Vital Yoga: A Sourcebook for Students and Teachers

321 Pages·2011·15.76 MB·English

by  Meta Chaya Hirschl

Praise for Vital Yoga
“[Meta Chaya Hirschl] offers an excellent overview of yoga styles, as well as
sections on classical asana, advice on selecting teachers and classes, tips on
becoming part of a community, and her take on applying yogic precepts to
daily life via ‘stealth’ yoga. For instructors, Hirschl offers sample yoga se-
quences and advice about the initial steps of opening a studio. As reference
and inspiration, Hirschl’s beautifully illustrated compendium will best serve
novice students and teachers, as well as those aspiring to change careers.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Meta Chaya Hirschl’s contemporary journey through the wonder of yoga
gently nudges superficial fads into perspective and shares refreshingly rel-
evant insights. Vital Yoga’s illustrations, poetic imagery, and key texts en-
rich the inner life of both the teacher and student of yoga: students will
inhabit poses with feeling and energy, while teachers will gain pragmatic
advice on teaching. This is an aesthetically beautiful book, but above all it
is a book permeated with explorative joy!” —Liz Lark,
yoga teacher based in London, author, retreat leader, and artist
“A book with plenty of heart and lots of information.”
—Nicolai Bachman,
author of The Language of Yoga
“Meta Chaya Hirschl’s enthusiasm and love for yoga shine throughout these
pages. Modern and accessible, bridging to the ancient truths, she reaches out
to those of us who are yogis and yet don’t realize it, those of us who want to
grow yet may have been put off by modern-day stereotypes about this ancient
science. . . . [The book] also includes a therapeutic view of yoga, which may
expand our view of health care for future generations.”
—Amadea Morningstar, MA, RPP,
author of The Ayurvedic Cookbook and founder of
Ayurveda Polarity and Yoga Therapy Institute in Santa Fe, New Mexico
THEEXPERIMENT
THEEXPERIMENT BECAUSEEVERY BOOKISATESTOFNEWIDEAS
“The yoga of self-mastery through the breathless state, as practiced for eons
in the East, particularly before the Dark Ages, is a very difficult science to
investigate. For those looking for a more approachable and less intimidating
introduction to the yogas adopted in the West, Vital Yoga provides numer-
ous welcoming doors to a bevy of paths and practices.”
—Sankara Saranam,
founder of The Pranayama Institute
and author of God Without Religion
“Vital Yoga supports yoga students on their search for inner freedom.
Meta Chaya Hirschl blends her life experiences with the lightness that
only wisdom can give. She takes the reader by the hand along the many
paths of yoga tradition.”
—Rossella Baroncini,
yoga teacher based in Florence, Italy
and longtime student of Vanda Scaravelli
“Having been a student of yoga for fifty years and teaching for twenty,
and buying countless books on yoga, I finally stopped buying them, since
it seemed there was nothing new to be said. When Vital Yoga fell into my
hands, I read it cover to cover in one sitting. It is a gem! If a person could
have only one book on yoga, Meta’s would be the one! It is an invaluable
resource for both students and teachers (no matter how many trainings
they may have attended).”
—Barbara Luboff,
yoga teacher based in Santa Fe, New Mexico
V I T A L Y O G A
A S O U R C E B O O K F O R S T U D E N T S A N D T E A C H E R S
M E T A C H A Y A H I R S C H L
THEEXPERIMENT
NEW YORK
Vital Yoga: A Sourcebook for Students and Teachers
Copyright © 2011 by Meta Chaya Hirschl
See page 301 for image credits.
All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in newspaper, magazine, radio, television, or online
reviews, no portion of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or information storage or retrieval
system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
The Experiment, LLC
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www.theexperimentpublishing.com
Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as
trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book and The Experiment was aware of a trade-
mark claim, the designations have been capitalized.
The Experiment’s books are available at special discounts when purchased in bulk for premi-
ums and sales promotions as well as for fundraising or educational use. For details, contact us at
[email protected].
The contents of this book are for educational purposes only and are not intended as a replace-
ment for diagnosis or treatment of any medical or psychiatric ailment. Individuals with such an
ailment should first see their physician or psychiatrist for treatment and make use of yoga therapy
only as an adjunct to such treatment.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Hirschl, Meta Chaya.
Vital yoga : a sourcebook for students and teachers / Meta Chaya Hirschl.
p. cm.
Originally published: Albuquerque, NM : Prajna Pub. Co., 2010.
Summary: “A resource on yoga practices, including mantras, poses, breath work,
meditation, yoga therapy, a historical overview of yoga and yogic texts,
and wisdom of both historic and contemporary yogis”— Provided by publisher.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-61519-040-9 (pbk.)—ISBN 978-1-61519-144-4 (ebook) 1. Yoga—Study and teaching.
2. Hatha yoga—Study and teaching. 3. Meditation. 4. Breathing exercises. 5. Yoga—Therapeutic use.
I. Title.
RA781.7.H57716 2011
613.7’046076—dc23
2011032905
ISBN 978-1-61519-040-9
Ebook ISBN 978-1-61519-144-4
Cover design by Alison Forner
Front cover illustrations by Jodi Call-Swedberg
Back cover illustration by Angela Werneke
Back cover photographs by Tina Larkin
Interior book design by Pauline Neuwirth of Neuwirth & Associates, Inc., based on an
original design by Angela Werneke
Photography by Tina Larkin
Manufactured in the United States of America
Distributed by Workman Publishing Company, Inc.
Distributed simultaneously in Canada by Thomas Allen & Son Ltd.
First published by The Experiment in November 2011
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
This book is dedicated to Betheyla, my teacher,
who became my colleague and cherished friend.
Betheyla embodied yoga, and I am profoundly grateful
to have been in her presence.
Whenever I visited her in the hospital as she lay dying in the fall of 2007,
after the usual discussion on the progress of her illness she wanted to
know about my life—what my daughters were doing, how my yoga
was going, what was happening in my love life, and how the current
astrological array was affecting it all. She was as completely present,
