Low Key Yoga
Low Key Yoga builds a vital virtue, and so much more
It was 2001, my first practice within the Krishnamacharya Yoga lineage at the source, in Chennai, and I felt like an NBA player shooting on an over-the-door basketball hoop. Trying to scale back my I-can-do-all-the-asanas Yoga ego was a tall task only tackle-able by the most expert Yogi-s, and I was amongst them.
30 seconds in, I was irreverently laughing. One minute in, I was crying. I crossed the fine line between wth is this weird, slow motion, barely moving gesture and completely transformational. That line forced me to exponentially slow my roll, pierce through my Yoga Queen identity and otherwise, and to sink deep into the ocean of me. I had met her before, as a child, but through adolescence, education, relocations, social migrations, occupational experiences, relationship, turmoil and all, she had built quite a tough kavaca, a shield, a layer of identity intended to protect us from being hurt by others, by life’s events.
What originates as protective morphs into a costume we wear in the world, under which we can hide, to the point we ourselves may lose connection to our authentic self. And we operate from that, at home, at work, with ourselves, others and elsewhere. Yoga’s purpose is to dissipate the impurities that send us up and down, attached and running away from ourself. Anger, doubt, frustration, self-judgement, need for external validation, fear, self-loathing, self sabotage, lack of self-worth become insurmountable if we can’t do the subtle work.
We can easily avoid our inner selves through outer-self-focused movement. A targeted dose of movement is needed via asana, but to focus on breathing quality is the distinguishing factor. Form-as-goal hinders the streamlining and calming down required to embrace the totality of the experiencing of moving from gross to subtle. The prioritization of the positions and/or rushing from one asana to another is no different than exercise, raising adrenaline, noradrenaline, cortisol, dopamine, seratonin, leading to fatigue instead of peace. It can tire us out like exercise.
The Yoga of Krishnamacharya cultivated patience with myself, that is why I cried. I became patient enough with myself to begin feeling emotions I had completely repressed. To breathe through awkward silence and discomfort. I was always so busy ignoring my inner life, while cultivating my outer. Prioritizing complete, prolonged attention on the breath was unusual, so much so that the walls in my body began to break down in its presence. I simmered down, felt safe, held, seen and cared for, under an umbrella of Yoga that felt so ancient that my self-centered existence began to temporarily crumble. Self preservation was temporarily unnecessary. And that original vasana has been building ever since, the one that senses I have an untouchable, expansive, soul watching it all. Low key Yoga is an avenue to the heart of who we are, if you can find a legitimate teacher of Yoga to trust and guide you through it.