Another thread in hopes to add fodder to my hungry brain : Does anyone wish to comment on Gender differences in yoga ? Men and women are dramatically different in the way their brains are wired and in their body chemistry, and though I can believe we will get to the same nirrudha mind eventually, the process getting there seems like it’d be different somehow. In an Ancient Yoga post, Marcello108 reports of a more feminine yoga predating the Aryan masculine yoga,called Swasthya. I don’t understand the major differences in that yet but I’d like to study this subject further. Please give me your thoughts. I have no bias at this point but know there is ample evidence of how different the sexes are.
Everyone’s different. And we’re all the same.
The female body is built around the warmth of emotion, the male body is more built around the strenght of will. The difference of being a woman or a man is so great that incarnations usually take them alternatively. Just reflect on how it would be to live as a woman. The more hard this is for us, men, the further we are yet from that state of spirituality expressed by InnerAthlete’s post. But we must not forget that we have personal karma, of what being a man or a woman is a basic parameter - so it is not wrong to try to fulfill this role of our gender, while we should try to expereince our genderless spiritual nature too.
To complicate matters more, the body ages,
some days it is stiffer,
some days it is tired.
I do remind myself that someones own experiences may influence what they teach or say. So I, as a guy approaching 6 decades of age with a much different physical history that some 25 year old instructor, I definitely don’t assume what works for one would work for me.
And add to that all the new medications and diets and herbal superpills appearing daily and I would agree there are differences.
Nevertheless, I did yoga today, and thanked the sun for rising with a smile, and later with a few surya salutation things, Gil
Yes, a different body does the same thing differently. The more I think about it, the more I feel that the ideal I hold inside is an ideal of youth and perhaps I should put that aside. Either to have no ideal, just what is or have an ideal with shorter margins of a comfort zone. I am closing in on 57 and I need to listen very closely to my body so as not to overstep what natures allows. Some things younger people don’t worry about we do, as we lose vertebrae padding, hormonal strength and metabolic rate, and as you say, the personal physical history. I think we actually get more direct results because we need to more. When the wind blows cold off the Lake this winter, yoga will be harder to start probably but more helpful than in the summer. Even here in North Carolina, at my age , winter says stiff bones more each year. I bought a cheap steam bath ( I used to have a cardboard box with a vegetable steamer - it worked fine ) I hope that gives me an edge. Namaste
Tony,
I was born in male body for this incarnation with a strong feminine influence, which was very troublesome for me as a young boy and even well into adulthood. Yoga definitely brought me to a point where I am fully aware of the feminine aspect within me and where I can be totally comfortable and at peace with it, even embrace the mother principle within as I understand that I AM both, male and female, mother and father, earth and sky…in fact I AM just One in the end. I AM (see how easy AM can be MA) Mother Pandara!
Where are the women?
I got into a debate with a woman one time when I made a statement that men and women have the same muscles and that they work the same way. Now I would be the last one to say that men and women are physically the same, as there are other factors besides the nomenclature of the muscles, but this woman went nuts!
here is an enlightening link to a discourse on Divine Feminine Consciousness
Pandara, I believe it’s a difference of degree relative to the individual and not a difference in kind. Every chromosome except one is an X and that Y is not a different " letter ", it’s an X also , mutated with the loss or trimming of a leg. Men have dysfunctional nipples because the basic human form is feminine. The secretion of Testosterone makes for most of the differences and there are 2 distinct times when it does it’s gender work in a new human embryo: at one dosing of testosterone the brain gets it’s gender orientation and at the other dosing the body. These dosings are sometimes different because they occur at different times and the testosterone level is different. Various things can affect the level. I am currently reading about this ( you may have guessed ) in a often funny but scientific book titled " Why Men Don’t Listen and Women Can’t Read Maps ", by Barbara and Allan Pease. They devote more than an entire chapter on this subject and variations our chemical natures produce. Since societies want things simple with our huge world-tribe population , these variations aren’t usually given the latitude they deserve. I am glad you have reached a wholeness with yourself and I can sympathize with you, like many others, who know the world trys to fit them into a shape to fit in with others before allowing individuals to express themselves naturally. I am not made for making money, never had much desire that way but the major trends of society are constantly pushing and pulling me to play that game. Luckily , almost by accident I have a job that takes care of me pretty well, if I didn’t have this job and had a more 'capitalized ’ job, I would probably have problems with my wholeness as well. Women and Men have a wide arc with many degrees between them. Namaste
I listened to the Swami and got some good from it but while I can see his point about women not doing " infrastructure " jobs because they are hardwired for intense passive enlightenment, rather than restless doing like men, I find it very difficult to reconcile with the diversity in half the human race. Some women fulfill themselves with traditionally male jobs and professions. Spiritual Feminine is in us all, as is the Active Masculine and even if the former is our goal spiritually we often need the latter to get there from here, which I think the Swami said, saying any adjustments to make the expression of ourselves are masculine, while the expression itself is feminine. Women in ’ male’ jobs can feminize those jobs to make them better eg. A Female cop could show that negotiation is sometimes better than force. Namaste.
[QUOTE=TonyTamer;22900]Men have dysfunctional nipples because the basic human form is feminine. [/QUOTE]
Not sure what you mean by “dysfunctional nipples” … as a matter of fact men can lactate, it just that most don’t try.
True.
