Seoul Rebels

Heaven-sent environmentalism in South Korea; Mike Ball reports on an extraordinary protest.

Would you be prepared to die for something you truly believed in? In South Korea environmentalists are taking their protests to extreme measures and capturing the mood of the nation facing up to the realities of the Iraqi war.

Every spring a bird of practically no interest to almost anyone lands at a threatened wetland on South Korea’s coast. The wetland is the 401-square-kilometre Saemangeum, one of the Yellow Sea’s most vital ecological resources, and the bird is the unknown bar-tailed godwit. About the size of a farmyard cockerel, the bar-tailed godwit has just flown non-stop direct across the Pacific Ocean from New Zealand, an incredible journey of about 9,000 kilometres. If the bar-tailed godwit was to lose Saemangeum, the first suitable feeding habitat these birds have seen since leaving New Zealand, up to 30% of the world’s population of bar-tailed godwits will certainly die from exhaustion. But as circumstances stand in South Korea, however, that mortal eventuality is a certainty because Saemangeum is being reclaimed, all 401 square kilometres of it.

It is to be developed and dammed off behind the world’s largest ever seawall and to be turned into unwanted rice fields, industrial zones, a new model city, and unbelievably, the world’s largest golf complex. Until Saemangeum the world had never taken much notice of the ruination of Korea’s unique nature. What was different this time, and what made the international public suddenly sit up and see, was firstly the breathtaking scale of the reclamation and secondly, the activism of Buddhist and Catholic monks in the protest campaign whose level of commitment was simply awe-inspiring.

In Spring 2003 a Catholic priest, Moon Gyu-hyun, and a Buddhist monk, Sukyung, set off on a 330-kilometre Samboilbae journey from Saemangeum to Seoul. The Samboilbae, a penance in fact, took sixty-five days of walking three steps forward, then a full-length prostrated bow stretched out on the ground, repeated and repeated, all the way to Korea’s capital city. Speaking in the UK last year, Sukyung said, “All the people walked three steps and bowed, and walked another three steps and bowed, and walked. We all toiled, wept, and bled all the way to Seoul… I got exhausted on the way, and even had knee surgery. Fortunately, I could recover and join the long slow walk again. It was of course painful, but it was also joyful. It was genuine happiness through repentance.”

Not surprisingly, the world was impressed, but to really understand where the commitment to complete an act of penance such as that came from, you have to look to the announcement the green alliance of Korean spiritual leaders, represented by Moon Gyu-hyun and Sukyung, made before the Samboilbae.

“We hereby sincerely supplicate for life and peace for Saemangeum and the whole world… There has been quite a lot of destruction and death here at Saemangeum tidal flat. It is a great battlefield made of human fault and greed. We can hear the cries of Iraqi children from the suffering breath of Saemangeum tidal flat. We can see that our cold-hearted desire to gain temporary benefit with the cost of this innocent tidal flat’s pain and death, bears no difference to the shameful act of sacrificing guiltless Iraqi people to gain profit.”

Seeing the destruction of Saemangeum and the killing just begun in Iraq as the same has given Korean environmental activism a drive familiar from the Vietnam War. Remember the picture of the Buddhist monk who set himself on fire protesting that war?

Once able to get away with dubious environmental practices without a peep of protest, the Korean powers are now suddenly faced with opponents who firmly believe they are responsible for mass slaughter. On the 3rd February 2005, the Venerable Jiyul Sunim, a Buddhist monk from Naewonsa monastery on Mt. Cheonseong, 420 kilometres from Seoul, had been fasting for one hundred days. In fact, this was her fourth period of hunger resistance, a total of two hundred days. Two days before, the Hankyoreh, South Korea’s major liberal daily, reported in an editorial, “There is a growing social outcry in response to the hunger strike of Venerable Jiyul, whose life is extinguishing like a flame in the wind… We repent for our inability to come up with ideas for dealing with the situation when a monk is looking death in the face, and appeal on the government and the whole of society, that they would seek a solution.”

The situation that the Venerable Jiyul was protesting, and yes, prepared to lay her life down for was the natural destruction that would result from building a railway tunnel through the mountain where her monastery was located. Primary among her concerns was the salvation of the rare clawed salamander. The tunnel in question is the 16-kilometre Won-Hyo tunnel on the Seoul to Busan high speed railway. In October 1994 an Environmental Impact Assessment of the construction was implemented by the Korea Rail Network Authority. This assessment, however, failed to mention the geology of the route: threatened habitats such as twenty-two unique highland swamps, two of which were designated protected areas; as many as nine national natural monuments; and over thirty species of rare flora and fauna including the clawed salamander.

Protesting the invalidity of the assessment and calling for a new Environmental Impact Assessment, the Venerable Jiyul began with civic movements and Samboilbae throughout South Korea. As a result, the then presidential candidate, and now President, Roh Moo-hyun, pledged during his campaign that he would nullify the tunnel and insist on an alternative route. The President however failed to honour this pledge and Venerable Jiyul launched her first hunger strike on February 2nd 2003. Consecutive bouts of the government conceding to her then failing to live up to their promises led to Venerable Jiyul fasting again, beginning October 13th 2003 and ending November 16, then again in July 2004, and then her fourth period of fasting.

Late in the night of the 3rd of February however, just as she was on the verge of death, the Venerable Jiyul won. South Korea’s Prime Minister and the Minister of Environment agreed to the new Environmental Impact Assessment she had been demanding; furthermore, that the assessment was to be conducted under a joint commission, and all construction activities affecting the re-assessment were suspended.

The courage displayed by the Venerable Jiyul can only be guessed at by most of us, but, and perhaps this ought to be regarded as equally significant, her act of incredible courage is simply the visible head of what is amounting to a revolution in South Korean public opinion. While the government attempted to push on with Won-Hyo tunnel and as the Venerable Jiyul lay dying, 100,000 handmade origami salamanders were collected in Seoul’s Central City Square. While in a recent survey, 81% of South Koreans were against the Saemangeum reclamation project, preferring to see the internationally prestigious record-beating development (already having cost their nation billions) abandoned.

With religious leaders from Korea’s four major faith communities – Catholic and Protestant Christians, Buddhists and Won Buddhists – at the sharp edge, environmentalism in Korea now enjoys mass popular support, a real headache for the authorities who until now have relied on their citizens complacency with regards to ecological ruination.

In truth, though, it would be simplistic to say the roots of this change in Korean culture is all to do with the actions of a committed few. The root causes are many, from fishermen losing their livelihoods at Saemangeum, to Koreans with friends in Australia and New Zealand expressing dismay at the destruction of migratory birds they consider just as much theirs, to many Koreans just getting tired of their nation’s low world esteem and recognising good ecological stewardship as an avenue for international credit.

