I said I wouldn’t comment on hatha yoga due to a lack of knowledge and/or familiarity. Out of curiosity, I have taken a few trial lessons because I do wonder what the link is or could be with the things I do. Because, I think, there must be a common origin or a cross-pollination on fundamental points somewhere. Yoga as it is now known in the West comes from the Indian tradition. But certain forms of yoga are also known in China and Japan and they certainly seem to have left their mark on these things that I try to learn and do.
For example, there is the so-called Japanese yoga or also called Shinshin-tōitsu-dō by Tempu Nakamura. The aikido style in which I train can be traced back in a direct line to Koichi Tohei and his influence is still very obvious there. And he gave his aikido style, usually called ki-aikido, the name Shin Shin Toitsu Aikido in imitation of the Shinshin-tōitsu-dō of his teacher and inspirer Nakamura. That name stands for the coordination of body and mind and on the basis of the ideas of this Japanese yoga, Tohei formulated the four principles for the coordination of body and mind, namely:
Keep one point - Maintaining the core
Relax completely - Complete relaxation
Keep weight underside - Have a light feeling (variation)
Extend Ki - Attention is directed outwards
Principles that bring about peace and stability and can be applied everywhere in daily life. One cannot exist without the other and they reinforce and sustain each other.
In a famous interview (part1 and part2), Tohei said that all he learned from Morihei Ueshiba (the founder of aikido) the importance of being relaxed, but from Nakamura that which was the key to getting into that state. So what I am doing on the tatami may still have something to do with yoga, albeit one of a specific kind that is more like a form of dynamic meditation than adopting certain body poses.
Now, this Japanese yoga (as well as aikido) is of fairly recent origin. This is in contrast to Chinese or Daoist yoga. This image from the so-called Mawangdui Silk Texts dates from the second century BC.
But what Chinese or Daoist yoga is or what that looks like is not so easy to figure out. When I search for Yoga in one of the search engines, it yields not only information about yoga, but also a lot of sites and addresses where I could learn yoga, often with images of well-proportioned and flexible women in trendy and fashionable outfits. In short, much in the style of the magazine Happinez; all very nice but not the first source I would like to get my information from. When I search for Chinese or Daoist yoga, it doesn't seem very different, although additional terms like qigong, daoyin, do-in and yin yoga seem to surface all around. Snooping around like this, it seems to me that a lot of hybrid forms have emerged. And when I ask myself how often and since when I hear the term Yin yoga, I would guess it is mainly something from the last decade. Now there is nothing against new forms, they are inevitable, but in that multiplicity and hodgepodge it may become a bit difficult to distinguish some quality.
In order to ascertain myself of some standard of quality and thoroughness on these seemingly thoroughly windswept and tangled grounds, I’d rather rely on someone like Bruce Frantzis than on sources such as Happinez magazine. In his Daoist or Longevity Breathing Yoga program, Bruce Frantzis publishes a pdf entitled: Longevity Breathing Yoga - Meditation from the Inside Out. In it he draws a comparison between Daoist and Hatha Yoga. In that context, four clear quotes from the aforementioned and highly recommended publication:
Chinese and Indian traditions share a common goal: To calm the internal noise of the monkey mind—swinging from tree to tree—and connect with the chi that penetrates and interconnects all and everything.
Longevity Breathing yoga and Hatha yoga can help lead you to experience the final goal of not only quieting the monkey mind, but also experiencing enlightenment.
At the initial levels of practice, Longevity Breathing yoga and Hatha yoga practices differ; at the higher levels, on the path towards enlightenment, the practices converge
The purpose of both Taoist and Hatha yoga breathing exercises is to take you to a place where you can contact the energy of your body and spirit purely with your mind, regardless of the kind of breathing exercise you do. The way they are taught, however, differs in the Chinese and Indian traditions.
Furthermore, I remember that I once heard Bruce say in a video that in hatha yoga one tries to relax in the lenghtening or the stretch, while the Daoists want to bring about the stretch or lenghtening more or less by itself throughrelaxing. This also touches on the distinction between the fire and water methods, which is essential to the Energy Arts program as thaught by Frantzis.
From the above quotes, we may conclude that at its core it is about something else or something more than cultivating flexibility, fitness, strength or stamina. That more must then be sought in the connection or unity of body and mind.
Yoga is the Sanskrit word for "yoke" or unity or connection, and in the various treatises on yoga the unification or balancing of the physical, the mental and the spiritual in man is usually mentioned as the ultimate goal.
Also in my aikido training I am regularly reminded that I should try to achieve that unity of body and mind. (see Tohei’s principles above)
But wait a minute ....... Would that imply I have been trying, without even being aware of it, to practice yoga for so many years now?
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