Posts Tagged ‘Richard Hittleman’

Asana, the gateway drug

Leslie on 5:28 pm June 6th, 2010 / 1 Comment »

At the end of our teacher training program this summer, we have to write a paper on: What Is Yoga? Just a bite-size topic, really.

Over the course of the past several months, I’ve thought a lot about why I started doing yoga. I saw it on TV while I was a stressed-out high school student, feeling ill most of the time for no medical reason, and something about it drew me in. I was never an athlete by any stretch of the imagination, but the poses looked inviting. So I bought a paperback at the B. Dalton’s bookstore at my local mall, “Richard Hittleman’s Yoga: 28-Day Exercise Plan.” Subtitled: “A dramatically different four-week exercise plan that unlocks the secrets of a lifetime of health, beauty and profound peace of mind.” It looks like it was first published in 1969. I did some of the poses (illustrated by a slim blond white chick) but was intimidated by many of them. I took a class in college, and it went from there over the years.

The spiritual side was always in the background, depending on the teacher, but usually diffuse. Even today, while learning more about the sutras and other elements that have contributed to what we think of as yoga, it seems that the practice is a real smorgasbord, for better and worse. If and when I get around to a new book I recently bought called “Yoga Body: The Origins of Modern Posture Practice” by Mark Singleton, I’ll read about, the cover says, how there is no evidence in the Indian tradition for the fitness-oriented asana practice we know today. The thesis is that modern yoga is rooted in Indian nationalism, bodybuilding and Western gymnastics. *Discuss.*

I’ve known some folks who came to asana practice only after exploring the spiritual side, such as through meditation, and I wonder whether this is an increasing trend. Or do most Westerners start exploring yoga first through the body, then the mind and heart? Or is it an even split?

Which brings me to body issues. I’m just winding down (or winding back up?) after a week of vacation. One of the books I read is a funny memoir about hypochondria, “Well Enough Alone” by Jennifer Traig. While describing her OCD-like fixations with diseases real and imagined, she gives an interesting history of not just hypochondria but also dentistry and, to a degree, the medical field. As someone who does yoga, experiencing my body on a visceral level and learning about how it works, trying to come to terms with everything I hate about it (I was put on a diet by my pediatrician in about the 6th grade — is it any wonder why I have self-esteem issues?), I can relate to how a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. The book posits that people have been trying to come to terms with the mind-body connection for centuries, with the word “hypochondria” dating to Hippocrates in the 4th century BCE. (It’s also interesting to me that ahimsa is a lot like part of the Hippocratic oath, first do no harm.) Anyway, hypochondria was at first associated with mood-related stomach trouble, then later with sleeplessness, irritability and malaise. I could reach for a metaphor about the gut, but you get the idea. If only these people had yoga! Or did they? One could also argue that such issues are problems of more privileged classes, rather than, say, hunter-gatherers, but that’s another story.

So as my husband and I drove back home from the beach, I tried to loosen the vise that was tightening around my chest and the knot that was forming in my stomach in anticipation of returning to real life and its more stressful obligations. A teacher with whom I’ve done a few workshops calls asana the “bait” that lures many of us to yoga, the practice of which is ultimately (he says) about the revelation of the self and fulfillment of dharma. Mostly, I just want to feel better — in my body and about my body, but also on a deeper level that allows me to live more fully and truthfully. Nearly 30 years ago, when I bought that cheesy paperback, I must’ve known that yoga held this promise.