make similar mods as needed but still provide an appropriate challenge . Years ago there was a quite compelling video making the viral rounds of a disabled veteran who was quite overweight and unable to walk without the aid of crutches working through the yoga sequences until he was able to run pain free and even become a yoga instructor himself. This was the yoga material he was working through when he did that.
The book is notably absent of ANY of the esoteric aspects of yoga, which might actually be a plus here as it seems less likely to cause inadvertent contraindications with the other aspects of the training.
There is a compelling hypothesis that modern asana practice actually derives more from western calisthenics than from anything dating back to the earlier yogic traditions from the Sutras etc and that it just happened to be a good fit within the larger yogic practices.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-08-05 02:57 pm (UTC)Here's an article that talks about the connection between the Astral and joints, ligaments and fascia.
https://yogicengineering.com/2017/06/24/issuing-power-into-the-physical-the-role-of-connective-tissue/
Some excerpts:
"As the primary transmission route in the body, training the connective tissue tends to reinforce the health as well. It is noted for making sick men healthy, weak men strong and generating a very potent detoxification effect in those with poor lifestyle habits. What is not so well understood is the role of the physical-astral matrix and the astral-mental matrix in all of this.
Both of these are energetically refined forms of connective, or fasciae, tissue. They act to transmit power back and forth from the mental realm into the astral into the physical. This is why frequent training of the connective tissue via the electric, and magnetic, exercises is so important toward the ability of a practitioner to work their art.
It is also why practitioner who do this kind of work are frequently described as forces of nature on a physical level. Socrates running naked through snow drifts, Musashi’s fashioning a wooden sword out an oar before slaughtering a whole school of rivals and similar events are all a result of this.
It is also why people who fail to perform this training largely engage in astral projection and achieve little else outside “energy healing” and delusion."
and
"The “monk walk” performed by many of the meditative orders out there is frequently their only physical training method, but if performed correctly works well. This is where you see the renunciates moving in super slow motion across a courtyard. Generally speaking they are training astral energy when doing this.
All of these are bottom up training methods and should receive priority in the early years of a practitioner’s development."
1. This article is one reason why I wanted to practice Beginning Angamardana (or Jibengung) as its own separate discipline alongside asanas - until pandemic lockdowns pole-axed that option till who knows when... After hearing Sadhguru talk about the role joints, ligaments and fascia play in awakening I think even the most minor stretching each day is a huge help even if it's not a set of official practices. I also now understand why physical activity has much scientific evidence showing it can be as useful or even better for a lot of mood and panic disorders and other mental illnesses as taking a Big Pharma pill (a lot cheaper to boot). In fact, I started to muse maybe Big Pharma wouldn't be nearly as big as it is if the majority of developed world populations still had "farmer" as their primary day job these days.
2. Here's one other thing that made me grin. Sadhguru says due to the way karma works the less physically oriented your job the more difficult typically you will find it to do meditation practices. It's not impossible. Just going to take more time and effort. He tried to frame it like this: imagine each day you wake up with 100 units of physical activity karma. If all 100 units are spent on a physical labor job it's much easier when told to sit still comfortably. Meanwhile the people whose jobs are more cerebral oriented find they can't sit still, fidget, scratch, shuffle around on the floor or cushion and can't sit still comfortably for long no matter what they do. They have a huge mountain of unspent physical activity karma that makes it more difficult for them to master traditional pranayama, Yogic Asana postures or other kinds of yogic training.
Yoga
Date: 2020-08-13 03:24 pm (UTC)If you do study from a book,consider the MA basics: awareness of weight and stance, active core, watch the hips and knees, don't lock joints or "post" (locking joints for support instead of muscle engagement).
Just like MA, when the mechanics work, you are stronger and can move energy around. The meditation part is similar as well.
Yoga is really good for physical rehab. Builds strength and stretch with low impact exercise, especially if you engage muscle properly. I'm a little guy and I studied Chinese MA in some hard schools. Did yoga with the ladies when I needed patching up.
If you want a book, consider B.K.S. Iyengar's work. He was the biggest innovator in modern yoga. Powerful well into old age and seemed to be a good guy. His biggest breakthrough was using props to support poses as the student built strength. Emphasis on precision in posture. His books are the real deal, and students who present his work are usually good conduits.
--John Dunn