teach.yoga

  • teach.yoga
  • Teach Yoga
    • Business of Yoga
  • Study Yoga
    • Practice With Us
  • Lifestyle
  • Marketplace
  • Reviews
  • Search

Pattern, Paradox and Katonah Yoga

by Abbie & Adrian Galvin / connect

by Abbie and Adrian Galvin

My favourite mother and son team posted this piece on dear friend Dan Wilf’s site, YOGANONYMOUS, on January 20th, 2015. Studying with Abbie and other teachers at Katonah since late 2013 has granted me great strength, length, dimensionality and self-love through the practices, and you’ll be seeing more of my Katonah friends here in the coming months. ~ Elena

We are constantly asked to describe Katonah Yoga.

Although there is no handy answer, Katonah Yoga is a Hatha practice with Chinese Taoist philosophy deeply embedded. In fact, it’s the main ingredient. Don’t worry it’s not as heady as it sounds. While most yoga practices reference Hinduism and Indian culture as their philosophical matriarch, we filter our practice through Taoist concepts.

Hinduism is a religion whose teachings advocate devotion to gods whose mythic dramas guide us through moral and ethical tribulations. The myths of the Hindu gods are meant to offer a set of stories with which to navigate life. Peppering the yoga practice with Hindu references seems to have become the norm. However at Katonah Yoga, we reference Taoism.

Taoism

There are three main principles found in Taoism. The first is yin and yang, the second is that nature reveals its intelligence through pattern, and the third is that pattern repeats. Repetition of pattern develops our capacity for having a new insight. For example, the repetition of a wave hitting a rock over and over, changes the nature of that rock. Taoism takes us from nature to our bodies and to our minds via a very pragmatic methodology. Katonah Yoga uses the poses to help each student move from first nature, ones’s unconscious habitual patterns, to a second nature which is a conscious construction of a new more fully functioning self. This is the goal and the uniqueness of Katonah Yoga.

While Katonah Yoga poses are classically Hatha in nature, we use techniques of origami folding, geometric measure and the use of ancient numerical archetypes to infuse the practice with dimension, energy, and refinement. These techniques offer us a map with which to navigate a practice rather than using feelings or sensations. If a pose is measured well, if the geometry is correct, the body is supported by its own structure rather than relying on muscle.

Real strength is not a muscular grip but a matrix that is consciously constructed in our minds. Reconstructing one’s own container, one’s body, through its structure, is a way to fight one’s own personal propensities that often don’t serve us. The poses are the tools with which to set up conditions in order to explore the magic of the practice. Yoga poses, like the hindu gods and their dramas, are built on a system where each pose—being an archetype—holds within it lessons and patterns of its own.

Taoist Principals in Katonah Yoga

Taoism teaches us to follow the organic patterns found in nature. The first principal that we play with in our yoga practice is the relationship between yin and yang. In reconciling any two polarities, a third factor is established which braids together the two principles which at first seem like opposites. Male and female are made necessary to each other through their opposing but complementary virtues. Alone we are but one facet of a whole, while together we can participate in creation. We see this paradox repeated in nature again and again. This grand schematic motif can be seen on the minute scale in the body. We have a left side, and we have a right side and our job is to find the middle thus cultivating a center; a third foot, a third hand, a third eye.

Off the mat, learning to adjust our awareness of how much we give and take from relationships refines those relationships into healthy balances of power and receptivity. So while yin and yang appear as opposites, the usefulness of their relationship is the yin in the yang and yang in the yin; an integration mediated by a third thing, you. When you make pigtails, which require only two strands, into a braid, requiring three strands, it is less likely to unravel, to be messy, to loose contact. Two hands clapping, making contact, makes a third thing, sound. And not be obnoxious, but the orgasmic integration of your parents, two people, make a third, you.

The second principle of Taoism that we explore at Katonah Yoga is the universality of pattern found in nature, including the cycles of the sun, in the tidal rhythms of the ocean’s waves, menstrual cycles and as Freud taught us, the unconscious compulsion to repeat behavior. Everything that is part of nature reflects a larger pattern. The body is no different.

