:: June 2006 Volume 5/Number 4

Journey to Ayurveda Special Section:

A New Breed of Yoga Teacher
for the Land of Yoga

By Julie Deife


Traveling yoga teacher, Shree Kumar arrives at 6 A.M. to conduct yoga classes at
Beach and Lake Resort. Shree Kumar emphasizes the mind, the spirit and the breath in this hatha yoga classes. He takes no fee.

Yoga is a gargantuan concept in India and its symbols are everywhere. OM is painted on outside walls and the doorways of homes and businesses. Even OM adorned wooden garbage carts pulled by bulls or buses that share the same streets shout yoga. Incense scented air originates as often from a call center office building as from a roadside shop’s altar. In conversation, westerners and Indians alike specify what kind of yoga is being referred to, in order to simply communicate.
Which is the most common yoga in India? Is it bhakti (yoga of devotion)? Or is it jnana (yoga of knowledge)? Raja yoga, the royal path of meditation? Hatha?

It is definitely not hatha, as is frequently practiced in yoga classes throughout the U.S., in which a primary focus is often on the physical and less to none on the spiritual - which to a traditional Indian is not possible. In India there is no yoga without the spiritual.
Even so, hatha yoga is gaining in popularity in India, usually with the spiritual as part of it and sometimes without it. Growth is spurred on by the convergence of East and West. Hatha yoga is accelerating right along with economic globalization. Middle class Indians believe that westerners are lucky because we have access to hatha yoga classes (most of them cannot afford the hatha yoga coming from the west, while bhakti is free). As young professionals gain socio-economic status, western-type yoga studios are springing up in Delhi and Mumbai - and the studios are flourishing.

Shree Kumar, Kovallum
A windfall of new students is coming to Indian yoga teachers as a result of the influx of western yogis into their country. While westerners used to make a beeline for India seeking out gurus and saddhus, escalating numbers of westerners are checking in at Ayurvedic resorts that also offer yoga. This provides an opportunity for yoga teachers such as Shree Kumar, living in an ashram for almost thirty years and himself a devotee of Ramana Maharshi to counter what they have heard is being taught as yoga in the west and to present their living traditions.
Shree Kumar, like a growing number of yoga teachers here travels by motorcycle from place to place to teach. Mainly he teaches at the Ayurvedic resorts that run like a string of pearls along the beaches of Kovallum in Trivandrum.

I first meet Shree Kumar at 7 A.M. along with a few others who are taking rest, treatments and optional yoga class at a small, out-of the way resort. On the edge of the southern tip of India, it is accessible only across the still backwaters by a boat delivering passengers to the front doorstep of exquisite palm tree shaded grounds and cottages directly facing the sea. More interested in the yoga lessons than the treatments (I had just completed 10 days of treatments at the world renowned AVP hospital in Coimbatore where no regular yoga class for patients is allowed), I was the first one on the mat in the breezy open-air screened-for-mos- quitoes yoga room atop the second floor of the main building. This space could hold 60 students L.A.-style.

Yoga classes were a new experience for many attending the conference. While many western Ayurveda practitioners practice hatha yoga, many Indian Ayurvedic physicians do not.

Shree Kumar has a mixed group every day, never knowing who will be taking the class or for how many days, at each Ayurveda resort he visits. He will not accept money (against ashram rules), and the fee for the class is paid to the resort then donated to the ashram. A soft-spoken man in his forties, the first thing he wants to know about a new student is what do they know about yoga?!!

Shree Kumar delves deeply, quickly into the subject, his unwavering gaze apparently assessing students’ yoga by the quality of responses given, even asking me to name all asanas I can do. Soon into the inquiry, he pronounces that I need to work on my mind, instructing me to forego asana practices entirely when there isn’t time for both. I promise to show up for private meditation lessons at 6 A.M. the following day before group class.

Group classes begin with the meaning and chanting of Aum (OM) until the sounds reverberate from the treetops and the sea. “Find the place where Aum begins, he says. Feel it.” Many in the class have never taken a yoga class before, travelers from Italy, Holland and England. For them it is novel to hear Shree Kumar repeat “Watch Within. Watch Inside.” A long series - perhaps 25 minutes - of pranayama exercises including nadi shodhana and kalapathi breathing precedes seven - eight postures where our focus is guided continuously to the breath. After class over a light breakfast outdoors facing the sea, a young man from England will comment that where he is from, all of the yoga he’s tried has “only been of the physical variety.”

Every so often, a very loud monotone intonation emerges seemingly spontaneously from Shree Kumar: “I-Am-Not-the-Body.” Jarring, like the stick of the Zen master on your backside when least expected, attention is directed to an understanding of the soul. “Think of the reflection of a full moon on the lake. That is the soul.”

Here in public yoga class in India, with an Indian teacher enthusiastically determined to share “authentic” yoga with westerners, every day he leaves us with the same prescription: “Meditate daily. It is your only duty.”

