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UNDERSTANDING “TED’S GENTLE YOGA”
Ted Srinathadas Czukor
January, 2007

I’ve been practicing Yoga for 31 years and teaching it for 26 – and it’s the gentle sort of Yoga that has made the greatest difference in my life. Whenever I’ve injured myself doing other exercise forms, Gentle Yoga has come to the rescue to rehabilitate me and get me back on my feet again. After I pulled all my lumbar muscles on a Nautilus machine, it took 15 years to regain the full flexibility that I’d had before the injury; but Gentle Yoga got me there. When I went through 7 years of multiple surgeries on both eyes for detached retinas (due to genetics or karma – take your pick, and does it really make any difference?), breathing techniques, palming, meditation and prayer did more for my recovery than any amount of muscular work could have done.

Naturally, the gifts and secrets that I have gleaned from the gentle approach are what I wish to communicate to others. A college student of mine once approached me halfway through a semester to inquire about getting into “more advanced” postures. He said he was sure that I, myself, must do much harder work than the things I was teaching my beginners.

He hadn’t been listening! Why would I teach anything different than what I practice myself?

The greatest secret of all, is that the power of true healing is released through small movements and calm, laser-like concentration on the breath. It’s not in the whirlwind that I find Yoga - it’s in the still, small voice.

I feel very blessed that the first style of Yoga I was taught, ‘way back in 1971, was Integral Hatha as promoted by Sri Swami Satchidananda. The reasonable and compassionate way in which the body is treated in that system made perfect sense to me then, and still does today.

My philosophy of Yoga instruction is this: Aren’t we already experts at pushing ourselves too hard? Don’t we do this in every area of life, and haven’t we been practicing it for many years? What we’re not so good at, is knowing how to relax and release – how to “Let go and let God.”

That’s where Ted’s Gentle Yoga comes in. I’m not interested in teaching people what they already know how to do; I want to introduce them to another way, a way of naturalness and “going with the flow.”

Over the years I have added techniques and insights from many different instructors of many different schools. I owe a little of everything to colleagues representing Kundalini, Kripalu, Kriya, Iyengar, Bikram, Astanga, Sivananda, Desikachar and Integral. I have learned something of value from each. But my original instinct has not changed – that Yoga is a naturally-evolving dialogue between mind, body, emotions and spirit, which makes us more understanding and accepting of ourselves and others. I work with the body, but I recognize that mind and spirit are more important. After all, they are the parts that we are going to take with us when we depart this world and go to the next. The Bhagavad Gita says that “Yoga is union with God,” and a yogi is “a harmonized soul.”

With this in mind, I begin each new teaching assignment by giving the class a thorough initiation into diaphragmatic breathing. I believe that this element is “key” to the whole Yoga experience. I cannot understand how true Yoga can be taught without it.

90% of my class is done on the floor, on a cushioned mat. Overly-competitive people who have taken a few classes and think they are ready for “advanced” asanas (postures), need to be shown that they probably don’t understand the simple ones as thoroughly as they think they do; and also that a few simple postures, thoroughly concentrated on, can provide more stress relief than a lot of hard postures done too fast without enough attention. And, of course, folks who are completely new to Yoga need to be taught what those simple postures are, and the safest way to do them.

After a grounding in the basic floor sequences, we may eventually get up onto sticky mats and explore more strengthening, standing routines. But only after we’ve slowly warmed-up to them. This is contrary to the more common practice of starting out on your feet, which has never made internal sense to my own body. And I teach people to honor what their bodies are trying to tell them. We lie down and rest at the end.

I always tell beginners this rule of thumb: Whatever style of Yoga you wind-up practicing, make sure that you are doing something FOR yourself – not something TO yourself!

If you make friends with your body, it will happily serve you well for many years. And it will gradually get better and better at doing it! But if you insist on punishing it and criticizing it because it’s not as good as somebody else’s body (or the body you had years ago), you will create a psychic rift in your own nature. And, as we know, a house divided against itself cannot stand.

People coming to my class to get flexible, are perplexed when I tell them to stop working at it – to learn how to breathe, relax, and release, instead. They’ve been taught all their lives that you have to push yourself hard to accomplish anything - which is unarguably true in Weight-lifting, Karate, Dance, and Climbing the corporate ladder - but is not true in every area of existence. Sometimes all you have to do, is let go! What we seek is Peace – not only emotional and mental, but also the peace that comes from the release of tight, over-tensed body parts. As Swami Satchidananda says, Peace is our birthright, something that has always been within us. You don’t have to create peace, or even find it – all you have to do is Stop disturbing it!!!

My students are blown-away to discover that as their muscles relax and loosen into a stretch, not only does it not hurt – but the muscles actually get stronger as they become more flexible!

There are two major Hindu concepts that must be present in order for a practice to be any style of Yoga. The first is Ahimsa – Non-injury to, and respect for, one’s own body (like the doctor who takes the Hippocratic oath, “First, do no harm”). The second is Tapas – Discipline. This may be the heating discipline of hard-working muscles; but it can also be the far more difficult discipline of mental focus - Mind control.

When you understand this, you have the key to understanding all the hundred different styles of Hatha (physical movement) Yoga. How much Ahimsa is in your teacher’s approach? How much Tapas? Some people need more or less of each. You could say that “Gentle” Yoga is any Hatha class in which Ahimsa is given precedence over Tapas – Peacefulness over Performance

True Yoga (meaning inner union, harmony or integration) should take a type-A person and calm her down, so she can live longer….so a balancing of the Doshas (an Ayurvedic term for the multiple Qualities, or Energies, within you) can take place, and the mind can think more calmly, sanely, and rationally. And Yoga should take an overly sluggish or depressed Type-B person and rev him up – light a bit of a fire under him. Yoga is not about taking your main personality trait and aggravating it. Yoga is about Equilibrium.

In Ted’s Gentle Yoga, Ahimsa reigns. I refer the folks who need revving-up to one of my wonderful colleagues in Astanga, Iyengar, Bikram or Kundalini. I specialize in the calming-down.

In Ted’s Gentle Yoga, we are more concerned with how a posture feels, than with how it looks. My style is easy-going and uses a lot of humor. I like Judith Lasater’s statement that “Yoga is playtime for grownups”. I want students to relax, accept themselves as they are, and have a good time while they are learning something valuable.

Because of my own medical problems, I have also made a study of which Yoga postures are good for certain conditions, and in which cases they may actually be dangerous. Headstands, to take one popular example, are great for some folks, but contraindicated if you’ve had detached retinas, glaucoma, high blood pressure or hiatus hernia. It’s also important for the ladies to note that headstands should not be done while you’re having your period, because the inversion of gravity can disrupt the rhythm of your natural cycle.

If you are experienced in Yoga, and if you like what I’ve said here, you can introduce my attitude suggestions into your own practice. But neophytes need to take classes with a teacher to learn Yoga properly. You can pick-up quite a bit from watching videos or DVD’s - but there is no substitute for having a teacher there to watch you!

If you don’t live in my area, log onto www.azyoga.com and use the Teachers Directory to interview other instructors. It’s very possible that you may find one with a similar approach to mine.

Socrates said, “Know Thyself.” The proper practice of Yoga will help you to achieve this, more completely than anything else I know.

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OM SHANTI, SHANTI, SHANTI
[Peace, Peace, Peace]