I am sitting on the floor in padmasana.
It is hot outside, the cows are lowing, the street is full of noises.
In the smaller room I am sitting with another eight in silence.
Oooone, twooooo, threeee...I hear the annoyingly slow counts. Vinay's
calm but ruthless commands dictate my breath. I feel I am
suffocating, I cannot breathe so slowly. On top of that, my body
wants to boil from the inside. I thought that with two Indian TTCs
and years of practice under my belt, I can do yoga, but I start to
understand that this is the beginning of the real practice.
“For true practice to occur, you must
give justice to every breath”, says Vinay and he means it. There
are no excuses, you must follow his breath choreography not only
during the pranayama class, but also during asana practice.
There is no yoga without conscious
breathing. This information has been coded into my cells during the
months I spent with him. Prana Vashya, prana control, in other words
the extension of consciousness and the life force to our every part.
This makes the system of Prana Vashya truly unique. It creates such a
focus in the practitioner, that leads to an elevated level of
consciousness where physical and internal transformation can take
place.
I learned it through my own experience.
During the months in India, I acquired such an incredible physical
strength and stamina that was wowed by my fellow students. Though the
most important change happened on the inside. The eye is the mirror
of the soul and funnily enough I also recognized that my look has
changed in India this time. It became more powerful, meaningful and
determined. I grew up and found the way back to myself.
I started teaching Prana Vashya here in
Hungary. I think that this type of yoga, according to its level of
innovation, is on a par with Ashtanga yoga of Patthabi Jois and the
yoga of Iyengar. Vinay is one of the greatest contemporary masters in
yoga, and I am sure that international recognition and fame will come
to him, although slowly but surely. There are signs already, because
despite his little focus on advertising, he keeps attracting
outstanding students from all corners of the world. His teaching
style is unique, for he only takes one teacher's training student at
a time and he likes to push his students to the end of their limits
and even beyond. As he explained to me, his goal is not simply to
train teachers but to form such great leading characters who are able
to guide people on the path of yoga.
He expects the highest level of
dedication and precision of his teacher candidates and he is hard on
them, because he wants to make the best out of them.
This approach caused me a “little
suffering”, since there were moments during the training when I
thought this is beyond my limits. Vinay continuously kept me in his
famous state of “optimal stress”, so that I don't loose my
determination, not even for a moment. Thanks to this, I gained such a
physical and mental strength that helped me in all various life
situations ever since.
Why is Prana Vashya so
transformational? Now, that I am teaching it on a regular basis, I
can observe people with the eyes of a teacher. The practice of Prana
Vashya is physically so hard, and because of the intensive breathing
it is so focused, that besides the practice a practitioner has not
much chance to wonder about. Psychically, it takes you to such a
concentrated state of mind where physical and mental blockages can
come forth and get released. Due to the intensive ujjayi breath, the
heat created from the inside starts to work in the deep to “burn
out” the toxins. An excessive sweating starts which is internally
generated, without any unnecessary external influence burdening the
organism. So the heart is not stressed, but through the sweating we
get rid of the “loosened up” toxins.
It is no coincidence that during a
Prana Vashya class, the room reminds us of a battlefield. People get
very sweaty, some produce a smaller water stain around them, but the
greatest battle is fought on the inside. I see it on their face as
they fight with themselves: with the loudly hammering thoughts, their
anger, and their swirling emotions. You cannot escape yourself during
Prana Vashya.
Being a very fiery practice, it also
works with water energies and also moves the emotions, the part of
the psyche representing water. Breathing in this process is like a
crutches. You can and should use it. Vinay's “optimal stress” is
great to understand and experience in this situation that stress can
be calmed through breathing. You can also learn how your daily
worries fade away in light of the importance of the current
challenge: Can I perform utthita kurmasana today or not?
Such as we are: we love the challenge,
the hard situations, we crave for every drop of catarsis. Because we
know that only tough ideas worth realizing, for where is difficulty
there lies also opportunity.
Prana Vashya is a kind of yoga where
this change can happen. This is what I see on the faces and I hear
from the feedback. I observe, watch the “movies” on the faces, I
see the struggle, the hardship of existence in the facial
expressions. And at the end I see tranquility, release and
purification.
At the end of a class I love to watch
the liveliness of the people. It seems everyone had put on a large
amount of moisturizer.
Two hours of struggle, breathing,
catarsis and total refreshment. For me this is Prana Vashya.
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