For the flora and fauna of South Korea, what matters is that all of a sudden, the unknown bar-tailed godwit and the even more obscure clawed salamander have defenders prepared to go to great lengths in their cause. Ask almost any South Korean citizen, and they’ll tell you it’s important.

“Mountains, rivers, and oceans have committed no sins. Trees, flowers, wild animals have committed no sins either. It is only humankind that has committed faults and sins. The American invasion upon Iraqi people is just the same shameful sin as Koreans’ ruthless exploitation of their own ecology. War and pollution have the same roots. All wars are futile life killing, just like environmental destruction.

“I find my place for discipline not only in the temple and the quiet retreat, but also wherever Nature is being destroyed. Disappearing tidal flats, cruelly maimed mountains, and rotten rivers are the very sites I find my place for repentance. War-stricken Iraq as well as divided Korea is my place for discipline.

“My Samboilbae has not yet finished. It is just a small beginning. One step for my confession, another step for disciplining my mind, still another step for repentance. I will call up all the lives dying from pollution, all the names being killed in the wars. I believe the green forces are sprouting all over the Earth, the Green Star. In Korea, day-by-day, cries are having strong repercussions for preserving the Earth and resisting wars. I don’t think it is just wishful thinking that the 21st Century will be the age of Life and Peace.

“On returning to Korea, I will set out on a pilgrimage with Do-Beop who came here with me. I will walk and visit all the villages in Korea, and try to sow seeds for Life and Peace. It may take three years or five years. I really don’t know. However, I will walk and walk, with the spirit of Samboilbae,” said Sukyung, speaking at the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds’ Snettisham Reserve, The Wash, UK, in January 2004.

The struggle to save Saemangeum continues. For more information and offers of support see: www.birdskorea.org.

Mike Ball for Yoga Magazine

Portrait of an Artist

For those of you familiar with the sounds of kirtan, Sada Sat Kaur’s name will ring the kind of bells most associated with devotional healing acoustics. For the benefit of those strangers to the world of mantras and chanting, Sada Sat has been singing and leading classical kirtan groups around the world since the 1970s.

Thirty years is a long time in the music industry, so it may come as a surprise to find out that Sada Sat first stepped into the recording studio a mere two years ago, almost three decades since the start of her kirtan ‘career’. Busy with other projects and closely involved with the work of Yogi Bhajan it wasn’t until a chance meeting in the mountains of New Mexico with musical artist and producer Jeremy Toback that the decision to cut an album was eventually forged.

This meeting of the minds led to the creation of Angels’ Waltz, an expression of the power of ancient Kundalini chants performed in the ancient language of Gurmukhi. The emphasis for the album, Sada Sat explains, was very much on “doing a very particular kind of meditation album that we used in kundalini yoga for morning meditation. And then as he (Jeremy) and I were talking we realized that we both actually wanted to get much beyond that and make it appealing to people who didn’t just do kundalini yoga meditation. And that it would be something that people generally, and possibly beyond the yoga world, would like as it was not your standard chant CD… We wanted people who weren’t necessarily looking for something in yoga to still find this beautiful music and enjoy listening to it”.

An audio fusion of East meets West can be heard on both her studio outings, Angels’ Waltz and Shashara and is what makes it stand out from the “standard chant CD” and accessible to those merely looking for a melodic chill out album. With a focus on the simplicity of beautiful music making, Sada Sat and producer Jeremy have produced soulfully uplifting vocals wrapped up in a fusion of sounds that range from the cosmic shakti energy to rock to folk to country and western.

This eclectic blending of influences stems from above all a love of all types of music. Raised in a family that played many musical instruments, the healing energy of music was ingrained in her at an early age. “I think there are very few kinds of music that I am not attracted to, just about every kind of music in some way or another I have appreciation for and have been drawn to at different times in my life. Everything from bluegrass and even what we in America call pre-bluegrass, which is so raw you wouldn’t really recognize it as country music or bluegrass. Everything from that to show tunes to opera. I think there is nothing that I don’t love”.

In order to honour the diversity of her musical influences upon the albums, producer Jeremy called upon his contacts in the music industry. They all brought with them a wealth of contributing talent who possessed the ability to translate their music into the kind of sound Sada Sat was looking to achieve. “This was where Jeremy was so good,” Sada Sat recalls. “He really understood the people. When we talked about a concept and I would say ‘this is what I am looking for’, he would say ‘I know just the person.’”

One of the people Jeremy brought to the album was Greg Leisz. A respected name on the music circuit, Greg has worked with some of the biggest names in the industry. From the Smashing Pumpkins and Beck to Joni Mitchell and kd lang, he has been bringing his inimitable pedal steel and lap steel guitars expertise to albums for many a long year. His ability to play so many different instruments in so many different styles meant that for Sada Sat he represented the perfect choice to make this transition with the sounds she loves and take it into a whole new genre. The results were a whole new sound forged, and in less than a week in the studio! Her musical roots are what ultimately have sustained her lifelong relationship with kundalini yoga and mantras and which in turn have led her to the present position of recorded artist. “I think one of the reasons that kundalini yoga is such a perfect fit for me is that it is so filled with music and mantra. I almost feel that I wouldn’t have ended up doing yoga if I haven’t have found kundalini.”

She describes herself as having always been very spiritual even as a child and always in search of that “perfect religious experience”. It was in her early twenties that a chance meeting first introduced her to yoga as an alternative to the religious experiences she had been seeking in different belief systems. “I met this woman who said to me have you ever heard of yoga, you should try doing yoga. So I found some books on yoga like Richard Hittleman, this was a long time ago back in the late sixties, early seventies, and I started trying yoga, I had no idea what I was doing but I started trying it. And then through a series of events I discovered kundalini yoga.”

It was through a mixture of kundalini yoga and geography that she came to meet Yogi Bhajan, a relationship that was to blossom into a life long personal and professional kinship. Both were based in Los Angles and at the time her husband had started the Yogi Tea company. “Yogi Bhajan was really the person in a lot of ways who helped direct our business”. Through these contacts Sada Sat came to work directly for him on certain accounts of his, doing books of his, fundraising and also travelling extensively with him to perform kirtan. “He would say things like ‘I am going to London next week and you are coming with me to do kirtan!’”

Her travels with Yogi Bhajan quite literally took her all the way around the world, leading kirtan and performing mantras for crowds that could number up to twenty thousand people. These vast crowds would gather in India where they would turn up to a park on a Sikh holiday and every single person would know the mantra. An overwhelming experience for the majority of us, but for Sada Sat it was not the size of the crowd that ultimately mattered, but the depth of feeling put into the performance. “Yogi Bhajan said to me that when you chant you should always be able to hear all of the angel’s singing. So even if there’s just one person singing you should feel like there’s a whole crowd there and when you can really go into that depth of experience it really doesn’t matter as the whole universe is singing”.

