The first time I practiced with Iain Grysak was on February 2017. I attended the immersion Ashtanga Pranayama Course.I was reading his articles since 2015. The first article I read was Reflections on Mysore 6 Weeks. I become instantly hooked to his writing.2016 is the year I really jumped into the Ashtanga Yoga Method. I practiced with Ramesh from BNS Iyengar, John Scott, Sarawasthi and Sharat on the same year. It was easy for me as I was living in Srirangnapatna at that time.On June 2016 I met Marie and David, students of Iain. They both told me: “In Ubud there is one Ashtangi, his name is Iain and you should go and practice with him”.On November 2016 while waiting on the bench facing the main shala entry for Sharat Conference I saw Iain outside of the crowed patiently waiting while others people where ready to kill to be first entering into the main shala.Exactly the day before I was on his website wondering should I register for his immersion course. And then he was there right in front of me. I took it as a sign.So here it is, “my” interview with Iain Grysak.
Enjoy the reading!
***
1. The discipline of the Ashtanga Yoga practice
really helps me to manage OCD issues. Why does this particular
practice “heal” the body and the human being?
The Ashtanga practice is a powerful tool. Like any powerful tool, it can
be used for good or for harm. It truly depends on how we use it. It would be
wrong to expect that simply by performing these sequences of asana and
breathing, that we will automatically obtain healthy or healing results.
The
asana and breathing sequences must also be practiced with the right intention
and awareness.
I feel that if we are using the practice as a vehicle for bringing about
improved relationship and clearer communication between the conscious mind and
the feeling body, then we are going to obtain good results in the long term.
Much of our lack of wellness in the modern world – both on the individual level
and the planetary level – has its origins in the disconnection between the
moment to moment awareness of the conscious mind and the experiential reality
of the feeling body.
We have become lost in the world of disembodied human
abstraction and our actions and decisions increasingly ignore the felt reality
of our biological human organism as well as that of the planetary organism.
If we practice with the intention of allowing ourselves to engage with
the experience of the feeling body, we soon encounter many of our habitual
patterns of reaction within the feeling body. Everything we are is actually
contained within this quality of embodied feeling.
If we can simply give space
for these aspects of who and what we are to express themselves in the practice
– without diving in and deepening them, nor running away from and avoiding them
– then we open up the possibility of authentic and sustainable personal
transformation.
This is not an easy process, but those who practice this as a
long term process will almost certainly experience positive self-transformation
and healing.
Unfortunately, it can also happen that we use the practice as a
destructive tool. This happens when we use the practice as a way to deepen or
strengthen our habitual patterns of reaction.
When the practice brings up these
aspects of ourselves, we can fall into the habitual grooves of reaction while
we are practicing. One who practices in this way as a long term process can
become a dangerous person, and the many public cases of teachers who have
abused their students are examples of this.
2. While practicing sometimes we are
“winning” one posture and after a couple of months of regular
practice we are “loosing” it. Have you ever experienced it?
This is a natural aspect of the long
term dynamics of the restructuring process of the practice.
Our beings are held
in a stable, but malleable state of balance. This applies to all levels of our
being – physical, emotional, energetic, psychological, etc. The postures and
sequences of the practice are daily inputs which shift and change the tensions
patterns which hold us in this stable state. As we continue to practice long
term, the effect of the inputs of the practice on the tension patters of our
being percolate deeper and deeper and the very structure of our being changes.
If we make a “breakthrough” and
attain a bind, or some form of completion in a difficult posture, this
represents the culmination of a shifting in the internal tension patters.
For
some time we might continue to be able to perform this action in our practice,
but eventually the system shifts again, possibly due to accommodating another
form of movement we are working on, or perhaps just due to a phase in the
process of deeper integration.
Then, we can lose the ability to perform that
action. This is usually a temporary phase. It can last anywhere from a day to a
year or more. In nearly all cases, the ability to perform this action will
eventually come back with regular long term practice.
It is important to understand that
there is no permanence inside. Practice should give us an experiential
understanding of this phenomena of constant internal change and flux. We can
then cultivate less attachment to certain internal states which we might judge
as being favourable.
Every moment there are so many influences which our being
is responding to and shifting to accommodate. We are stable, yet we are also
fluid and constantly changing.
Learning to accept this dynamic of eternal flux
and shift with grace and stability is one of the deeper lessons we should glean
from long term practice.
3. Is it the normal assimilation
process of the Method?
Yes, as explained in my explanation
above.
4. How much time it will take to get
mastery over the Drishti?
Drishti is an aspect of focus and
concentration. It also has important physiological effects, but the ability to
maintain the gaze in one place represents the ability to stay focussed.
I like to say that the main drishti
is the breath.
When I am practicing, I don’t place much important on external
gazing points. I tend to “watch” my breath as continuously as possible.
This
means being with the phenomenological experience of the breath moving inside.
This also connects back to my answer to your first question where I said the
main goal of practice should be to improve the relationship between the
conscious mind and the feeling body.
When we are able to stay focused and
absorbed in the phenomenological experience of the feeling body (and breath) as
we move through the practice, then drishti is automatically engaged. In its
true essence, drishti is an internal gazing practice.