From the subtle patterns like our sleep cycles and digestive cycles, to more obvious patterns like the seasons or aging, we are part of the natural world. Our job in yoga is to manipulate the patterns that don’t serve us, and to cultivate and develop new ones that help us function better. And because the narrative of our lives is reflected in the body, changing physiology alters psychology.

Working on the mat becomes more than just doing poses.

It becomes a place for us to address the patterns in our lives via the patterns in our bodies. We can change a pattern only by being conscious of it. And the insight comes through conscious repetition.

The third principal of Taoism that we address in our practice is the idea of repetition. Repetition rouses insight. Rituals that are embodied, made physical, first engage one’s physical depths and then engage the mind. To repeat a pose in yoga refining it each time, is to build new habits, so as to install new and improved patterns into our physical and psychological lives.

Repetition is the soul of insight. Every time you consciously repeat a pose with new information ­ utilizing origami folding, geometric measure and how one’s body fits itself rather using familiar habits, ­ you evolve, you revolve and eventually your revolution becomes truly revolutionary and changes your awareness of who you are.

While I still don’t have a crisp response that describes Katonah yoga, my best counsel is: Come to class and we will help you have a revolution.

MORE INSPIRATION
  • Loving the time that is gone
  • Journey Through Katonah Yoga, Eighth in a Series: Ability
  • Can’t is a lie
Abbie & Adrian Galvin

About the Author

Adrian Galvin: I grew up in Katonah, NY. Yoga for me was first an intellectual practice. I had a physical practice in numerous sports and dance and rollerblading but they all lacked a kind of intellectual base. As I became interested in more philosophy and sacred geometry, I began studying everything from theories of physical coercion and discipline, to ideas on the limitations of a reductionist culture. As I began to see the body differently, as not just a “temple”, but a person’s entire story, a political tool, a sexual object, a corporate investment, I became interested in working with the body as a way to work on issues in ones life, in the political sphere, in the market etc. Coming to Yoga through its intellectual basis allowed me to have a very functional relationship with my practice and the way I teach. I teach so people can have better operating organs, so that people have bigger lungs, longer backs, cleaner folds, smoother lives. Yoga’s true magic is its practicality. Connect with Adrian on Facebook and the web here and here. Peep his Katonah Yoga bio and check him out on Soundcloud. Abbie Galvin: My yoga instruction is informed by my own creative process as a filmmaker and from my exploration of the therapeutic process from psychoanalytic training. I have learned over and over that truly participating in any formal process of self-exploration leads to transformation whether it be physical, psychological or intellectual. My goal is to engage students of yoga in the dialogue between their conscious and their unconscious selves. It is through that effort that we potentiate ourselves. It is my intention as a teacher to cajole each student in that most rigorous effort to be grounded, to grow upwards, and to open one’s heart in order to create their best self. Connect with Abbie on Facebook, the web, and peep her Katonah Yoga bio here. See more at: http://yoganonymous.com/pattern-paradox-and-katonah-yoga#sthash.KRxyHx8u.dpuf

RECENT CONTRIBUTIONS

Understanding Trauma in the Studio: Disrupted Sleep

Katrina Kopeck

How I’m Dealing with Sleep During Perimenopause

Amy Ippoliti

Sleep While You’re Alive: Cultivating Good Sleep Hygiene

Katrina Kopeck

What to Remember When your Teacher Isn’t Instructing You

Amy Ippoliti

Understanding Trauma in the Studio: Avoidance and Isolation

Katrina Kopeck

VIEW ALL CONTRIBUTORS

Archives

  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • November 2020
  • April 2020
  • February 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
Next POST: Devotion →

RECENT POSTS

  • Understanding Trauma in the Studio: Disrupted Sleep
  • How I’m Dealing with Sleep During Perimenopause
  • Sleep While You’re Alive: Cultivating Good Sleep Hygiene
  • What to Remember When your Teacher Isn’t Instructing You
  • Understanding Trauma in the Studio: Avoidance and Isolation

About

We are a resource for yoga teachers and practitioners. At teach.yoga, we aim to be a grounded, well-informed resource with educated opinions while exploring the esoteric elements of yoga.

Connect

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter

Copyright 2022 TEACH.YOGA • PRESENTED BY VESSELIFY