Rose Baudin, Australia
At the same time, master yoga teachers from the west are being called on to educate the growing community of Indians, many who have never intentionally done a single asana in their life. Rose Baudin from Australia, who persists in offering traditional hatha yoga in the west, is one of these teachers and a good example of India’s incorporation of asana into a yoga practice. Rose was selected to teach the hatha yoga classes at the 1st International Conference on Ayurveda: Where Science meets Consciousness.

The daily one and a half hour 7 A.M. classes were sparsely attended by many of the conference’s Indian delegates. It seemed, however as if everyone from the U.S., Paraguay, Australia, Canada, Japan, South Africa, Germany, Poland, Italy, England and other countries represented, practiced with some previous knowledge of the asanas and experience in yoga classes. The young Indians in attendance were mainly studying to become Ayurvedic doctors and scarcely knew a single yogasana.

The class was perfect for a western practitioner, seeking out a bit of home in India. Without being asked, each morning we would skip tea and food before class, arriving early enough to lay out cotton blankets and get comfortable within the invisible yoga mat-size boundaries our experience told us we would occupy. The large temporary structure right off the beach that we’d sit in for the rest of the day’s sessions had been cleared of chairs that would magically re-appear for the 9:30 A.M. lecture session while we ducked out to enjoy a post-class Indian style breakfast. At 7 A.M. the hall was already air-conditioned as we sat to face a resplendent Rose on the stage, poised to lead us through a yoga practice session.

Chanting OM three times, the class took off and soared like any of the best yoga workshops I’ve been to in the U.S. A long series of pranayama (breathing) practices preceded Rose’s articulate instructions for moving in and out of various common standing asanas. It was about this time that I noticed the Indian delegates (less than 1/6 of the class, while at the same time the large majority of the 600+ conference attendees) still filtering in, getting settled and trying to figure out what to do.
The asana practice session of the class was different each day, and Rose later commented that she wanted the Indians to see the diversity and breadth of a western hatha yoga program from the chanting and pranayama to asanas for specific conditions. The conference organizers were also aware that some of the Ayurvedic doctors and almost all of the students probably weren’t familiar enough with the variety of asanas that can be utilized effectively in Ayurvedic treatment programs hence yoga class was on the schedule.

The dissemination of hatha yoga in India through the westerner’s participation, whether through conferences like this one, established yoga retreats such as those in Goa or hundreds of Rishikesh ashrams with yoga teacher training, is fueling the growth. It is widely accepted that the importance of hatha yoga in India - and along with it, opportunity - has risen dramatically because it has become a popular commodity in the west. An India competing successfully in the global marketplace wants access to what we have - and that includes the yoga they want to claim as a product of India.

 

Shree Kumar welcomes questions by emailing him at sreekumaryoga@yahoo.com.

Rose Baudin can be reached at taruni@mullum.com.au.

Ford Introduces Ayurvedic Model
It’s “green,” it works and it could change
the way they do business.

I met him on the second day of the conference during lunch. Our host Dr. Ramkumar introduced us, “Julie, this is Thomas Grant from Ford.”

Actually I’d spotted him earlier in the general session, guessing he was there supporting his wife on a change-of-life journey toward a career into the profession of Ayurveda. Grant was wearing a short-sleeved shirt and khakis whereas a western male studying Ayurveda would be wearing the long Indian style shirt with vest and loose cotton pants, beads and an air of serious diffidence. This man, I was sure, was not one of them.

Thomas Grant, the Director of Leadership Training at Ford Motor Company (based in Detroit), opened up to a discussion about why he was attending an Ayurveda conference. Grant works with “up and coming high-profile people,” many of whom, he says, make more than 10 - 15, $100 million decisions within the course of the hour. As Ford Motor Company is losing market share, he said, and encouraged by Bill Ford to change the way business is done, Grant will be looking out-of-the box for ways to increase productivity and effectiveness of Ford executives.

Grant describes the executives he works with as often having issues with weight control, stress and sleep (many of them travel a lot). He’s not necessarily pushing an Ayurvedic program at Ford, he says, rather acknowledging Ayurveda as a lifestyle with inherently significant elements that make sense for motivated people who need to stay alert, focused and want to live healthier lives. “Hands-on tools,” he calls them and, like a good Ayurveda student, cites the importance of daily routine and learning to know what one needs.

Ford Motor Company has a complete medical department, as would be expected. At it, they’re not going to adopt Ayurveda any time soon. Still, with progressive individuals leading their leaders, even if market share doesn’t improve, they’ll end up healthier. Of market share, says Grant, “it doesn’t get fixed by machines. It gets fixed by people - very healthy people.”
- Julie Deife

 

All Rights Reserved.
Copyright © 2002-2006
LA Yoga Ayurveda & Health Magazine