wonder what should the priority be when doing asthanga? the flow (to keep the energy level up)? how about alignment?
i like the latter but am often reminded to ‘keep going to maintain the level of energy’ i like to take things a bit slow but i also like asthanga. often wonders whether it is possible to marry both? 
erich schiffmann asks whose practice are you doing? your teacher’s or your own? advice anyone?
[QUOTE=tessiesasha;33548]erich schiffmann asks whose practice are you doing? your teacher’s or your own? advice anyone?[/QUOTE]
There different. Iyengar Yoga stresses alignment. I like to practice both approaches. I’ll do a flowing practice, and do a Iyengar style as well.
Yeah, this makes full sense to me. Yoga started for me with just stretching, and I’d do just some standard stretches, and after a while you can listen to your body and ‘hear’ where it’s holding tension. It’s a great idea to learn Yoga methods from classes, but you really get the most when you do your own style practice and listen to your body, rather than the teacher all the time. Yoga can be very, very simple. After all it’s really just a stretching meditation. It only gets complicated when practitioners try to make Yoga sound more complex, and mysterious than it is. This is just insecurity try to convince themselves that ‘they’ are more complex, and mysterious then they are.
Keep it simple.
After all Yoga is just really a stretching meditation?
Oh my goodness.
Yoga is simple, a human being is complex. Nirvana or enlightenment is nowhere else but right within. In fact, that is our natural state. Then, why we don’t have it? With our indulgent perception and colored thinking we weave a thick web of ego-centric life that is forced outward - away from what we naturally are.
Associating “Ashtanga” to asanas alone is a disservice to the great eight-fold yoga path. Asana is one, other 3 secondary means are prana control, yama - behavioral commandments, and niyama - rules of living. Togther they clean much of the ego-centric web and create an anchor within, called pratyahara. Then the ability to concenrate becomes dharana, to meditate becomes dhyana and to contemplate becomes samadhi. Thus, one achieves enlightenment. Each of these stages is very complex when one is new, and very simple when one becomes an adept.
Yoga is not ‘just a stretching meditation’ whatever is meant by that. Coming to specifics, both flow and alignment are valid approaches to asana. Alignment is important because eventually that will synchronize the physical body and the subtle body to such an extent that awareness will be gently transferred from physical to subtle. While flow will teach how to conserve your energy when alignment is achieved so that you can sustain that state and make it ready for meditative exercises.
Yoga is not a tool or a technique. It is a journey. It is very simple, if you are in it for some leisurely strolling. It is very complex, if you want to run a marathon.
Hello tessie,
The question is perhaps best posed to an ashtanga teacher (I presume you are asking about the yoga entitled ashtanga yoga rather than the ashtanga path outlined in patanjali’s yoga sutras).
The ashtanga practice appears to be designed with pace superseding alignment. In fact from my personal practice of the primary series I don’t recall any alignment being taught at all. As you may know, that practice was the practice Krishnamacharya taught to his young students. Ergo the practice, by it’s very creation, was meant to occupy a furtive mind and be executed by a youthful body - and this provides plenty of context from which to determine an answer to your inquiry.
You could do the primary ashtanga series a few times or every now and then without the flows in between to work on your alignment. It certianly helps me.
[QUOTE=The Scales;33567]After all Yoga is just really a stretching meditation?
Oh my goodness.[/QUOTE]
Well by that, I’m really referring to asana. I do Buddhist meditation, I do a little bit of the breathing control exercises, because I know it’s good for the lymphatic system, and I do asana. I’m a little in the habit of calling asana, Yoga, cause that’s what Yoga has become in the west. And asana (what I’ve incorrectly been referring to as Yoga), is obviously moving meditation. It’s basically mindful, stretching really. How can it be really called anything else? But it’s very very good, and I love it!
Then its just stretching meditation.
But also on the flip side many people also knows its not just stretching…
It is the practice we use to become super gods. lol
[QUOTE=YogiAdam;33581]Well by that, I’m really referring to asana. I do Buddhist meditation, I do a little bit of the breathing control exercises, because I know it’s good for the lymphatic system, and I do asana. I’m a little in the habit of calling asana, Yoga, cause that’s what Yoga has become in the west. And asana (what I’ve incorrectly been referring to as Yoga), is obviously moving meditation. It’s basically mindful, stretching really. How can it be really called anything else? But it’s very very good, and I love it![/QUOTE]
Yoga in the west. Yes. Um. It is good I guess. Needs an entry point somewhere. asana reduces stress . . . can make you fit and flexible. Secret Hindu plot to take over the universe. 
Whats you buddhist meditations?
[QUOTE=The Scales;33583]Yoga in the west. Yes. Um. It is good I guess. Needs an entry point somewhere. asana reduces stress . . . can make you fit and flexible. Secret Hindu plot to take over the universe.
Whats you buddhist meditations?[/QUOTE]
I don’t understand the question.
Lam rim?
Vajrayana?
What?
Oh OK. Both. I practice at a Vajrayana Institute, and Lam Rim is a big part of that. I mainly do single pointed meditation, meditation on mindfulness, and some analytical. I try to keep it very basic. The simpler the better works for me.
Oh goodness from what I understand Generation (a vajrayana practice) is intricate.
What school of Vajrayana? Karma Kagyu? Gelgupa. Kadampa? or what… I might have misspelled these… 
Have you read the Stages of Meditation by Kamalashila? With Dalai Lama Commentrary?
For me what I got from the book, the essential point, was a balanced approach to develop in equal measure both calm abiding and special insight. As they call it…
[QUOTE=The Scales;33594]For me what I got from the book, the essential point, was a balanced approach to develop both calm abiding and special insight. As they call it…[/QUOTE]
Yes exactly. That’s how Tibetan Buddhist meditation is split. It gets pretty complex, with detailed visualizations. I’m getting really good at the visualizations, but I don’t really know why we really do them.
Some times I get these threads horribly off topic.
But it’s not always me!!! I swear!
So on topic.
For me Asana is about moving and feeling the vayu. I don’t think theres really a right or wrong way.
Sometimes I move through the forms in a rhythm, and sometimes I pause. Sometimes its a combination of the two.
As I see it for asana practice to give most benefit it would combine together:
Posture. Pranayam. Mudra. Bandha. japa. All together.
[QUOTE=YogiAdam;33596]Yes exactly. That’s how Tibetan Buddhist meditation is split. It gets pretty complex, with detailed visualizations. I’m getting really good at the visualizations, but I don’t really know why we really do them.[/QUOTE]
I think there are various reasons.
One being to develop power of concentration.
Lama can tell you rest.
on or off topics it has been an interesting read. 
thx everyone.
I have been practicing Astanga for 5 years. I am no teacher, but my practice tries to balance flow with alignment. All of my teachers have stressed this and I have had the benefit of many ‘adjustments’.
YogiAdam makes a good point. Although I have not attended an Iyengar class for some time, I used to regularly so I could isolate and define the postures without having to worry about breaking my stride. On returning to my ashtanga class I found I could focus on my breath and flow as my alignment has become more natural (for me).