Quest Yoga Studio

The following is an excerpt from the introduction to Kripalu Yoga: A Guide to Practice On and Off the Mat. Written by Richard Faulds (Shobhan), the book provides user-friendly instructions for posture practice suitable for beginners as well as a wealth of guidance and exercises for yoga enthusiasts wanting to deepen their practice. It also features in-depth consideration of the off-the-mat approaches to emotional, psychological, and spiritual health that form an integral part of Kripalu Yoga.

People come to yoga for different reasons. Most are looking for a way to improve their health. Others are interested in effective tools to manage stress. Still others seek personal and spiritual growth. Kripalu Yoga offers all these things. It’s a practice that revitalizes the body, calms the mind, and deepens self-awareness. Kripalu Yoga works its magic by bringing body, mind, and spirit into a state of harmony and balance. Focusing on the sensations that arise as you breathe and move bridges the chasm separating body and mind, allowing you to become fully present in your body. A balanced sequence of yoga postures stretches and strengthens the entire body, releasing the chronic tension that so often dulls vitality. As you conclude your yoga session with deep relaxation, energy naturally flows to the areas of your body most in need of rejuvenation and healing. You leave feeling balanced, energized to resume your life, and naturally motivated to sustain your practice.

Regular practice takes you to deeper levels, initiating a gradual process of growth and transformation. Concentration deepens, enabling you to observe the inner flow of emotion and thought with heightened awareness. Riding the wave of your moment-to-moment experience, you release trapped emotion by choosing to feel it fully. Witnessing the activity of the mind, you learn to recognize unproductive thinking and let it go. As these obstacles fall away, a joyous clarity emerges. Moments arise where you touch into the core energy underlying body and mind, expanding your sense of self.

Slowly and steadily, your experience on the yoga mat begins to overflow into the rest of your life. In touch with your body, habits fall away and your lifestyle becomes more supportive of health. Aware of deeper feelings and thoughts, your words and actions begin to express more of who you really are and the quality of your relationships deepens. With abundant energy at your disposal, life’s challenges occur as opportunities for growth. On all levels, you feel more vital and fully alive. This is the experience of Kripalu Yoga.

What Distinguishes Kripalu Yoga?

Although yoga traditions vary widely in their approaches, most teach the same basic yoga postures. Here are the attributes unique to Kripalu Yoga.

• Practice begins gently with an emphasis on being present in your body, sustaining a flowing breath, and warming up. The overall experience is one of learning to love and nurture your body, not whip it into shape.

• It allows you to choose the level of physical intensity right for your body. Instead of encouraging you to judge your performance today against yesterday, or compare your stretch with that of your classmate’s, Kripalu Yoga teaches you how to listen to your body and honor its needs. On some days this may lead you to challenge yourself physically to work the kinks out. On others you may move more gently to relax the body and soothe the mind.

• It recognizes that every body is different. The goal of Kripalu Yoga is not to perfect the external form of the postures. It views postures as tools to release chronic tension, stretch and strengthen the body, and increase self-awareness. Rather than forcing the body into the classic form of the posture prematurely, postures are modified to meet individual needs.

• It activates the life force of the body that yoga calls prana. Kripalu Yoga teaches that the body is animated by an energetic life force intimately tied to the breath. Rhythmic breathing charges the system with energy. A balanced sequence of yoga postures encourages it to flow freely and evenly to all parts of the body. As practice deepens, the life force becomes more active and can be felt as warmth, tingling, and currents of energy.

• It encourages you to create a lifestyle supportive of your health by listening to your own body. As you practice Kripalu Yoga, you become more sensitive to the needs of your body and are naturally drawn to make healthier choices about diet, exercise, and other lifestyle habits. Kripalu Yoga considers each person’s body the ultimate authority on what promotes health and teaches you how to access this body wisdom to live with more vitality.

• It’s a yoga you can practice “off the mat.” Being alive is a richer experience when you are connected to your body and breath. Through Kripalu Yoga, you discover that the same principles that bring out the best in you on the yoga mat can be applied to daily life. You learn how to meet challenges with a sense of relaxation, self-acceptance, strength, courage, and openness to change.

• It offers practical tools to foster psychological and spiritual growth. By teaching you how to fully feel strong emotion and compassionately observe the activity of the mind, Kripalu Yoga fosters emotional healing and facilitates psychological growth. As a result, your ability to express yourself, listen to others, and be in relationships deepens. Kripalu Yoga also includes sensible spiritual teachings that demystify the process of spiritual awakening and make it accessible to contemporary people living active lives.

• It acknowledges that regular yoga practice is designed to initiate a process of personal transformation. By nurturing the body, opening the heart, and clearing the mind, Kripalu Yoga removes the obstacles that so often stifle and stunt the natural progression of human development. Regular practice stimulates an ongoing process of positive change that inspires you to realize your full potential.