My many years of traditional hatha yoga training in Boston in the 80’s developed a repertoire of external postures or asanas.
After 7 years, I experienced an internal catharsis that reversed the way I practice yoga. I was in a meditation class with Angela Farmer and Victor Van Kooten in Molivos, Greece. They taught a revolutionary style of yoga: undoing muscular effort. They spoke of the inner body, the back body and the flow of energy through relaxed breathing. As I surrendered to their rich images and visualizations, a sudden surge of energy exploded in my spine. I felt new waves of energy releasing in all directions. Their reference to softening and opening the perineum became clear to me. (The perineum is the spot between the sexual organs and the anus).
Next morning, I found myself in the dreaded most advanced forward bends that I could never do before. I had unblocked my front body, and awakened my back body (my feminine side). The impact dissolved all the hardness I had built up for physical strength. I became more sensitive to larger energies, more sensitive to pain around me. Since then, my practice has become empty. I fill the spaces inside with breath. I listen, observe, open and receive the ever-changing currents of energy that I harness back and pump into the asanas. We have forgotten that yoga is a free and creative stimulation that comes from within us, from nature. My teachers kept reminding us: unless we get to the root of our being, unless we connect to the energies inside and around us, what use is a firm, muscled up-body with no inner life?