As a teacher she describes him as meticulous and the kind of tutor who wouldn’t let you get away with anything. Sometimes, she recalls, she would be in New Mexico (he divided his time between there and LA) leading kirtan and he would come into the room and stop her half way through and correct her in front of everyone! “So it was just this constant experience of being able to learn more and more and more about how to really perfect it. He was what we called a master of nada yoga, which is the sound currents, and he was able to translate that and help you understand it on the earth plane. How you chant and how your tongue touches the meridians inside your mouth that affect your meditative state.”

Mantras for Sada Sat represent just that, her chance to escape into a state of meditative bliss. “I am not the kind of person who likes to sit still. Some people love to sit still and meditate and I can do that. It’s not that I can’t do that, its just that for me my meditation is chanting. So when I sit with my harmonium I am able to get into that meditative state and I am doing something. At the same time I feel so in the flow when I am making music and am chanting… it takes you to that place where you can hear that nullity that doesn’t play on the earth, it just plays in your heart”.

With such a close relationship with Yogi Bhajan, his death last October must have come as quite a loss for her. “I was very blessed I was in his life and he was in my life very closely for 20 years or more… It has been quite a journey for me since his death in October and sometimes its very sad still and painful for me. But at other times I am so aware of his presence still, especially when I teach, it’s been a process… When I chant the mantra ‘Gobinday Mukunday’ (a love song to God) I feel that what I meditate on is his love for god and understanding, and getting a feeling of what his love for God is. His depth and quality and infinity of that is what I feel when I chant that mantra.”

This along with other traditional and popular kundalini mantras can be found on both her albums. Favourites such as the empowering ‘Adi Shakti’, the exalting ‘Guru Guru Wahe Guru’, to the healing ‘Ra Ma Da Sa’ are there for all to join in with and assist us as we try to tune in to our higher selves. Chanting can be one of the most direct ways of opening our hearts and minds especially when combined with the accompanying mudras that have been compiled and presented on the albums. “I kind of couldn’t help myself,” explains Sada Sat, “because I teach, I want to be able to share with people the most that they can possibly get in their experience of chanting and mantras. So if they want to add that one more piece of being able to sit and meditate and find a mudra that will exponentially increase their experience of a mantra, then here it is.”

You may listen to the CD at home and love it so much you even consider going along to participate in a group session of kirtan. But you have not necessarily been blessed with a voice from the Gods. What then? Do you stay in the comfort zone of your living room happily muddling along by yourself or do you feel the fear and pop along to a session and mumble quietly at the back? “I always tell people straight off that chanting and singing is not the same thing. Chanting is the experience of sound within you and moving your mouth and your tongue and your breath… it’s not about having a gorgeous voice, its for your own personal enjoyment of it. There’s no right and wrong in chanting and one of the things I learned early on, if you start off chanting and you are not sure if you have got it really right, just do it anyway. Because eventually your intention from your heart will lead you to be able to do it better… if you just listen and trust, your ear will come.”

There has been a surge in popularity over the years in what has been rather clumsily labelled as ”New Age” music and more and more people have been turning to the ways of the East as a remedy to the stresses of modern day living. As a recorded artist of the up and coming sounds of the times, I am intrigued to understand where Sada Sat sees this rise coming from. “I think it’s the changing times. As we get closer to the Aquarian age, things become more challenging, and changes have to occur before we get to that Aquarian age. Because it is an age of knowing rather than just leading, so people really need to know the experience of God from within themselves. And there’s a lot of change needed in order for that to happen and everyone individually has to do that work. The pressure is on whether people know it or not. So they are looking for a way to feel God… life now is so crazy and so insanely pressured that people are looking for ways to get beyond time and space because within the time and space of this world it’s almost inhuman. And the way we get there is to go back to this ancient technology that gives people a sense of their infinity. That tunes them into their breath, that helps them to know there is something beyond just the physical world and helps them get their peace they can find inside. And that they can leave that world behind even if its for a few moments and yoga and meditation chanting gives them that chance.”

Currently Sada Sat has retreated to the serenity of Perugia in Italy and is in the process of renovating an old farmhouse where she can teach kundalini yoga and chant her mantras to the accompanying sounds of nature in abundance. In a country where Gregorian chant originally sprang up, the new setting seems entirely appropriate to accommodate her constantly expanding musical tastes and influences. Maybe next time Sada Sat returns to the recording studio we could see a collaboration that enlists monks over rock musicians, to helps her breathe the tradition of prayer, praise and worship that chanting is all about.

Michelle Georgeson for Yoga Magazine

Teachers on a Mission

Singh and Brett with Ilse Mindling (centre)

Ravi Singh and Ana Brett talk to Halima Malik about kundalini energy, the benefits of a live food diet, and why we’ve never needed yoga more.

Ravi Singh and Ana Brett are yoga teachers on a mission. With 40 years’ teaching experience between them and a star-studded client list that includes Gwyneth Paltrow, Madonna, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, they are ambassadors for kundalini yoga. Their teacher training, workshops, books and DVDs are enjoyed worldwide, and they see kundalini yoga as the most effective tool for vibrant health, self-expansion and exciting personal breakthroughs.

Ravi is known as the “teachers’ teacher” and he has trained more than 300 practising kundalini yoga teachers. He has also helped found yoga centres in New York City and Los Angeles. His innovative and poetic style has been seen as instrumental to yoga’s current popularity. Ana has been studying dance and yoga from the age of ten and now teaches at all levels. Known as “technique guru” to the New York City Ballet, she is also a fervent proponent of a live food diet. When Ravi was growing up he was fascinated by Eastern spiritual and philosophical traditions. His curiosity led him to study in greater depth and he took up hatha yoga and Transcendental Meditation (TM), a system of meditation founded by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in the 1950s. “It was one of the first systems that came from the East,” says Ravi. “When I was at college I thought I had everything covered. I took a psychology course and got an overview of all the major Eastern modalities that were coming into vogue.” At that time one of the late guru Yogi Bhajan’s first students came to give a kundalini class. Ravi remembers its immediacy and recalls how powerful that class was. “I realised ‘there is something here: it’s really quite a technology.’ That started me. Soon after, I moved to New York to be a poet of all things. It was the 1970s and I was in my early twenties, so moving to New York seemed like an obvious move for me.” As he evolved as a yoga teacher, he grew to better understand and connect with kundalini energy. This is understood as a powerful source of internal energy which is located at the base of the spine, coiled like a snake, which when activated, rises up through the body, opening the consciousness.

