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Biography |
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I began practicing yoga in the summer of 2000. A little voice, originating somewhere in the mental maze, had been saying "do yoga, do yoga!" for months. I began a daily practice right after checking out Yoga for Athletes from the local library (by Aladar Kogler--an Olympic fencing coach--a fine read). 'Till then, meditation was my morning lifeline for 15 years, and yoga seemed an easy addition to it. A dance studio, that was my soul home for 5-Rythms dance, offered yoga classes, too, so I started work with Steve Brown there, also a martial arts guy with athletic tendencies. (I was just coming off 6 years of triathlon training and we grooved.). My yoga practice became primary. Triathlon lost my attention.
A year into yoga practice, I wanted to teach. I made a resume, visited a health club, told them I was an athlete, a teacher, and had practiced a year of yoga, and they hired me. My first class was a success, and I called and called and called all over Portland and soon had a bevy of classes. A local teacher of Ashtanga, Timo Jiminez, had a great reputation and I began working with him. He wiped out his students with 2-hour hot Ashtanga classes and I learned tons. He was abrasive, however, and a local Shadow Yoga teacher, Matt Huish, seemed to match Timo in knowledge and exceed him in kindness. After 8 months of Timo, I started training with Matt and stayed with him 2 1/2 years, workshopping along the way with Barbara Benaugh, Amrit Desai, Anna Forrest, Paul Grilley and most emphatically, Shandor Ramete, Shadow Yoga's creator. I got Kripalu and Yoga Alliance Certification in the Summer of '03.
I moved to SF in 8/04 to begin a Ph.D program in Hatha Yoga at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) and, at the same time, I met and began training with Tony Briggs in Iyengar yoga. (SF--perhaps the world's yoga capital, seems to feature more Iyengar teaching than all other kinds combined.)
By this time, yoga had become the biggest of deals for me. Work in colleges, teaching English and art history, while pursing yoga work, indicated I'd best earn a Ph.D if I wanted to get somewhere. The idea of a Hatha Yoga doctorate seemed paradoxical to me, but exciting. I pitched the concept of an individualized Ph.D to CIIS and they said yes. (They already have a yoga certificate program and Ph.D in Hindu Religion and Philosophy.) So, 4 years out, I may be the first Doctor of Yoga trained in these United States.
Where this course of study will take me, I don't know. I do know yoga is my career, my spiritual center and my intellectual delight. I love learning it. I love sharing it. I hope I may meet you in class. |
| Philosophy |
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The second verse of the yoga sutras states (in Sanskrit), yoga citta vrittis nirodhas. This is usually translated as "yoga is the inhibition of the modifications of the mind." Yoga is mind work. Of course, the whole body functions as "the mind." The nervous system thinks and feels throughout that whole frame. And we are more privy to that thinking and feeling through yoga.
We experience yoga’s benefits through devotion and patient work. We extend the capacities of our body-mind by training the nervous system to organize our movement, thought and feeling more intelligently. We gradually perfect our health this way. The body becomes light and strong. The twisting, turning and long holds of yoga squeeze the organs, detoxifying them. Cravings disappear. When we hold poses and bear the movement of our energy, we learn to explore the moment and enjoy the play of our responses to life. Receptivity expands. All of life becomes pleasurable because we learn to withstand the moment. We train ourselves to be more in contact with life in every second.
"Yoga citta vrittis nirodhas." "Yoga is the inhibition of the modifications of the mind." Yogic wisdom understands that we incarnate on this Earth, because a complex of vrittis (twined patterns that make up the transmigrating soul) are evolving--are untangling--through human birth. Our arc of growth is from nothingness to nothingness, from undifferentation in the soul of God, to differentation in finite existence, and then back to undifferentation in the Ultimate once more. We untwine the vrittis that keep us incarnate.
This unknotting is the cyclical work for all of life. Birth happens again and again for each of us--from life to life--while new beings are continually coming into life. Our universe will even die and beget a new one--endlessly. But in this infinite cycling, we evolve. It is our responsibility. It is our work on this Earth to evolve toward oneness with the ultimate Self, with God, by undoing the reactive patterns of everyday consciousness. In yoga, we are exploring how to become one with the bliss, the intelligence and the activity of this Ultimate.
Hatha yoga--the yoga of the body--is an art of evolution. But generally, yoga means the conscious work we do to grow and improve during this life in our vocations, in our intimate ties, in our religious work, in our financial life, in our politics, in our interactions with every thing, everywhere, every day.
This is Yoga. |
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Eric Shaw 