engaging, and interested as she’d ever been. And when I looked into her
eyes as we compared stories and ideas, I’d stop seeing her shriveled body
and instead see only her brilliance, which lit the way of many.
May her memory be a blessing.
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Contents
Preface .......................................................1
Introduction ..................................................7
PART I. BEFORE THE MAT
1. A Panoramic View of History and Ideas ....................19
Historical Overview of Yoga ..................................19
Yogic Texts That Mark the Periods ............................30
Types and Styles of Yoga .....................................34
2. The Foundational Texts of Yoga ............................45
The Yoga Sutras: Laying Out the Path .........................45
The Bhagavad Gita: A Call to Action ..........................61
3. Vibration As Tool ..........................................67
Sanskrit: The Language of Vibration ...........................67
Yoga and Energetics .........................................70
Mantras for Transformation ..................................74
Layers of Experience .........................................76
PART II. ON THE MAT
4. Breath, Bandhas, and Mudras: The Subtle Realm ............85
The Fourth Limb: Pranayama, Breath Control ..................85
The Bandhas and Power ......................................95
Mudras ....................................................97
5. Meditation for Beauty and Bliss ...........................105
The Fifth Limb: Pratyahara, Sense Withdrawal ................105
The Final Three Limbs: Samyama Consciousness ...............107
Meditation Strategies .......................................109
Asana Practice As Meditation ................................113
6. Poses for Freedom ........................................117
Finding the Yoga Class for You ...............................118
The Blessings of Practice ....................................119
Setting Sankalpa, Intention ..................................120
Just Enough Anatomy .......................................121
Power from Core Strength ...................................127
The Third Limb: Asana, Poses ...............................136
vii
PART III. INTO THE WORlD
7. Yoga in Everyday Life ....................................195
Yoga for Building Trust and Confidence .......................195
Yoga As Community. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .196
Yoga for Improving Sex .....................................197
Yoga in a Car ..............................................198
Yoga at the Computer .......................................199
Yoga While Standing .......................................200
Yoga While Shopping .......................................200
The Upside of Squatting ....................................201
Stealth Yoga ...............................................202
The Nonviolent Communication Model .......................203
Yogic Food ................................................207
Karma Yoga ...............................................211
8. Teaching Yoga ...........................................215
The Golden Rule of Teaching ................................220
General Teaching Principles .................................221
Teaching Specific Poses .....................................224
Designing a Class ...........................................245
Types of Classes: Gentle, Level 1, Mixed Level, and Flow ........246
9. Yoga Therapy Training and Yoga As a Profession .........251
Yoga Therapy ..............................................251
General Principles of Yoga Therapy ...........................254
Yoga As a Profession ........................................266
Glossary of Sanskrit Words and Phrases ......................269
Appendix 1: Table of Yoga Poses .............................279
Appendix 2: Student Waiver Agreement ......................282
Appendix 3: Sample Classes ..................................283
Notes .......................................................287
Bibliography ................................................294
Image Credits ...............................................301
In Gratitude ................................................303
Index .......................................................305
About the Author ...........................................312
viii • Contents
Preface
I
f you’d told me as I was walking the catwalk high in the night sky
checking the release valves of the two-story fermenters as a twenty-three-
year-old manufacturing supervisor for Miller Brewing Company in Mil-
waukee, Wisconsin, that later in life I would not only be practicing yoga
but teaching it, I would have had a great belly laugh over a few beers with
my buddies after work.
If you’d suggested to me at age thirty-three, when I was teaching the
use of computers in business to undergraduates at Purdue University and
writing software books, that in a later decade I’d be teaching students how
to teach yoga, I would have thought you had me confused with someone
who actually regarded yoga as more than part of the annoying babble of
New Age pomposity.
If you’d said to me while I was sitting in a room with fifty other sys-
tems consultants and terminals with cable strung like Christmas lights as
we wrote software in the business programming language COBOL for
the international management firm Arthur Andersen & Co. that later,
to celebrate my fiftieth birthday, I would prefer to sit in a ten-day silent
meditation retreat rather than attend an extravagant party, I would have
been sure you didn’t know me.
Many well-known yoga teachers find yoga at a young age and spend
most of their lives in the world of gurus, ashrams, and yoga poses. But I’ve
come to yoga from a different cosmology. I grew up vowing that my work
would be about making it in the world, unconstrained by the traditional
limitations of women’s work: restrictions on job choices, lower pay, often
harder work, and usually not self-supporting in a way that allows real
freedom. The women I grew up around—my mother, grandmothers,
great-grandmother, and neighborhood mothers—almost without excep-
tion stayed at home while their husbands worked as professors, doctors,
lawyers, or businessmen. And it was always clear to me that the women
were at least as smart as the men and often resented the division of labor,
and that the men had the better deal in terms of recognition, success, and
ease of life. I also listened to Gloria Steinem at Wabash College and Kate
Millett at Purdue University and read about all the changes for women
1