Ravi and Ana’s style of kundalini yoga has been described as “poetical”. Ravi says the inspiration for the style is based on a fusion of his literal poetry writing and Ana’s dance background. He describes his experience of coming to the yogic path as similar to Ana’s. “I quickly came to see that I wanted to transform lives. I had been living in a kundalini ashram in Chicago. Most of my friends were writers and we would get together in the living room and have a yoga class. I came to realise what art purports to do and that yoga actually transforms people. I embraced the yoga and chose to devote my life to it because it helps people immediately.”

Kundalini Yoga for Strength, Success and Spirit and Ravi’s other book Kundalini Yoga for Body, Mind and Beyond are both bestsellers and he has a rich and deep understanding of the style of yoga he practises from a practical, theoretical and philosophical angle. So what motivated him to become a yoga teacher? Ravi says: “If you want to master something, you have to teach it. Part of my motivation for teaching it to my friends was to be certain that I got my practice in. I realised that having other people there doing it with you stopped you from slacking off. You have to be accountable. So that was my motivation initially. I really believed in it and kept doing it because it’s so relevant to people’s lives.”

Ana’s background is in dance, which informs her approach to yoga. She met Ravi in 2001 in New York, when she was teaching in his yoga centre. They merged their teachings, and then their lives. Finding a peaceful and harmonious relationship together, they married. “Yoga offers the opportunity for people to get everything covered and still have time for a life,” says Ravi. “Yoga also opens you to a lifestyle. For instance Ana follows a live food diet, which is raw vegetarian food.” For many people this is a natural consequence of practising yoga: you begin to question what you consume and gradually change your diet to a healthier one.

The process works two ways: yoga inspires a healthier lifestyle, which in turn boosts our practice. “The more subtle and pure we are the more the yoga works the way it should do,” says Ravi. “I am a vegan – a pure vegetarian – but Ana has taken a step forward. and embraced this live food path. It’s not for everyone and it requires commitment. In terms of health and beauty it’s unparalleled – you really see the difference.”

“Live food diet means eating food not cooked above 116 degrees,” explains Anna. “This is the temperature at which food loses its essential enzymes.” She’s keen to point out that live food offers more than just carrot sticks. “I eat a lot of nuts and avocado. I probably eat more fat than most people, but the fats are essential fats. They help regulate your weight.

“The biggest misconception I hear from people all the time is ‘you must have to eat a lot of food’, which isn’t true,” she says. Ana’s glowing skin and amazing level of fitness are probably the best answer to any critics. Some recent news reports have portrayed yoga as contributing to eating disorders such as anorexia. Ana takes a pragmatic view. “Yoga, but especially kundalini – which seems to do it quicker – balances people’s glandular and nervous systems and works on an emotional level. If you are too heavy, it will bring you into balance to where you should be. I can’t see anyone turning anorexic, but then there will always be people who go to extremes.” Anorexia and obesity can both be linked to emotional or glandular imbalance, so yoga should be a useful tool in managing these diseases. Ana says: “A regular yoga practice is definitely going to look after that. As for live food – I found it’s increased my energy so much because of the enzymes it includes. And enzymes are the life force or prana of food.” “We try to increase the life force in the body and the diet helps. I eat good amounts of food but no more than regular people. I have coconut milkshakes everyday. It’s really not a hardship. I also have live food recipes on the website. But I think yoga gradually detoxes the body. As the body becomes purer you naturally move towards to a diet that is more pure.”

During her teaching Ana has also come across yoga teachers who say, “If you are going to practise yoga you need to give up this and that”. However, it’s difficult to give up everything in one go, for instance eating meat, or drinking cola. Over time, as yoga becomes an integral part of life, people tend to become aware that their mind and body is changing and so they will change accordingly. Ana elaborates: “People come up to me stressed and say ‘I am still smoking’ when they have just started yoga. I tell them, ‘Don’t worry about it. Those things naturally fall away.’ I don’t think anyone needs to struggle – I think ‘stop trying to quit’ – the body naturally comes into balance and bad habits fall away. You know some people may need some meat too. I don’t push any particular diet. Different people have different needs.”

Ravi and Ana lead teacher-training courses together in Amsterdam, Hawaii and the USA. So what makes a good yoga teacher? Ana says: “It’s someone who really embodies their practice and someone who is still learning. I think you can only teach what you have experienced yourself. “During our teacher-training sessions we try to emphasise being grounded a lot and being present because the more present you are the more sensitive you are to yourself and so the more sensitive you can be to other people. So you can experience what’s going on with you and translate that to other people.”

When he started teaching yoga, Ravi remembers being inspired by the people who had been teaching kundalini because they had a presence and what he calls ‘a core strength and immediacy’. “When they spoke about higher consciousness, they were speaking from experience,” he says. Through their teacher-training Ravi and Ana aim to create ‘well-rounded teachers who have the credibility to teach’. “We also try to project kundalini as a continuum of yoga, not just some isolated style – because all yoga is all-encompassing,” says Ravi. “The other thing we feel makes good teachers is to empathise with the students and to come from a place of love.” Ana and Ravi have taught yoga classes all over the world, and in situations as varied as prisons, backstage on Broadway and to street kids. “We have taken a lot of yoga classes and we believe that a teacher should serve the student,” says Ravi. “The essence of kundalini yoga is to activate the spirit, the chakras, the inspiration; that’s when the teacher knows the spirit is alive in them, that’s when it makes an impact, that’s when they come across as a teacher,” Ravi says. He believes that some form of regulation is important, but says: “a piece of paper doesn’t make a teacher.” It takes years of training and practice.

Ravi suggests that students need to take responsibility for their study, especially since they will produce the next generation of teachers. “I think students need to be a little bit wary and really explore the credentials of whoever they are learning from,” he says. “I think it’s really important for yoga students to understand what they are getting into and I think that will improve the quality of teachers as well.” Ravi believes there’s more to teaching than simply imparting knowledge to a student. “There is a symbiotic relationship between the teacher and student – teachers learn from students as well. When Ana came into my life I had been teaching for 25 years and I learnt a lot from her about alignment and anatomy and how you use proper form to take a step forward.”

The “spirit” is the core to yoga for many teachers, but some people shy away from this idea. Ravi feels that it is absolutely key. “Above and beyond all the methodology is that spirit. It will come across even if the person isn’t eloquent, but if that inner fire is there, people feel it.” He sees the teacher’s role as passing on that flame of spirit. “That fire lights other people and that’s what makes a good teacher – to kindle souls and get people motivated within.”

Over the years Ravi and Ana have witnessed the impact yoga has had on people’s lives and how it has changed them for the better. Ravi cherishes seeing students become teachers themselves. “I have seen how they blossom. I see their impact on other people and that’s awesome. When they start teaching their lives are transformed and they are witness to so many miracles.” Yoga’s current popularity in the west suggests it is sorely needed by contemporary society. “In America people’s lifestyles are just getting so out of control,” says Ravi. “People are under a lot of stress and more and more are taking mind-altering drugs such as tranquillisers and anti-depressants. The need has never been greater for something like kundalini yoga. Pretty soon something has to give.” He is sure that yoga holds the answer. “What we see is people returning to balance. The reason why yoga works is because it helps you keep a balance in life. I think that these problems have never been so acute and there’s a lot of work to be done. It’s why we are so inspired to train teachers.”

