What is Prana Flow Yoga All About?
May 12, 2009 by hamish
Filed under Fitness & Exercise, Yoga
Whenever I tell people that I teach yoga, the first question out of their mouth is: ‘What kind of yoga?’
And when I answer, ‘Prana Flow Yoga’, they stare at me blankly. ‘Huh? Never heard of that…’
Taught by Master Yoga Instructor Shiva Rea, Prana Flow is a liberating, evolutionary, rhythmic, vinyasa-flow class that encompasses mudra, mantra, bandha, pranayama, meditation, asana, kriya and a whole lot of fun. As Shiva states on her website, “It is an energetic, creative, full-spectrum approach to embodying the flow of yoga.”
Prana Flow is all about a balance of opposites – strength and fluidity, skill and intuition, vital energy and relaxed being.
So in class, when we do sun salutations, we’re mindful of the integrity of our alignment, while tuning in to the innate intelligence within our bodies that will guide us into the postures. Downward dog doesn’t have to be static anymore, and the spine may undulate, or the hips sway, as we find release and openness from within.
Most of all, Prana Flow emphasizes connecting to the breath and awakening the flow of Prana within. Defined as “the life-force of creation”, prana lives within each of us. When we practice Prana Flow Yoga, we are practicing getting out of our minds and moving down into our bodies, and letting our breath guide us.
At it’s most simple, while breathing in child’s pose, if we can maintain our concentration on the internal processes and follow our breath around the body, we will sense blocks, or restrictions. These can be physical, mental, emotional or energetic. Just by being aware of these blocks or restrictions, and breathing into those places, we active prana to guide us into openness.
In this way, true Prana Flow Yoga practice will unfold breath by breath on the mat, with the practitioner having no attachment to where the practice might go, or even what the postures might look like. The body is freed to move into the exact asana it needs in that moment to find the greatest release and the greatest balance.
In a Prana Flow class, this might translate into asana where the teacher guides you to explore your body within the context of the alignment. If hands and feet are grounded in downward dog, and internal focus is maintained, where does the breath go? How does the body want to move? At first inhales are likely to move up the spine, tilting the pelvis forward and lifting the hips to the ceiling. Exhales travel down the back of the legs, releasing the heels to the ground. But in time, the breath will begin to travel to other places, finding other blocks to release.
This style of yoga was most famously taught at Kripalu Ashram in Pennsylvania, and written about in the books Yoga and the Quest for the True Self, by Stephen Cope, and Self-Awakening Yoga – the Expansion of Consciousness through the Body’s Own Wisdom by Don Stapleton Ph.d. Both men were senior teachers at the ashram, and with one a psychologist and one an art teacher, each brought their own emphasis to the effects of prana awakening within the body.
“The structural details of any yoga practice can be alluring, but practice comes alive with creativity when you commune with your body’s sensations,” writes Don Stapleton. “Being true to the intelligence of the body requires leaving the known as a jumping off point and venturing into unknown territory to allow prana to truly guide you. Taking your yoga learning to this level of personal ownership frees you from the illusion that ‘truth’ exists outside of you – in the authority of an expert or a teacher.”
Prana Flow classes focus on developing students’ connections to their own internal yoga teacher, to the flow of prana within them. It’s not about the teacher telling you what to do, or doing set postures (although both of these things do happen in class). It’s learning to trust your own body’s intuition, and learning to listen to the subtle energies within. And then having the confidence and the commitment to take that connection home to your own yoga mat, in your own time, to explore your own body’s needs.
Once prana is awakened, and a student has learned to surrender to it’s flow, yoga asana will spontaneously arise from within – even asana or kriya that the student has never learned before. It’s a magical process that is inherently natural. We all contain everything we need to know within us, and Prana Flow Yoga reminds of us this buried wisdom we carry.
And it does all of this while reminding us of the simple joys of moving in the body, of finding lightness, of playing. Prana Flow is nothing more and nothing less than life as creative energy, where we celebrate our essence of being.
Author: Kara-Leah Grant, once a Queenstown-based yoga teacher, now teaches in Wellington where she’s discovered the joy of Prana Flow Yoga. Read more of her articles on yoga and the art of living at Prana Flow NZ.
How to Start Living Your Yoga
April 9, 2009 by rosie
Filed under Fitness & Exercise, Holistic Wellbeing, Yoga
It’s the end of the week and while you managed to make it to two yoga classes, you haven’t unrolled your yoga mat once. Family, work, and household commitments make finding a 90-minute slot during the day next to impossible. Short of getting up at 5am, or re-prioritizing your life to ditch other commitments, there are other ways to regularly practice yoga. After all, home practice is where the deeper rewards of yoga blossom.
Start by realizing that you don’t have to wait for a 90-minute window to unroll your mat. Take 20 minutes in the morning, or 30 minutes after dinner. Use whatever space you have in your day for a practice. Allow your internal teacher to guide you through the appropriate postures for you in that time space – without any attachment to fulfilling a particular sequence of postures you may not have time for. Stepping into daily time gaps with your yoga mat cements your commitment to home practice, and often you’ll find that time begins to expand. You naturally wake up 30 minutes earlier, or you realize you don’t have to watch the news every night.
The second way to integrate yoga into your daily life is to practice whenever the opportunity arises. Let yoga spill off your mat and permeate everything you do.
