“As regular practitioners we should always re evaluate ourselves and the way in which we see the world”
Corine Biria, senior teacher of Iyengar Yoga,is together with her husband, Faeq Biria, co-directing the Iyengar Yoga Center in Paris. She talks with Sadhaka during her workshop in Brussels on the 26th-27th of January 2008.
You have made a reference to the relationship between breathing problems and neck problems. Where does this connection come from and how does one work on it in Yoga?
I have shown with one student that people that have neck problems have difficulty in fully stretching their arms. The lung extension is poor and there is jamming or blockage on the collar bones and shoulders which stiffens the neck more causing a direct impact on the pulmonary movement. The less the lungs move the less they work, resulting in poor circulation and as a consequence, they become weak. So, our aim is not to work directly on the lungs, but to create movement in the shoulders, arms, collar bones, neck and shoulder blades to allow the lungs to work. All of this is possible by the stretching in both directions, horizontally and vertically .The more the neck is blocked, the less movement and consequently the less movement in the lungs, resulting in the beginning of respiratory problems. It is for this reason that we should not only blame microbes and / or bacteria. The beginner must learn to strengthen their immune systems and give the chance to each part of the body to be awakened so that circulation will be better. In this way, when the organs are strong, they can deal, as much as possible, with the different microbes.
Relating to this, you have spoken about the relationship between breast and breathing. How should women work on this?
It is true that the heavier the chest is, the more the cervical spine is pushed back and that is not a good direction to go. The heavier the chest the more it bends down from the top of the lungs. This sagging of the upper part of the lung has several consequences: first, it affects the neck and respiratory system but also the psychological side of a person. And because of the sagging, the chest touches the diaphragm, which has a major impact on the nervous system. Indeed, this is one of many areas that the Iyengar method enforces. The diaphragm must regain its place and its flexibility. It is certain that the heavier the chest the harder the diaphragm. When the diaphragm is hard or stiff we don’t see life the same way as when the diaphragm is flexible and supple. This application requires women in general and especially women with a heavy chest to work on this. This shouldn’t be a taboo but a work to arrive in a right result in Yoga.
Yes, and to work on this we have used a brick placed in the middle of our back. You have also mentioned the ‘memory” of the body that these supports give us. Is this one of the keys of the Iyengar way?
Yes it is absolutely one of the keys of the Iyengar method. In the Iyengar method of Yoga a prop is not a crutch that we often think it is. The purpose of the prop is to achieve a feeling in the pose that we otherwise wouldn’t have reached without it. Like yesterday, we placed a brick in the middle of the back, giving better contact. As you have noticed, a lot of students did not feel it and, thanks to the brick, they discovered that there is a middle of the back. There we reached a key point of the Iyengar method: To know how to use props to reach a particular part of the body. It is not that we need to do a standing pose or any other asanas with support; the importance is to know why we use a support and its purpose. Once the desired correction is achieved with the support, we should do it without a prop. In the first instance it is reached with support and the second time, once the intelligence or memory has been awaken, we should do the pose independently to achieve the same result. Obviously, the exercise will be more difficult since you don’t have the same level of support but we must find the same sensation without having the support. Therefore we must not remain over dependent on it, the support is just a temporary help. As someone that breaks a leg and needs a walking stick, but once the leg is mended, he doesn’t need the support anymore. It is the same for us.
In Dandasana, you have mentioned the “tamasic” state of the buttocks.
It is a subject that interests me very much. We are sitting most of the time or lying down and only in between are we standing. This sitting, especially in a chair, has made us lazy. And laziness is felt because we are at all times with heavy buttocks. The energy that we carry with us has a tendency to go in the direction of weight. Therefore, if the weight downs, the energy that makes us live drops. I believe when the energy descends one doesn’t have the same vision of the world, than when the energy is rising. When the energy drops there is a tendency to see the negative aspect of life and there is no Yoga in this direction. We do Yoga to have a positive approach towards the world. This is where we can see if a yoga practitioner first practise and second practise correctly. A yoga practitioner that doesn’t practice enough will always have a negative view of the world, since there is no support to the ascending energy that we look for in the Iyengar practice. It is where we, as regular practitioners, are forced to question and observe the way in which we look at the world. When one starts criticising the entire world one should be challenged and look unencumbered. It is there where we enter the work of “svadhyaya” when we observe and discover at a certain point of our life that we criticize everyone, that we don’t see the positive aspect of things and one is constantly complaining. When we face that stage, one should consider his practice differently because something is wrong. But I must say those moments of withdrawal or pulling back are in the path of every Yoga practitioner; one must pass through this, although it is difficult. When this pull back or withdraw comes we should accept to change something somewhere. Of course, it will be different from one person to the other according to the context of one’s life and education. And from there, transform this negative aspect towards something that lifts us up not only in our soul but also the relation with our daily environment. Our daily lives are heavy in some parts, like our hips. It drags us down because it is so repetitive and in the end, monotonous. I believe that one that practices Yoga correctly, even with these monotonies, will keep the joy of life. When one has the joy of life, the love for others,a little compassion for all then, even if there is the routine of life, he is going in the right way on the path of Yoga. Those questions arise from our pelvis and take us very far in our daily life.
