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Member
Posts: 16
| How about collecting the worst bad practice habits you developed yourselves or you see in other people's practice?
Here is my personal favorite, not really a habit, a mistake one would only do once:
I practice in China, and sometimes my Chinese is not sufficient to understand instructions. So once, when I was in headstand and couldn't understand, I turned my head to see what the others were doing next. Leading to a few days of severe headache and a few days more of being told by my wife what a fool I am...
Bad habits overcome: drink during the practice and use of towel, really distracted my attention. A few hundreds more not yet detected.
How about yours?
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| Hmmmm...what about talking while vinyasa-ing???  |
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 574
 
| Taking yoga too seriously is a 'bad' habit. Rolling a joint before and after may benefit those who struggle to smile,enjoy and learn. |
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Veteran
Posts: 113
Location: Uppsala, Sweden | The Bad Habits from Hell:
• Not shower before class, and certainly not cleaning the feet, or washing the clothes. Use some perfume instead.
• Go practice in the shala even though you are sick, have the flu and such.
• Eating lots of spicy/garlicky food right before practice, and burping and farting out loud.
• Arriving late, not turning cell phone off.
• Use clothing that reveals your intimate parts.
• Snap the stinky mat open, and make a commotion, loudly saluting someone you know.
• Talking to others in class, commenting someone's performance of a posture, giving advice/adjustments (while not being a teacher).
• Starring at others, especially attractive people, or someone doing a difficult asana (and comparing your practice to theirs).
• Squeezing your limbs into new difficult asanas, while breathing forcibly, moaning/groaning and cursing when you fail to keep your balance.
• Skipping asanas you don't like, e.g. Shavasana. Starting second series without any kind of proficiency in the first.
• Ignoring instructions.
• Smoking in the lobby or dressing room... and so on. |
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Veteran
Posts: 113
Location: Uppsala, Sweden | I think there are very good reasons why Maharishi Patanjali put yama and niyama (moral philosophy of yoga) as the first and second limb of ashtanga (Raja) yoga. Without working with your psychosocial development and issues of desire, anger, delusion, greed, envy and laziness, and some understanding of how your psyche works, the yoga practice will lack the moral foundation necessary to become more than a watered-down physical health practice. |
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Expert Yogi
Posts: 2479
Location: A Blue State | Iraputra - 2010-02-24 11:28 AM
The Bad Habits from Hell:
• Not shower before class, and certainly not cleaning the feet, or washing the clothes. Use some perfume instead.
• Go practice in the shala even though you are sick, have the flu and such.
• Eating lots of spicy/garlicky food right before practice, and burping and farting out loud.
• Arriving late, not turning cell phone off.
• Use clothing that reveals your intimate parts.
• Snap the stinky mat open, and make a commotion, loudly saluting someone you know.
• Talking to others in class, commenting someone's performance of a posture, giving advice/adjustments (while not being a teacher).
• Starring at others, especially attractive people, or someone doing a difficult asana (and comparing your practice to theirs).
• Squeezing your limbs into new difficult asanas, while breathing forcibly, moaning/groaning and cursing when you fail to keep your balance.
• Skipping asanas you don't like, e.g. Shavasana. Starting second series without any kind of proficiency in the first.
• Ignoring instructions.
• Smoking in the lobby or dressing room... and so on.
Well... that's a little blunt. But in general, those are mostly not good things. Still, yoga has a big aspect of being tolerant and being flexible...don't judge others too quickly.
... bg |
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Regular
Posts: 86
Location: Jacksonville, Florida | Isn't there something in the Hatha Yoga Pradipika about packing the floor well with cow dung?
Someone not taking a shower would be the least of your worries.
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 574
| If all the above habits are done with awareness, one can learn from them and they arent neccesarily bad any more (up to a point ofcourse). |
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Veteran
Posts: 113
Location: Uppsala, Sweden | "Shaucha
There are two types of shaucha, or purification: bahir shaucha [external purification] and antah shaucha [internal purification].
Bahir shaucha, the first, involves washing the outer part of the body with red clay and water. By rubbing the body with clay, sweat and dirt are removed, and the body becomes soft and shiny.
The second, anta shaucha, means viewing everything and every being as a friend, and treating all with affection (maitri). This means engaging the mind with the supreme feeling that all are our friends, and considering everything to be a reflection of God. Such focusing of our attention on the Supreme Being is antah shaucha.