Doing the dishes? Connect with your breath, ground the four corners of your feet, engage your quadriceps, align your pelvis and open your heart.
Having a shower? Practice back bends and forwards bends with breath and mindfulness as you shampoo your hair and shave your legs.
Working at your desk? Take five minutes to breathe mindfully and work through a short shoulder opening sequence.
In this way, yoga becomes not just something contained within the confines of your yoga mat, but something that infuses the way that you move about your day.
Now you are not just practicing yoga, but living yoga.
Author: Kara-Leah Grant, once a Queenstown-based yoga teacher, now teaches in Wellington where she’s discovered the joy of Prana Flow Yoga. Read more of her articles on yoga and the art of living at Prana Flow NZ.
How to Choose the Right Yoga Class for You
March 31, 2009 by rosie
Filed under Fitness & Exercise, Holistic Wellbeing, Yoga
Been thinking about starting yoga for ages now but feeling overwhelmed by the range of classes, teachers, yoga styles and studios on offer?
Here are a few tips to get you off the procrastination flow and into the yoga flow.
1. Get clear on what type of experience you’re looking for:
Write down what you want to get out of your yoga class.
- Just concerned about the physical side of yoga and like to do other classes as well? Maybe you should find a gym that offers good yoga classes.
- Want a class that will make you sweat, work you hard, and is consistent every time? Try Bikram.
- Or do you want something that flows from one posture to the next with emphasize on the breath? Check out Prana Flow Yoga, or Vinyasa.
- Are you an athlete looking to do some cross-training? Think about Astanga or Power Yoga.
- Are you interested in chanting? Give Bhakti Yoga a whirl.
- Or maybe you love the idea of pranayama (breath work)? Try an integrated class like Prana Flow, or Kundalini.
2. Talk to the studios and class teachers:
Once you know what you want, go and have a chat to the studios and yoga teachers available and see what they suggest to you. Pay attention to how you feel when you walk into each studio, or meet each teacher, and the way you are treated.
Are you listened to? Are you attended to quickly? Do you feel good in the studio?
Be mindful that some studios will lock the doors when there is a class on, so it pays to call ahead of time and check when an appropriate time is to drop in. Ask for a tour of the facilities. Take away a timetable so you can read it in more depth.
3. Talk to yoga-loving friends:
Recommendations are great — find a friend who’s judgment you trust and ask which teacher and classes they like, and find out why. Get them to take you to a class. It’s always more fun, and less threatening, to start a new activity with a friend. It also helps with motivation if you’re going with someone else – it can be the way you catch up every week.
4. Work out what times will suit you, and what budget works for you:
Sometimes the studio or teacher we choose comes down to convenience, so it helps to know when you would be likely to go to class and how much a class is worth to you.
Don’t think of the money you spend on a class as the same as spending money on entertainment, think of it as investment in your health and well-being. A regular yoga practice can help rehabilitate injuries and prevent new ones, and can also provide relief from certain conditions, and prevent new conditions from developing. How much is your health worth to you?
But do be mindful in committing to a year’s membership when you’ve never really done that style of yoga before. Try starting with a beginner’s offer – most studios will offer some kind of deal on your first few classes. Or try a ten pass. Then, when you know what you really love, dive in and get the best deal by committing to a year.
5. Try, and try, and try again:
The best time to think about joining a studio is when it first opens, because usually they will offer free yoga for a period of time so you can check out the classes, and they often offer discounted joining specials.
So jump in and try as many classes as you can, with different teachers and different styles until you find something you like. You may discover you love classical hatha yoga, but the teacher doesn’t quite speak your language, so find another teacher.
Each teacher brings something different to a class, and appeals to different people. Just because your friend raves about a particular teacher, it doesn’t mean you too will love him or her.
Which leads on to…
6. Pay attention to the teacher.
If you’ve never done yoga before, it’s hard to know what a great yoga teacher is like, compared to a not-so great yoga teacher, because you have nothing to compare against. Each teacher will have a different style too. Some teachers like to physically adjust and correct their students, while other teachers prefer to give verbal corrections and adjustments and let the students find the pose from within.
Regardless of their style though, what great teachers all have in common is that they ’see’ their students. They notice when alignment needs correcting, and when breathing is strained. They see where students are tight, and where they are weak. A great teacher is responsive to the needs of his or her class, and doesn’t recite the instructions for each asana by rote, instead paying attention to what needs to be said in that moment – even in Bikram, which is known for it’s tightly scripted class. A great Bikram teacher can work off the script, and still be responsive to the needs of individual students.
If, after trying a smattering of styles and teachers, yoga still doesn’t grab you… than maybe it’s not for you at this point in life. But don’t write it off completely either – we change every year, and yoga is such a transformative practice, you may find that down the track, it does appeal to you.
Obviously as a Prana Flow Yoga teacher and serious yoga addict I am completely biased, but if you don’t like yoga, do yourself a favour and try one class a year, just in case you do change your mind… and then you’ll understand what I’m raving about all the time!
Author: Kara-Leah Grant, once a Queenstown-based yoga teacher, now teaches in Wellington where she’s discovered the joy of Prana Flow Yoga. Read more of her articles on yoga and the art of living at Prana Flow NZ.
