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 any thoughts on Jivamukti?Moderators: Moderators Jump to page : 1 2 Now viewing page 1 [25 messages per page] | View previous thread :: View next thread |
| Yoga -> General Yoga | Message format |
Kym |
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I did a search on Jivamukti, and the last post was by GreenJello in '05.  I thought I'd put something out and see what people are thinking in '07. There is a teacher in Dallas that I really enjoy. I like the classes a lot. The asana is great, but almost an afterthought. I enjoy the teaching of the other limbs. Not to say that the asana isn't great, I do love it, but you can get nice asana in many places (even your own living room!) Any thoughts? Anyone else enjoy it? | |||
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| GreenJello |
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| jonnie |
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| Kym |
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| GJ-the lecture is what I like! I enjoyed hearing a yogic based disertation, for lack of a better word. I'm not a vegetarian, and I've heard that brought up 2x's out of 3 sessions, but I just respectfully filter out what does not connect with me at this time. I still enjoy hearing the pt of view. I also like the meditation at the beginning and the chanting. It's an hour and a half of pure bliss for me. | |||
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| GreenJello |
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| Kym |
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I'm sure you had valid reasons for not liking it. I can see peolple not liking the topics for a variety of reasons, including your own.  It just happened to be a good fit for me. I'm not sure what you mean about beginner's level, but I'm interested. Care to elaborate? I have glanced at the website and evidently the topics change monthly. Did you stick with Jiva long enough to know if they build upon previous topics, or is it beginner level each month, new topic? Our teacher joked that she needed to stop adding so much of her own commentary to the "reading". But, for me, that really brought the topic to life. I guess I just really like this person-she's very down to earth. I feel so lucky! Right time, right place, etc. | |||
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| GreenJello |
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Kym - 2007-10-04 7:33 PM I'm sure you had valid reasons for not liking it. I can see peolple not liking the topics for a variety of reasons, including your own. It just happened to be a good fit for me. Good, that's the important thing. I'm not sure what you mean about beginner's level, but I'm interested. Care to elaborate? Not really sure I can. Part of it is a probably with format, most of the lectures are supposed to be about 5-10 minutes in length. Then there the matter of topics. I've read about a ton of different approaches, and usually they have similar themes and techniques, since the final result is usually the same. This makes it hard to introduce anything that would really be new to me. So you get like small amount worth of information about topics I've already studied, or seen done a little differently. I have glanced at the website and evidently the topics change monthly. Did you stick with Jiva long enough to know if they build upon previous topics, or is it beginner level each month, new topic? My experience was that it was beginner every month, and that the teacher didn't follow the official topic list. She did try to build a bit, by covering larger topics over several months. For example she covered chakras, which I had already read quite a bit about, with one chakra per month. Still it wasn't anything I hadn't heard about before. Edited by GreenJello 2007-10-05 3:27 PM | |||
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| ShaktiGrrl |
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| re: 'lecturing' this is such a tough thing to talk about. i think that it's often an important part of class, but that it's also often difficult to make it accessible to "all levels" when you're in an all levels setting. you don't want the information to be so complex that a newer student doesn't "get it" or that it sounds to "woo-woo" (to use Tourist's term), but you don't want it to be so simplistic that an experienced student has heard it before. Now, as an experienced student, i do hear a good deal of repetition. for example, whenever i go see Dharma Mittra in NYC, he typically has the same speech laid out. this is because he doesn't know who he is going to get. Could be me, could be a brand new practitioner. I tend to go to a class that is one of his maha sadhanas, which is open to everyone. so, he speaks about vegetarianism. he tells the same stories and gives the same analogies. he gives the same basic premise, inferences, and conclusions. it's the same, same, same. but i do not mind it so much. first, i listen in case there is something new. then, i take in what he is saying--stories and what not--so that i can pass them on to those