You have said that eyes are a useful tool for beginners, but a disadvantage for the more advanced students.
In the beginning the eyes are indispensable to learn Yoga. Beginners don’t have another way than to use the eyes to capture the pose and the way it is done. Then they use their vision to create a physical balance. At the same time those eyes will allow them to understand our explanations and to become familiarized with the expressions that we use in our method of Yoga. Another important point is that when one learns the asanas, one needs to correct oneself. This is the beginning but not the end. To learn how to correct oneself needs to start, at least at the beginning, with the eyes to see if something is long, short, wide or narrow. There is an area between what we see and what is real and what we can’t see it. Here, we talk about a posture where one doesn’t see it physically, but the same happens in asanas where we can see ourselves and that is when our eyes need to be objective, we should see our bodies as if it doesn’t belong to us anymore, with objectivity. When we work with subjectivity there is always a form of compassion and indulgence towards our own bodies. ”Yes I have this pain so I can’t do more than that”. This indulgence doesn’t serve us for too long. It is preferable to look to our selves with objective eyes, to observe what is wrong. We can see the mistakes of others so well and it is so difficult to see our own mistakes. To see our own mistakes we must have a certain objectivity regarding ourselves. When we see our mistakes, we are capable to correct ourselves. There, again, the eyes are indispensable. Beginners and intermediary students need to see the mistakes on another student to understand what happens in their own bodies. So, the eyes are the beginning of our understanding, of what must be done in our bodies through our method of teaching. We arrive at a second stage where we should bring back the eyes and develop our skin instead of the eyes. Why? Because of the handicap of the eyes which forces the brain to be forward. The position of the brain against the forehead sets the brain to be more analytical and very strong. This stops us being well. We think too much, and our brain is too active. It is for this reason, that the eyes are related to the element of fire because they cause an element of fire inside us due to the position of the brain which is forward. In fact, we often live with our brain pressing forwards. A brain that forces us to think, to plan the future, to calculate, to analyse, all is done in the forward part of the head, and there is the source of stress. The source of stress that is engaged in the nervous system can’t relax, since the nervous system can’t relax with the brain being forwards. The brain should go to its place back, in the head. To sense this movement the eyes become an obstacle. This doesn’t happen in the first stage of practice, it happens in the second stage. To re-educate students to this, we start to oblige them to do the asanas without looking to the floor or without looking at themselves. For example: to jump and open the legs without looking at the floor or to their own bodies. They should be able to go down just looking forwards. In this way we re-educate and replace the brain to be where it should have been. And in this moment, the brain becomes receptive and another area takes over: the skin. The skin becomes our friend in a way that, even without the eyes, we will have something that will tell us if we are well or not in the posture. The ears can’t do it; the nose can’t do it. The skin sends the messages and we should listen, the brain must be receptive. We place the brain in a state of receptivity and the skin gives us the messages that we finally are capable of listening. We listen but in a different manner. Where there is pain in certain areas of the skin it is a sign of problem, and we should listen to these messages. When there is a problem, we must find a solution, we must know why there is a problem in that area and the work of a Yogi is to work on these areas where there are no circulation or a blockage that creates tensions in all levels including the nervous system. When someone has a stomach ache that makes one to want to walk away from this world, it is usually not a coincidence. Blockages create tension on the nervous system that makes the whole outside world seem unbearable. One should let go these blockages. As the skin gives us the signal, the alarm, we should look into it and work on the release of it. Of course if one is in good health the jamming are less visible, but they exist, if there is none, there is no need to do Yoga. If one does Yoga it is because in some part of the body the energy is not circulating. There is our work, to find where the jamming is and to free it, to observe a harmonious movement inside ourselves to become a better human. Because Yoga is not a “thing” to keep us inside our own bubble, it is a work of introspection, which is so strong, and subtle, it permits the person to live in harmonies with the environment. It is said: love thy neighbour, forgive thy neighbour. I can say that, in this moment, one has a successful practice of Yoga and it has its usefulness on Earth.