Ravi and Ana acknowledge that people come to classes for a variety of reasons, from improving flexibility to getting a flatter stomach to tuning in with their spirit. “I think there is a direct route through the physical to the spiritual, and they are going to get there whether they come for their flexibility or their navel,” says Ana. Ravi goes on: “Everyone is interested in a firm stomach, but achieving this also works on the manipura chakra, the seat of will. So when a person’s navel is strong you can get more done and you become fearless.”

Their Warrior Workout DVD helps to improve circulation and detox the body, but goes a step further. “On another level it is the archetype of having the ability to go beyond,” says Ravi. “We say that how you participate in exercise is how you live your life. Learning to do more than you thought can transform your mindset and give you greater possibilities.” Yoga demonstrates that the mind and body can’t be separated into two entities and Ravi and Ana demonstrate this in their work. “The warrior workout gives people the opportunity to do more than they thought they could. We don’t want people to do more than they are ready for. But we want people to understand that they have a lot more strength and resources inside of them than they knew.” Both Ravi and Ana are buzzing with a vibrant energy. Their secret? Ana explains: “The more energy you put out – the more you get back. And it helps to love what you are doing.”

Ravi and Ana’s DVDs include Ultimate Stretch Workout, Navel Power, Warrior Workout and Fat Free Yoga. They are priced at £14.99 and available from www.yogamatters.com

For more information about Ravi and Ana’s tour schedule and teacher training courses in Amsterdam, Hawaii and the USA visit www.raviana.com

Halima Malik for Yoga Magazine

Spirituality and the Media

Can you get enlightened while watching TV? Achieve liberation while surfing the internet? Or does realization pop up from your PC screen?

Probably not. And yet, don’t we all spend a considerable part of our private and working life in front of a computer or TV? One might wonder how we are all affected by this frequent contact with the media. The archetypes of spiritual evolution – the Yogi in the Himalayas or the Christian hermit in the loneliness of the desert – they both appear to be exactly the opposite of the flickering, flashing and peeping world of the media. Does this mean that spiritual perfection or even spiritual progress are out of reach for us? And how exactly are we affected by the media? Is there anything we can do about it?

TV-samadhi?
Let’s have a closer look at television. If we examine the effects of television, we may observe that while watching TV, the eyes’ activity is close to zero. There is no need to adapt to a variety of distances and no “scanning” of objects (by looking at countless spots of an object in a split second) is possible. Yet, frequent cuts (every 2-5 seconds), zooms and pans generate an illusion of self- activity.

When measured on the EEG, the brain of a person watching TV shows predominantly “slow” alpha-waves which are generally associated with a very relaxed or even sleep-like state of mind, usually occurring with eyes closed. Now, quite surprisingly, the same sort of alpha-waves is also found on a person in meditation, whose mind has been withdrawn from the outer world of the senses and is serene, but not dreaming or asleep. Does watching TV then get us into a meditative state? Can we do away with our morning meditation and simply let the TV lead us into the deepest absorption?

Certainly not, for if we take a closer look we might notice the fundamental difference between the alpha-waves brought about by meditation and those caused by watching TV.

While the meditation alpha-waves have been caused by the inner activity of stilling and focusing the mind, the person watching TV gets them from being lulled into a sleep-like state by pictures from the outside. It is a state which is similar to daydreaming and therefore quite contrary to the inner awareness of meditation.

It has to be emphasized at this point that the effects of TV as described so far are completely unrelated to the actual content of the program. These effects have their sole cause in the physiological nature of television. The often dreadful quality of TV programs is a completely different matter.

It should have become clear by now that watching TV in its effect on us is the complete opposite of meditation. Scientific research suggests that watching TV long and frequently will result in a dramatic decline in the power of imagination. That means that watching TV actually threatens our ability to meditate.

What to do?
But this mechanism is reversible. From that angle, meditation can be a method to balance and heal the damage caused by television. The inner activity of creating and concentrating on thoughts and images or simply witnessing the thought process strengthens and develops exactly those soul-forces that may become damaged by watching TV.

Hardly anybody will be able or willing to avoid contact with TVs or computers altogether. And maybe that’s not even necessary…

The power of conquest
Whenever we manage to overcome a difficult situation, we emerge stronger and more experienced from it. This applies to the individual as well as humanity as a whole. Mankind today faces the challenge of developing new strength and awareness by understanding and overcoming the one-sidedness and harmful effects of modern life.

Here lies the chance of developing a new quality of strength which could never be developed without this challenge. But there is also a real danger of losing this battle. This defeat will then result in addiction, severe physical and mental illness, depression, extreme fears or a strong materialistic and selfish attitude.

Creating a balance
People in the past usually lived in healthy, natural living conditions and, without any effort on their own, benefited from an intact ecological system, had a lot of physical exercise and lived close to nature and its rhythms of night and day. By contrast, it’s important for us today to consciously take a few steps towards a healthy balanced lifestyle. If we just go along with the way of life suggested to us by the world we live in, we will probably sit too much and exercise too little or be constantly forced into monotonous, unnatural movements like driving a car, typing a text or dialling numbers. Our minds will be bombarded and overwhelmed by countless images and emotions from movies, news and advertisements.

So the first thing to do is to provide a balance. As far as physical health is concerned, one should follow the basic rules of eating wholesome, natural food (organic and vegetarian food are best), getting enough sleep, exercise and sunlight. Long walks and hiking are ideal to meet Mother Nature! Apart from the fresh air and exercise, all the various sense impressions of the wind, the leaves, the rain, the waves, the birds’ song or simply the sound of your own footsteps will have a healing effect on your mind and body. Parents should regularly do this with children.

Make sure to get enough time to consciously relax and let go. Savasana can do this, or just deliberately doing things slowly. A simple lifestyle will always be helpful to balance our often hectic professional lives. So instead of going out or seeing a movie in the evening, meet with family or friends and have a meal. Play your instruments together or simply talk or play a game. It takes time to cultivate relationships and no machine can give you the fun, laughter and love that can be experienced with our human (and animal) friends.

Yoga of course strengthens on all levels as do other spiritual disciplines like prayer, meditation, singing bhajans or chanting mantras. The arts harmonize the feelings while at the same time strengthening the willpower, which is especially weakened by the media. (You might have noticed how difficult it is at times to switch off the TV even though the program is so boring and how one feels heavy and sluggish after a long TV session.) So get out your instrument or learn to play a new one, paint a picture, draw a landscape or delight your partner with a love poem. And if you have children, read stories to them, or, even better, practice story-telling. Children hunger for stories and time spent with their parents. They will naturally prefer the most imperfectly told story to the canned CD version.