who might hear. and finally, i just relax in the knowing that i'm already vegetarian, and so we're in agreement. vegetarianism, btw, is very important to DM. and, i value that. so, it's the same. for a beginner, it might be exciting to hear this. the first time i heard it, i was really thrilled. i was going to the workshop with 3-4 other friends, none of whom were vegetarian. the very week before, they'd all 'gotten on to me' about being vegetarian--even though i rarely talk about it with people. they started justifying themselves, being negative, whatever. all week, it was a wreck. LOL anyway, we go to the workshop (this one was held in princeton, nj), and Dharma talks about the importance of being vegetarian for yoga practice. I thought it was a great way to present the information (even though i've now heard the same method about 10 times or more), and i felt really validated by him. on the way home, everyone talked about the speech--most saying that they just 'ignore what doesn't resonate'--which is fine. but i did ask them to at least consider they way they treated me in the past week, considering i had done nothing to instigate that behavior. they did, ultimately, apologize (about 6 months later). anyway, when it comes to giving 'lectures' in my own classes, i tend not to do it overall. i sneak in certain principles in easy statements while they're doing the practice. for example, i might say "do not try too hard, or you could injure yourself. par tof practicing ahimsa, or nonviolence, is knowing when to be gentle and not aggressive, even though there are times to be aggressive too!" so, it gets snuck in. and i do simple, inspiring readings at the end of class (from thich naht hanh, for example), if i feel like it. and we do meditation and chanting. it's nice. i have more opportunity to 'lecture' when i run a 'course.' it's usually a 4 or 6 or 8 week series of classes that is open to all levels and covering a specific topic. that way, i don't have to worry about drop-ins. also, i find that discussion often goes much farther than pure lecture. i'll pose a question, we'll talk about it a bit (theory, experience), and then i'll weave in what the yoga tradition teaches, something from the sutras or the like, and so on. then, we'll discuss that too. it's a tough thing, though. | |||
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| Cyndi |
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Expert Yogi Posts: 5098   Location: Somewhere in the Mountains of Western NC | Define Woo Woo Stuff??  I tell ya, there is one thing that bothers me about these people...their kinda wierd looking to the average person, and because of the "cultish" aura they have about them, it totally turned me off. This is my first initial reaction to them a long time ago. David and Sharon have been around for a long time in the "yoga realm". I've just chalked it all up to this is their style and how they want to convey themselves. I don't consider this a complete yoga system, its really more about the founders and how they've branded themselves into American/Western Yoga. I'm sure they have their audience of yoga "devotees" just like Shiva Rea does, David Williams, Sean Corne, others....and even my own close to my heart near and dear precious Bikram,  | ||
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| tourist |
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Expert Yogi Posts: 8442    | |||
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| well, they are nyc performance artists, so they're going to be unique individuals. as for "woowoo" stuff, i often find that people who do not know the basics, consider an inference and extension of the basics to be "woo woo" and not real. but if they have a foundation in something, then it is a logical extension from that foundation. for example, i once used the term "karma" in a more 'advanced' sense of how it works (the basics being cause/effect), and the person felt it was too "woo woo"--i assumed that they understood what karma was at a basic level, at a traditional level, and could go to that next inference with me. but apparently not. it was too "woo woo" for them. which is ok by me. it just makes it difficult to teach in mixed levels settings where you have advanced and beginner practitioners and no knowledge of what that beginner does and doesn't know. | |||
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| Kym |
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| kym: yup, i've been there. i've had people giggle and leave class because of "Om." ah well. | |||
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| Cyndi |
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Expert Yogi Posts: 5098 Location: Somewhere in the Mountains of Western NC | Yep, Purna, that makes perfect sense to meeee, | ||
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| Kym |