As for “mastery”, concentration will
wax and wane like everything else.
Our goal should be to remain as absorbed as
possible in the phenomenological experience of body and breath, but we should
also expect that this will never be perfect.
Concentration is as impermanent a
phenomena as everything else that we experience. Nonetheless, over time and
with regularity of practice, we should see a gradual improvement in the ability
to attend to what we are experiencing inside at the feeling based level.
Photo Credit: Iain Grysak
5. Is real Uddiyana and Jalandhara
Bandha happening in Asanas (means without any Kumbhakas)
Bandha is simply a state of balanced
alignment around the major joints and lock of the body.
If proper alignment and
breathing are in place, then bandha will be there. Bandha represents the most
balanced state that our being can exist in at any given moment. If we are
practicing well, all of the bandhas will be engaged to some degree.
The
specific intentional locks that occur in khumbaka pranayama are slightly
different, and should not be engaged in the asana practice.
Photo Credit: Iain Grysak
6. Do
you think that it is easy to follow the “parampara” when in Mysore
there are more than 200 students to practice for one teacher?
Sharath’s
instructions to each individual in Mysore are very clear.
He has the ability to
understand each student’s strengths and weaknesses within a very short period
of time and he then works with each individual accordingly.
If one trusts
Sharath and applies his instructions, one can make a lot of progress in the
practice under Sharath’s guidance.
My practice deepens immensely when I
practice with him in Mysore. I think problems for others arise when they bring
their own expectations for what they hope to experience there, and because of
that they fail to surrender to learning what it is that Sharath can teach them.
7. At what time is your morning
practice and are you still practicing the Primary Series?
I practice from 2:30 – 4:30 am when I
am teaching, which is most of the year. I always do primary series on Friday
mornings or whatever the last day of the practice week is.
I also sometimes
practice primary series on the day before travelling, and possibly for several
days after travelling if it has been disruptive to my state of balance.
Other times that I practice primary
include times where I am going through deeper restructuring and need to pull
back to stabilize myself, or in the rare cases where I become very sick or
fatigued.
For example, I climbed a 6500 m mountain in Nepal in December of last
year. It was extremely difficult and even traumatic to my being, especially on
summit day when I suffered from altitude sickness, but pushed on to reach the
summit.
Due to various factors, I was not able to practice asana at all for the
second half of the expedition. When I returned home to Bali, I became very sick
with pneumonia, which also prevented me from practicing asana for about a week.
When I finally was able to start practice again, I felt very weak, and so did
primary series only for several weeks, until I felt strong enough to start
other series again.
8. Is there any series in the
Ashtanga Yoga Practice that have been harder, longer to learn for You?
All of the series are difficult, if
we learn them properly!
The aspects of the practice that we most need to
develop are often the most difficult things to learn. There have been many
things that were difficult for me to learn.
There is no one who learns
everything about this practice easily and quickly.
People who say they learned
primary, or any other series quickly often have a very weak practice which is
full of holes. Full integration of any series takes time. For everyone.
9. From time to time are you still
practicing Iyengar Yoga?
No. In my opinion, the two systems
are not compatible and should not be practiced together.
They give very
different types of inputs to the being and the internal intelligence would be
very confused by attempting to integrate both types of inputs. It is best to
choose one system or the other and practice it diligently.
There are valuable things that I
learned from practicing Iyengar yoga which are still with me and which inform
the way that I practice Ashtanga, but as far as using the Iyengar method of
practice, no, I don’t.
10. What is the advice you will give
to someone who want to start Ashtanga Yoga? Is there any proper diet that
suits better the practice?
I consider diet to be a practice in
itself.
For me, all practices – yama, niyama, asana, pranayama, meditation,
diet, etc – are just different methods to improve the relationship between the
conscious mind and the feeling body.
I do intend to write a longer article
about my experiences and views on diet. I personally follow a vegan diet based
on nutrient dense, whole foods. My dietary choices have been a gradual
exploration and evolution which continues to this day.
I think the most important thing I
can say about diet is that it is important to base one’s choices in food
consumption on the authentic needs of the feeling body.
We can only truly feel
the needs of the feeling body when the conscious mind learns how to communicate
with it.
For most of us in the modern world, this is a long term process.
Exposing oneself to different dietary philosophies and systems is a very good
thing to do. It is helpful to understand the claims of each system and to try
out those things that make some sense to us.
But, then the real test is to feel
the response of the feeling body to trying out different ways of eating. The
body understands what is and isn’t good for it.
As long as we give ultimate
authority to the feeling body and NOT to an external dietary dogma, we will
learn how to make better and better dietary choices. I generally recommend
against making drastic dietary changes in a short period of time.
Even if one’s
dietary habits are not the healthiest or most efficient ways of eating, they do
become a source of stability once we have adapted to them. Too much change too
quickly is like pulling the carpet out from underneath someone’s feet.
It
usually results in shock and a painful experience. Diet is no exception to this
rule. I definitely encourage experimentation with different dietary choices,
but to implement them gradually and to pay attention to the response of the
feeling body with each dietary shift. We can then to make further decisions
based on the feedback of the feeling body to each small change.