The media can exert a strong pull on the senses. The images seen on TV or internet linger on in the subconscious and from there affect our feelings and actions. It is therefore necessary to learn to control your thoughts and let them flow in the right direction. Exercises like meditation and mantra-japa are the right means for that. Cultivating good habits, fasting and observing silence also help to tame the senses and their cravings. Again, yoga offers a fantastic way to achieve all this.

Whatever we do with our lives, the motivation behind our actions is very important. There may be two people doing exactly the same kind of work in front of a computer screen. But while one of them might only do it for money, the other may do her work as karma-yoga: service to God and the world.

But equally important is the actual result of one’s actions. So one of the two people mentioned may work for an environmental organization that protects nature from the greed and carelessness of individuals, governments and big corporations. The other may work for just one of these corporations responsible for cutting down huge areas of rain-forest without giving a thought to the irreversible damage this has on the earth’s ecological system.

So it may often be excusable or even necessary to make use of means with problematic “side-effects”, as long as the result achieved is a laudable one.

For example, working on a computer all day long is certainly not the healthiest thing to do. The energy and resources that were necessary to build and use the computer will add to pollution. But if someone uses his time and energy to protect nature and has to use a computer for that, the negative effects will by far be outweighed by the positive ones. Work done with this attitude is of a completely different nature than work done only for money. The main and only lasting profit from our work is our own spiritual development. If we perform our work in a spirit of karma-yoga, we will certainly benefit, even if this means we have to work with computers all day. To bear a difficult situation in order to achieve something good is sacrifice. And it is said that only through sacrifice can we attain immortality.

Transcending duality
We are living in a world of duality. There are two sides to everything. A knife can be used to cut vegetables as well as to kill someone. Apart from all their negative effects, the media can be a blessing to mankind. They have made our lives much easier and offer unprecedented opportunities. But it should have become clear that they have certain effects that can threaten our healthy spiritual development.

Most people won’t get around using the media. Many won’t even want to get around using them. And even those who spend most of their job in front of a computer or a machine don’t need to fear for their spiritual development. But they will have to make sure that this one-sidedness gets balanced by other activities. (Footnote: This only holds true for adults. For children, it is a completely different situation. While even an adult’s brain and mind may suffer from too much TV, a child is still in the process of developing her brain and mind. Too much television or computer games won’t just result in damage, but the whole process of healthy growth will be disrupted. Ideally, children shouldn’t watch TV or play computer games at all before the age of seven, and only little during the following years. )

In the end, someone who manages to find this balance can acquire new strength which could never be developed without this challenge. Mankind will change in the process of living and working with the media. The challenge is to make this change a positive one that will leave us stronger, healthier and more spiritually mature.

Martin Bohn is a Waldorf teacher, living and working in South England. He has practised Hatha-Yoga, Bhakti-Yoga and meditation for 9 years and spent about one and a half years in several ashrams in South India during his frequent trips there.

Martin Bohn for Yoga Magazine

The Ties That Bind

The United Nation International Labour Organization (ILO) Global Report for 2002, A Future without Child Labour, estimated that there were around 179 million children involved in the child slavery industry. Disturbingly, at least 8.4 million of these were engaged in the worst kinds of slavery including debt bondage, forced labour, trafficking, prostitution, forced into the armed services and pornography. Contemporary forms of slavery exist in different forms and bonded labour is also a type of slavery. It is an abuse of an individual’s fundamental human rights and affects the lives of millions of people particularly in the Asia-Pacific region.

Despite the enactment of international and domestic legislation, these types of practices continue to persist. However, governments are increasingly bowing to pressure from organizations to redress the problem. Conservative estimates suggest that the number of adults involved in bonded labour range from 20 million to 40 million. Bonded labour of children is a particular type of slavery. An individual becomes a bonded labourer when his labour is used to repay a loan. Not only is his labour given, but often that of his wife and his children. The ‘debt’ maybe carried by the whole generation of one family.

The Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights (OCHR) observes that UN reports “reveal that there are no clear distinctions between different forms of slavery. The same families and groups of people are often the victims of several kinds of modern slavery for example, bonded labour, forced labour, child labour or child prostitution.” The Free the Children Organization stresses that the definition of ‘child labour’ varies:

“Child labour usually means work that is done by children under the age of 15 (14 in some developing countries) which restricts or damages their physical, emotional, intellectual, social or spiritual growth as children. Sometimes work does not harm children and may even help them to learn new skills to develop a sense of responsibility. Most people agree that when we speak about child labour, we mean labour which is intolerable or harmful to children, or which denies them their right to fully develop, to play or to go to school.”

Bonded labour encourages both physical and sexual exploitation of men, women and children. Oruvingal Sreedharan and R. Muniyappa’s extensive investigation into the plight of chained bonded labourers of Karnataka, India in 2000 revealed the consequences of persons held in bonded labour. Despite the government’s assurances that bonded labour had been abolished, they alarmingly found that this was not the case. Bonded labourers were a reality, living in huts without adequate roofing, without drinking water facility and in places unfit for human habitation. Children were also forced to work alongside their parents.

OHCHR state that “although in theory a debt is repayable over a period of time, a situation of bondage arises when in spite of all his efforts, the borrower cannot wipe it out. Normally, the debt is inherited by the bonded labourer’s children.”

A classic example of how debt bondage works in practice is provided by the following case study from The Free the Children Organization. They cite the example of Anwar. His story reflects the realities and situations of millions of other children. He is aged seven and began weaving carpets in a village in Pakistan in the Sindh region.

“He was never asked if he wanted to work. When interviewed, Anwar was knotting carpets for 12 to 16 hours a day, six to seven days a week. He was told repeatedly that he could not stop working until he earned enough money to pay an alleged family debt. He was never told who in his family had borrowed the money, nor how much. Anytime he made an error in his work, Anwar was fined and the debt increased. Once, when his work was considered too slow, he was beaten with a stick. On another occasion, after a particularly painful beating, Anwar tried to run away, only to be apprehended by the local police, who forcibly returned him to the looms.”

Oruvingal Sreedharan and R. Muniyappa focused on the implementation of the law. Their horrific findings exemplify the continuance of this anarchic practice. Bonded labour can effect any one of any age. Child Right Worldwide state that “children as young as six are sometimes pledged by their parents to landlords as bonded labourers. In exchange for a loan, parents engage their sons, ranging in age from 10 to 14, as bonded labourers.” They also highlight the injustices served out by the landlords.