From this twofold shaucha, a loathing is developed for the body, which is seen as abominable, essenceless, and perishable, and a disgust is felt when touching the body of another. It is then that one feels the body's purity and thus hesitates to indulge in sin.
'Shauchat swanga jugupsa parair asamsargah.'
[Owing to purity, there is a desire to protect one's own body, being the non-contact with whatever is adverse (to that).]
- Patanjali Yoga Sutras ii:40"
/p.13-14, Yoga Mala [paperback ed. 2002] by Sri K. Pattabhi Jois (1962)
"The room should have a small door, be free from holes, hollows, neither too high nor too low, well plastered with cow-dung and free from dirt, filth and insects. On its outside there should be bowers, raised platform (chabootrâ), a well, and a compound. These characteristics of a room for Ha?ha Yogîs have been described by adepts in the practice of Ha?ha." - http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/hyp/hyp03.htm
"II.40 From cleanliness arises protection for one's own body and non-contamination by others.
Cleanliness of body and mind creates a protective shield around the body. Although hygiene protects the body from infectious disease, the cleanliness referred to here is predominantly abstention from thoughts of hatred, greed, and infatuation. Such thoughts will manifest as actions of hatred and the like, and these will lead to damaging of the body. Another implication of negative action needs to be considered. In the early stages of yoga practice students may be quite fragile and easily distracted from their path.
During those early days it is important to protect one's enthusiasm and interest in the practice.
There is a physical law that energy always flows from the higher to the lower potential. A novice student can easily lose the yogic merit he or she has accumulated, through keeping bad company. One can readily pick up negative attitudes and emotions from others, especially when one is open to them. Such contamination is said to be counteracted through cleanliness. With the use of the term 'non-contamination' I am following Georg Feuerstein, who says that Patanjali's term jugupsa 'conveys the idea of being on one's guard with respect to the body, of having a detached attitude towards our mortal frame.' [Georg Feuerstein, Yoga Sutra of Patanjali, p. 87.]
This use of 'non-contamination' is opposed to the unfortunate term 'disgust', which some commentators use. Some religious authorities, Christian and Hindu, view the body as disgusting. Materialistic people, on the other hand, are completely absorbed by the body and its needs. Yoga takes a neutral stance here. The body is seen as potentially that by which the spirit is bound [Shvetashavatara Upanishad 5.10], but on the other hand it is acknowledged as a tool for achieving liberation [Shvetashavatara Upanishad 5.12].
However, the feeling of disgust toward one's own or anyone else's body creates nothing but a new obstacle to yoga. Disgust falls into the category of repulsion (dvesha), which is one of the five afflictions [i.e. kleshas] (sutra II.8).
Repulsion is based on a negative imprint (samskara) that will condition one's actions and lead to future suffering and ignorance." --
/p. 222, Ashtanga Yoga: Practice & Philosophy by Gregor Maehle (2006)
Bad habits should be replaced by practicing good habits, otherwise you will not get rid of the bad ones.
In these modern times, I think most people prefer to practice on even-levelled hardwood floor, rather than plastered cow-dung, and if you smell really bad I think the unfortunate person practicing next to you might be more aware of your condition than you are, but even more important are your attitudes and feelings during practice.
"We Western practitioners (I cannot speak for non-Western practitioners) have come to realize, somewhat reluctantly, that our spiritual practice has not eliminated some of our basic psychological ills, including deep anxieties, fears, and neuroses. This is hard to admit. We came to practice, and continue to practice, because we believe in the liberative freedom promised by texts, teachers, and practices. But as time moves forward, we see that practice sometimes leaves many stones unturned. How is it that we can develop strong and flexible posture practices, deep states of meditation, or advanced pranayama techniques, yet still leave many of our deep-seated habits and thoughts untouched?" --
/p. 43, The Inner Tradition of Yoga: A Guide to Yoga Philosophy for the Contemporary Practitioner by Michael Stone (2008)
The bad habits I listed above are only examples of what I have witnessed, heard of, or even done myself (a few) - not a judgement of others, but a judgement of what are bad practice habits that are best avoided, or dealt with in better ways, in order to make practice a good and wholesome experience for everyone.
Edited by Iraputra 2010-03-20 11:48 AM
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| Vibes,
Do you mean merely rolling a joint, or actually smoking one? |
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| Honestly, I think the worst habit one can have in their yoga practice is talking and thinking about it too much--that and thinking they have bad habits. My advice, for what it's worth, is not to take the whole thing so seriously.
Namaste |
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Bad practice habits
