A day with Gary Kraftsow, or Know Thyself
Giving a written taste of any of these energy-rich conference classes is a challenge, but after spending most of the day with Gary Kraftsow (attending two classes and listening to his erudite offerings to a panel discussion on Saturday), I know whatever I say here will be woefully inadequate. Gary seems to know every word of the Yoga Sutra by heart--in Sanskrit--and gives the most provocative translations into English. He lived in Madras, India for four years, and began studying with T.K.V. Desikichar in the 1970s. He holds a masters degree in religion and psychology and rattles off dozens of stories and teachings of saints, yogis, and philosophers in the course of a class. As founder and director of the American Viniyoga Institute, he also has a wee bit of experience with anatomy and physiology and asana--and designed a protocol for a study recently published in the Annals of Internal Medicine showing that yoga can relieve chronic back pain. Let's just say, Gary is a vessel of yoga knowledge, unlike anything most of us have ever experienced.
In "Common Aches and Pains: Upper Back, Neck and Shoulders," he gave us some basic anatomy and physiology lessons that I won't try to recap here. What I loved most of all he said was this: "Think carefully about what you do with the time you have for practice." He asked us what was more important: our hamstrings or our liver? Knowing that most of us are too busy to do it all, he asked: Do we really want to spend so much of our yoga practice stretching our hamstrings? If we're dealing with specific issues--like chronic neck pain, doesn't it make more sense to tailor a short (maybe 15-minute) practice for releasing neck tension and do it a couple of times a day?
"Your responsibility is self-investigation," he told us. To heal chronic aches and pains, he suggested that we discover our own dysfunctional neuromuscular movement patterns (the ways we move or hold ourselves--say with our neck craned or our back slumped--that contribute to our discomfort), and see if we can change them. Acknowledging that doctors, physical therapists, yoga teachers and others can help us, he said he finds that the most effective healing comes when we investigate our own issues, rather than relying solely on experts.
He offered several poses for releasing tension in the upper back, neck, and shoulders. And as much as I'd love to share them here, they are so unlike the poses most of us practice (and took a while for most of the students in the room to understand) that I daren't try without a lot more words and photos than this blog has room for.
What I can share with you was a profound meditation practice Gary offered in his "Meditation and Transformation" class.
After some very gentle asana and pranayama (and a long, digressive, fascinating discourse on meditation, its purpose and its history), Gary asked us to sit tall and contemplate what we hoped to achieve in this life. He asked us to imagine that we were at the end of our life, and to ask ourselves what we would like to have accomplished so that we would meet death with peace and fulfillment, with the feeling that we were ready for the moment, because we had accomplished what was most important to us.
Then he asked us to think about what we do with our bodies in daily life. How do we treat them? How do we move them? Do we walk or run or practice yoga or sit in front of the computer?
He then asked us to consider our speech. What do we talk about and with whom?
Next we considered our thoughts: When we're all alone, what do we think about?
Finally, we came back to what it is that we had wanted to feel in that moment before death--what we felt we needed to accomplish to be at peace. And we considered whether the way we used our bodies, our speech, and our thoughts are taking us there.
"Meditation allows you to master your attention," he had told us earlier. Again, he had been advocating svadhyaya (self study)--a theme he touched on throughout the day. "Figure out who you are, then decide for yourself where to put your attention."
Photo Credit: Todd Semo
Comments
Kaitlin -
Your words are more than adequate... even if they are just a faint reflection of the experience of studying with Gary.
Having the opportunity to learn from Gary is one of the greatest gifts of the Yoga Journal conferences.
Posted by: Alan Zucker | January 16, 2006 08:20 AM
Having been a student of Gary's since 1993, I am perpetually amazed at peoples response to the teachings he recieved from TKV and TK. I am happy to see him regularly and to be an assistant in his teacher training program. Yoga is an ancient science which Gary understands through his own personal, and continually developing life experience!!
Posted by: Juris Zinbergs | March 15, 2006 11:49 PM
Gary's understanding of the health and healing benefits of yoga continues to amaze me. As a yoga teacher and assistant at a spinal decompression center, I work with patients who have back pain, both chronic and acute. I continuously am inspired by Gary's teachings and appreciate his meaningful contribution to yoga therapy.
Posted by: Sarah Palethorpe | July 20, 2006 09:28 PM