“In many cases bondage is intergenerational; with child bonded labourers replacing their fathers when the latter have become too old or too weak to work themselves. The initial loans that form the basis for this intergenerational bondage are often quite small. However, the borrowing family, usually illiterate, is unable to understand interest calculations performed by the landlord. Written agreements are viewed as unnecessary and interest rates can range as high as 400 percent.”

Various legislative provisions have been enacted at the international level pledging that State parties to the Convention will take the appropriate steps to abolish slavery and debt bondage. However despite legislation to prevent the abuses described above, it remains insufficient to tackle the underlying cause of this problem.

Human rights organizations report the excessive and continuing abuse that labourers experience as direct result of bonded labour including rape, physical assault, violence and other crimes. There is currently many dedicated charities, organizations and researchers highlighting the plight of individuals forced into bonded labour and the injustices they face.

The Free the Children Organization says, “it is easy to get overwhelmed by the issue and then proceed to dismiss it.” The International Labour Organization is commendably working to eradicate child bonded labour. In 1998, it launched a landmark International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour: IPEC. “The programme focuses on direct action with children and their families, on strengthening government machinery responsible for law enforcement, social welfare and education at the local, provincial and national levels, and on strengthening the capacities of NGOs.”

Simrin Singh, Senior Programme Officer (South Asia Desk), IPEC, ILO, Geneva is currently handling a number of IPEC projects in Pakistan. Simrin tells me that the 1998 project ended in 2002 and was implemented in 18 different locations in Pakistan and was funded primarily by the European Commission. With the help of Government and regional organizations, the project was a success. Simrin is dedicated and committed to the projects she presides and works on together with her colleagues.

“The National Child Bonded Labour project benefited more than 1000 working children of which approximately 20% were female children,” Simrin says. “Working hours were also reduced substantially by three to four hours daily for some of the working children targeted by the projects as a result of their attendance in NFE centres. Older working children and their at-risk of entering child labour siblings, were also provided with pre-vocational and vocational training and career counselling for better and ‘decent’ work when they are adults.” Sherin Khan, the Coordinator of the Programme Support Unit at IPEC, ILO, in Geneva tells me she worked on the same project as Simrin when it was in its initial stages of implementation. From her perspective the project was definitely a success and is testimony to the fact that child bonded labour can be eradicated.

“The project strategies were those that IPEC had tested in Pakistan (and globally),” Sherin explains. “Among these was the family approach, where families of identified and targeted children received services through or linked to the project. Significantly, the project had a Government of Pakistan financial contribution, in addition to the donor contribution through ILO.”

Among the NGO’s working to help children trapped in bonded labour is the Mukti organization. Mukti means ‘freedom’. One of its co-founders, Swami Ambikananda Saraswati, is a formidable and impressionable yogini who has dedicated her life not only to teaching yoga but also implementing the karma-yoga principle by contributing and campaigning to bring the issue of bonded labour and related slavery relationships to the attention of the government authorities. She also credits Swami Agnivesh who initially conceptualized the idea of setting up Mukti.

Swami Ambikananda was born and brought up in Africa. “I grew up in a country where anti-apartheid issues were at the forefront,” she tells me. “I was being raised in the 1960s when social issues were making an impact.”

She is now founder of the Traditional Yoga Association, is a dedicated yoga teacher and charity worker. She is also a writer and researcher, has published numerous books and is at the forefront of taking yoga principles and practice to countless individuals. “Your spirituality, your yoga is not something that you can isolate and fragment from the rest of your life, it has to make the life you are living much more accessible,” she explains. After her spiritual training, in 1979, she came to the United Kingdom, where she settled and also began to teach yoga. In the early 1990s she met Swami Agnivesh, Chairperson of the UN Trust Fund on Contemporary Forms of Slavery who introduced her to the realities of slavery in a world context.

Domestic legislation has been enacted but this is only the beginning of the struggle to tackle bonded labour of men, women and children. Swami Ambikananda agrees that enforcement of the law is desperately needed to help eradicate this barbaric practice. She has witnessed many cases of injustice and she gives one poignant example on how difficult it is to enforce the law. In December 2002 and January 2003, Swami Ambikananda was working at the Mukti office in India. “Some labourers had come from a quarry. They had walked in some 30 or 40 miles to the Mukti offices to see if something could be done (about their situation in forced bonded labour). So some of the workers from BMM (at Mukti) went out to assess the situation and concluded the labourers were indeed ‘bonded labourers’. The second thing (for the BMM) is to make representations to the local magistrates.” When the BMM went back to the village with the magistrates they found that the whole village of labourers had disappeared.

“The BMM got a phone call at the office. One of the labourers told (us) ‘we were picked up in trucks at midnight and had been dumped in the Rajasthan desert. There are children and babies’. The problem is at that time of year in the desert temperatures drop to minus 20 and they didn’t have a blanket between them they didn’t even know where they were. We had to rush around to find out where they were and so just enforcing the law is tricky.”

I ask in her view why doesn’t the government intervene to help, she says: “It is because we are prepared to be silent in order to protect our own lifestyles, we are prepared to become silent.”

She herself has seen slavery first hand, since her grandmother’s family had been taken to South Africa as indentured labour from South India, another form of slavery. She visited India to try and understand how slavery existed and was horrified to witness the true extent of child bonded labour. Instead of just giving money to the children she decided to bring these children, the gift of education – skills based vocational, practical learning, which could then be used to improve the quality of life, to make them independent.

The schools that Mukti established were designed not to take the children out of their environment completely, which is what some charities were offering, but to keep them connected to their family and community. Swami Ambikananda also set up a Yoga Association where like-minded people could share their skills and help to get the project moving. She tells me when the project was in its inception, the vision was truly to implement karma yoga – namely helping the community selflessly, without expectation of gain or reward. The charity was Yoga Association and the Mukti project was set up as part of that.

One popular method of raising money and awareness for the Mukti project is the sponsored Surya Namaskarathon. She encourages all practitioners, students and non-students of yoga to contact Mukti and get involved in at least the namaskaram every year to raise money for the charity.

Another school that Mukti is currently working with is aptly called Karam Marg, meaning the ‘way of action’. Karam Marg was the brainchild of a group of children who lived on the Delhi train platforms and some adult friends. Mukti have granted Karam Marg funds so that 30 children can attend school and learn skills that will help them seek employment and become independent. The success comes from the fact that the home is managed by the children themselves. “Their dream is to set up a village of these children so we’re involved with them too.”

Aside from raising funds and the profile of the Mukti project, Swami has recently set up a further project, the Live Your Yoga Project. This is a month by month course enabling individuals to learn and practise yoga. All the proceeds after tax are donated to Mukti. “Change happens,” she says. “Things can’t happen otherwise and sometimes when I speak to teachers and say ‘please lend yourself to this cause’ and they say ‘what has this got to do with my yoga?’”