But, unless they have a diseased liver that doesn’t breakdown the necessary hormones for lactation, it doesn’t happen, except in exceptional cases. Nipples on a man are leftover from an original feminine template. The XX vs. XY shows this graphically unless you treat the chromosomes ( which are all female X’s except for the sex gene for men, that’s 45 to 1 ) as alphabetical instead of biological . I say this for clarity and the guys out there squeezing. Namas-he-he-he.
Although the XX + XY differences seems far afield from gender differences in yoga, it does gives a biological symetry to the swami’s discourse as per the link from udaysree. Namaste
[QUOTE=TonyTamer;22949]But, unless they have a diseased liver that doesn’t breakdown the necessary hormones for lactation, it doesn’t happen, except in exceptional cases. Nipples on a man are leftover from an original feminine template. The XX vs. XY shows this graphically unless you treat the chromosomes ( which are all female X’s except for the sex gene for men, that’s 45 to 1 ) as alphabetical instead of biological . I say this for clarity and the guys out there squeezing. Namas-he-he-he.[/QUOTE]
I have to pick you up on this Tony Tamer but that is factually and scientifically incorrect!
Please check your facts - a quick session on Google should suffice:-D
In humans
Male lactation is a side effect that may be caused by hormonal treatments given to men suffering from prostate cancer, or drugs that block dopamine receptors. Female hormones are used to slow the production of cancerous prostate tissue, but the same hormones also stimulate the mammary glands. Male-to-female transsexuals may also produce milk owing to the hormones they take to reshape their bodies. It can be a side effect of antipsychotic medication. Extreme stress combined with demanding physical activity and a shortage of food has also been known to cause male lactation.( that’s the diseased liver function , I mentioned: an example from the book ) The phenomenon occurred in survivors of the liberated Nazi concentration camps after World War II.[1] Some American POWs returning from the Korean and Vietnam Wars also experienced male lactation. The phenomenon has also been observed in isolated cases in other parts of the world.[
Kamala, I said that it was exceptional and dysfunctional in “men’, that meant men as a group and generally. I readily admit that I am no expert either academically or with experience on this subject, nor do I feel a need to be, but what I posted on the forum was read almost word for word in a book that was more science than humor , despite the title " Why Men Don’t Listen and Women Can’t Read Maps” , the gist of which is that the genders have differently wired brains and so different perceptions and values in ostensibly the same world. I don’t see that lactation per se has that much to do with yoga except in a man’s potential for nurturing. And , no matter what I read or what anyone says, I have an intuitive belief that no matter how much I try I will not be able to produce milk, unless given hormones. If it were a natural phenomena that happenedif someone just wanted to try, I think people would know about it and many men would do it and try to do it better than anyone else, being the competitors we generally are. Namaste ( Let’s not make this a " Tempest in a C-cup '. )
[QUOTE=TonyTamer;22961] " Why Men Don’t Listen and Women Can’t Read Maps" …
if it were a natural phenomena that happened if someone just wanted to try, I think people would know about it [/QUOTE]
Umm… firstly. I notice you started this thread because you have a “hungry brain”. Perhaps your brain is crying out for better reading material!
And secondly. Of course there is no such thing as naturally occurring phenomena that only a few people know about… 
(I can tell you didn’t google it BTW!)
No storm in a tea cup (is that your ego talking?) just a discussion, admittedly veering off the original gender differences in yoga question.
Oh… you could try if you really wanted to. Go on, be competitive 
This is too funny…BTW , I did copy and paste the first paragraph I googled, which came from WikiPedia, I am not that smart even though I sound like it. That’s my ego talking , a confused entity if there ever was one. Namaste
The book is a very good book, worth reading…just like this post, I don’t think having a little humor sprinkled in detracts from other serious comments. It is mostly science, the humor is there because it asks us to see natural limitations in our basic biology and we naturally don’t like that, laughing helps…some enlightenments are accompanied by laughter , I’ve heard.TT
Are you saying ‘lighten up’ (Enlighten Up)?
I am usually lit.
Nightshade veggies have a odd effect on me. My connective tissue or muscles spasm up and play mad chiropractor with my spine and muscles. So for the last few days whenever a nerve pinches, I either yelp in pain or giggle and say to myself “This pain is reminding me that I’m alive”. Then I realize that I should skip the Nightshades or I’ll end up on meds. Although, having a few tomatoes in prime season is worth some aches and pains.
Some folks with arthritis and similar inflammation problems also notice that nightshades can trigger flareups. It seems to be a non gender thing for those sensitive.
Nevertheless, a swim in Lake Superior today was nice. The waves were fun, Gil.
P.S. Grilley has a yoga anatomy DVD that shows how varied our anatomies are. Although he doesn’t focus on genders, he just shows how the bone structures can limit certain range of motion and how different lengths of limbs can affect different poses.
[QUOTE=TonyTamer;22996]This is too funny…BTW , I did copy and paste the first paragraph I googled, which came from WikiPedia, I am not that smart even though I sound like it. That’s my ego talking , a confused entity if there ever was one. Namaste[/QUOTE]
No I’m serious! Try it! So your Google search didn’t manage to uncover the story about the man who breastfed his two children for two years after his wife died ? (in Sri Lanka, I think).
Go TonyTamer - kill two birds with one stone :
- prove yourself wrong and
- seriously challenge that ego (Is man milk manly? Discuss.)
:lol:
(My serious view is that EGO is the big gender difference in yoga)