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| Purna, then you've never been to a Jiva class yourself? Why would you recommend or not recommend something you have never experienced? If someone asked you about it, wouldn't it be best to say you have no first hand knowledge and leave it at that? Or, if you were to say anything about their stance of veganism, wouldn't it be fair to leave a word like "militant" out? That's a very strong, persuasive word especially considering you have not even gone to a class. I have been to a class and that word would not occour to me as being properly descriptive, if that counts for anything. Which, really, it shouldn't. It should only count if you go yourself and happen to agree with me. | |||
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| HydnYoga |
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| few questions re: jivamukti... I have done all my yoga practice and training in India, but I did attend a jivamukti class in uptown NYC last summer. The asana class was fine, but I was not used to all the preliminary chanting! It seemed as though about 20 minutes or more went by in chanting (which was difficult to understand as the pronounciation was quite different), and in a personal affirmative story told by the teacher. The really freaky part was at the end,...when the teacher came to each of us in turn and rubbed some sort of aromatic oil on the soles of our feet DURING Shavasana. I couldn't object because I had no idea it was coming, and it really grossed me out to be quite frank...for several reasons...hygiene, disturbance to my shavasana, and finally, being Indian, it was a bit odd culturally... I was just wondering if all this is standard procedure for yoga classes in the US? Or was it just this one teacher and class...? I have so little to go by, I was hoping to get some info. FYI: Our classes in India often incorporate pranayama, yoga nidra, and silent meditation, but we don't have chanting. We have students from the Muslim faith, as well as a sprinkling of Christians and Jews, and I guess for this reason perhaps, there is no sanskrit chants. I am Hindu and since I pray at home every day, I don't particularly need or miss this feature. Most of my classmates are typically Indian and do their own puja or namaaz at home everyday. We do chant OM during pranayama sometimes, but I don't think this bothers our students from other faiths. We do play music that has chanting in our class, but it's on pretty low, and is more for mood than anything else. | |||
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| OrangeMat |
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Hi Kym, I've never taken a Jivamukti class per se, but from the descriptions on this thread, it seems that my first teacher has been very influenced by that style, since that is pretty much how all her classes run. There's the personal stories at the beginning of class, the yogic philosophy and "moral lessons" (though nothing is ever militant-feeling) that tie in, the 10-15 minutes of chanting, even the occasional application of aromatic oils during savasana, though permission is always asked beforehand (i.e. place your hand on your heart if you don't want any. etc.). But my point was to say this manner of classes is all I've ever known from in my history of attending yoga at a studio. Until I started reading this forum, I had no idea that all classes weren't like that. Yet I had never heard my teacher mention the term Jivamukti in all the time I've been there. She's mentioned her previous trainings and roots in Integral, Ashtanga, Iyengar, Anusara and Kundalini, but never Jiva. So having never known anything else previously, I never thought anything was "odd" about it. And obviously I liked it, since within 6 months of taking classes there, I knew I had to attend her teacher training. | |||
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| Sati Suloshana |
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| I agree with you, it's odd, to say the least. It is not standard procedure. We may adjust a student in Savasana just as we may adjust a student in Virabhaadrasana but it is prefaced by verbal instruction before coming into the pose (savasana) so that the student is not disturbed. Additionally, we typically only adjust those who need it and only in the first three minutes of savasana so that the student's nervous system is not disrupted. I've had things rubbed on my neck and feet in class. While I enjoy such a thing when I am going for massage therapy I find such an application in a yoga class to be presumptuous. Some students are allergic. Some students are frightened or surprised. Some simply do not care for the teachers taste in aromas. I'm not really certain why it's done. HydnYoga - 2007-10-14 12:36 AM The really freaky part was at the end,...when the teacher came to each of us in turn and rubbed some sort of aromatic oil on the soles of our feet DURING Shavasana. I couldn't object because I had no idea it was coming, and it really grossed me out to be quite frank...for several reasons...hygiene, disturbance to my shavasana, and finally, being Indian, it was a bit odd culturally... I was just wondering if all this is standard procedure for yoga classes in the US? Or was it just this one teacher and class...? I have so little to go by, I was hoping to get some info. | |||
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