Fixed Sequence Practices

I have some experience with yoga traditions that use a fixed sequence -- i.e. every class you do, you do the same poses in the same order. I have been taking class at Atmananda, where Jhon Tamayo teaches the Atmananda Sequence. And actually i did my formal teacher training with Jhon T (as he likes to go by), though I had been doing yoga almost ten years at that point so I was very experienced already.

I have also taken a fair number of Bikram yoga classes, which is the so-called 'hot yoga', where you do a fixed sequence in a heated room. I've written about Bikram classes elsewhere in this blog, so I won't go into it too much here. And also I'm somewhat familiar with the Astanga 1st series.

These three yoga traditions -- atmananda, bikram, astanga -- are all pretty physical, and the founders and followers are pretty insisitent about doing exactly the same sequence every time. (Atmananda less than the other two, actually.)

I can see some of the benefits -- you really find your groove, you develop a deep familiarity with the poses and in particular the transitions. But mostly I think these traditions follow a fixed sequence because the founders believe that they have discovered some 'best' way to do yoga. These three guys -- Jhon Tamayo, Bikram Chowdury, and Pattabi Jois, who founded Astanga yoga -- have big egos, and want people to do what they say. So in a way I think the insistence on following a fixed sequence is a control mechanism -- you have to do things the way I think they should be done. This is something I really don't like.

First, as I say over and over, every person is different, both mentally and physically, and what's right for one person is not likely to be right for the next. And I think part of the learning process of yoga is figuring out what works for you, and what you need to work on. If you just show up and do the same poses over and over, you're losing some of that involvement in your own practice. It's too easy.

And truth be told, I'm just not a fan of following in general, of being a follower. People need to make up their own minds about things, lest we be sheep, lest we fall into line and herd the jews into the gas chambers as we're told. (oops, sorry, let that slip out!)

Here's another thing -- I think doing the same sequence over and over is just boring. It's comfortable, familiar, but too much comfort and familiarity is boring, it's lazy. I think we need to keep challenging ourselves, to find some discovery.

Now, granted, you can always work within the same ol' poses that we always do, and find some discoveries there. And that's why I can keep taking the atmananda sequence classes, because I can work with the same old poses. But I think there's a great joy in discovering something new, including a new yoga pose, or, more likely, a new variation of one of the poses you've known and loved.

There's part of me that thinks that the people who insist on doing sequences are just lazy. Because, make no mistake, it's hard to plan a full vinyasa class with new and interesting sequencing of poses. I don't do it so often myself, I usually just kind of wing it. But I know teachers who do these vinyasa classes that require a lot of planning, choreography really. And that is a lot of work, so I can see why some teachers don't want to bother. But I don't think that just concocting a standard class and doing it over and over again forever is the answer.

Maybe I'm most opposed to the ego involved. Yes, honestly, I think that's it. I think it's really, really presumptuous of thse guys to insist that everyone does their sequences of poses over and over, like they've uncovered some great secret. It's just a bunch of yoga poses in an order, with transitioning moves. But each of these guys is certain that their poses, in their order, is the 'right' version. Drives me crazy.