Yet even in the destitution of bonded labour, the spirit and hope of children shines brightly. Swami Ambikananda poignantly encapsulates the aspirations of the children trapped in this living hell: “Children have such spirits. You will find a seven year old breaking rock, he is hungry and still there is that spark in his eyes and he says, ‘I want to be a doctor’. When will humankind realise that children, too, are our dowry? They can bring us to world peace. One would think it would break their spirit, but that’s not what I see.”

Halima Malik for Yoga Magazine

Excess Baggage

How often do we go within to observe our lives, our choices and our direction; to listen to our hearts? Try a little experiment next time you are arriving home: Do a reconnaissance with new eyes. Start before you actually get to your door. Observe the street you live on; the buildings; the houses on either side. What is the feeling you have? Is it uplifting? Are there flowers and trees? Is it free of rubbish and debris or does it need a good clean?

As you approach your own house or flat, how does it greet you? Is the pathway clear? Front door inviting? Look with an eagle eye as if you are seeing it for the first time. Note how you feel upon entering. Take an inventory visually of your possessions and see what lowers you and what uplifts you. What thoughts come into your mind as you view objects in your hallway and other rooms. “Hmmm, must clear that – I’ve been meaning to re-cycle those…”

Objects associated with old memories and emotions that lower your spirits are not serving you. Ask yourself “Why?” you are holding on to each specific thing and notice the sentiment it creates.

Try the following guideline below:

1) Do I love it?
2) Does it fit into my life?
3) Am I saving it for someday?
4) Am I keeping it because I paid a lot for it and cannot let it go?
5) Am I thinking I will fix it one day?
6) Does it bring me joy?

Be patient and open as you look around at the excess you may be holding on to.

Now imagine coming home and having all your objects and surroundings be things you absolutely love. How different would you feel if the emotions associated with your surroundings were uplifting.

Your possessions, your flat, your environment are all messages to your subconscious that this is the life you want and your choices are being reflected back to you. Ask yourself why you may be clinging to those objects and acquisitions and see if you could take one room and begin to clear it. You have the option of the bin, charity , friends and relations or neighbours… Holding on to things we no longer love, keeps us in the past. Clearing unwanted objects (however deep in the closet it sits) and clutter opens up your life for new ideas and inspiration.

I knew a woman once who moved to Bali from London, where the culture is very different from the West in terms of possessions. She gave a bright pink silk scarf to one of the women in her village as a ‘thank you’ for helping her feel welcome when she first arrived. To her surprise, a week later she saw the scarf on a total stranger as she was on her way to the market one morning. A few days after that, she saw it around a man two villages over. She went to the woman and said that the gift was a special offering and she was sorry she did not care for it. The woman laughed heartily and explained that in Bali, if someone else admires something you are wearing, you are always happy to share it and pass it on. She explained that Balinese people do not have attachments to possessions and gifts. My friend found this so liberating – as it was her own attachment to the gift that really came into perspective. Thus, the idea of “letting things go” took on a whole, new meaning.

Two weeks afterwards, she saw it on a German tourist heading for the airport and it has tickled her ever since to know how far her gift might go.

The intense desire to own, possess and acquire things can add stress and pressure to who, where or what we think we are supposed to be. Our identities are wrapped up in our possessions, post codes, wristwatches and cars. If we understand that we are really just “borrowing” things, for the time we are here, to enjoy them – we might be able to have a sense of freedom about ownership as it is liberated from the disguise of pursuing acquisitions. Think about it: clearing one drawer, one cupboard, a wardrobe or a lounge, could open up a new window for how you live your life. Start now and see what you can happily pass on so that new inspiration and creativity can come back to you in ways you never thought possible.

Here is an open invitation… to your Self.

Kathleen McGarry for Yoga Magazine

Yoga and Martial Arts

Adnan Tahirovic with Basia Going

True martial artists, like true yogis, are humble and respectful towards everyone and everything. Adnan Tahirovic reveals how the two disciplines complement each other.

Martial arts are about protecting and not destroying life. Years of dedication, strong discipline and diligent practice will transform the martial arts practitioner into a kind, humble, respectful and gentle person whose ego is melted in the fire of intense practice, just like the yogi’s ego is melted in the fire of tapas (austerities).

In their philosophy, both disciplines teach that an ego that is too strong or inflated can cause a lot of trouble, so they encourage the development of respect and humility. True martial arts practitioners carry love and kindness in their heart, like a well-established yogi. Both disciplines use and teach:

- mental and physical practice as a tool toward self-knowledge;
- meditation and self-reflection;
- different ways of bringing the opposing forces into complete and true harmony (yin and yang, prana and apana, in-breath and out-breath);
- power of the core and breath (they use different names for the centre of gravity: in martial arts, dan tien or hara, and in hatha yoga, uddiyana bandha).

Yet, few martial arts practitioners are truly aware of the healing powers of yoga. Generally speaking, there are still a lot of misconceptions about yoga although the sports and fitness industry increasingly recognizes and uses the therapeutic value of yoga asanas (postures) and pranayama (breathing exercices). Postures are being used as additional training, injury prevention and as a tool for faster recovery in the case of injury.

As a former practitioner and teacher of martial arts, I had firsthand experience of the healing power of yoga. Years of intense training and competition had left me with weak and damaged knees. I was no longer able to run, train or jump. After only three years of regular yoga practice (ashtanga vinyasa), my knees were healed. Now as a full-time yoga teacher, I encourage everybody to practice yoga, especially athletes. Regardless of the martial arts style, most people will favour the use of one side of the body, usually the stronger side. In the styles that use a lot of striking (punching and kicking), one will dedicate much more time to developing an already stronger side, thereby creating even more imbalance in the body.

To give an example, a person who prefers the right leg for kicking will have stronger yet less flexible hip flexors on the right side than on the left side. The right hip flexors will then pull more on the lower back and hip, thus bringing the whole pelvic area out of balance. So if the same person starts using the appropriate yoga asana routine, the weaker side will get stronger, and the stronger side will get more flexible (but without losing their respective strength and flexibility), thus bringing the pelvis back to its neutral and balanced state. Yoga asanas are ideal for simultaneously developing flexibility and strength. Instead of doing strength and flexibility training separately, one can do both at the same time with yoga practice. By including yoga in their training, practitioners will become more focused and grounded, calmer and stronger, more flexible and generally more proficient in their art. Years of intense training and competition might easily create chronic injuries of the neck, shoulders, hips, lower back and knees, yet with regular yoga practice all of this can be avoided. As Patanjali states, “Heyam dukham anagatam”: the pains that are yet to come can and are to be avoided. So whatever style of martial arts you are involved in, you have everything to gain and nothing to lose from practising yoga.

For more information log onto www.adnanyoga.com

Adnan Tahirovic for Yoga Magazine