SYTAR recap

I spent this past Thursday-Sunday morning at the Symposium on Yoga Therapy and Research in LA. Basic impressions follow, broken out into personal and professional categories.


PROFESSIONAL:
*Yoga therapy is a growing field, being used to treat both physical and mental ailments. The International Association of Yoga Therapists, which sponsors Sytar, is working hard to legitimize the field in the eyes of Westerners, especially those who can pay for it, like insurance companies. To this end, they encourage and are even hoping to be able to fund, yoga research of the sort I am doing with Finding Om. (I have not been funded by them. This is an unpaid advertisement). They also encourage networking and learning opportunities, such as this conference. If the 700 attendees are any indication, interest is growing.

*Yoga therapy is very slow. Yoga therapy practices involve long, often assisted holds in which the client is encouraged to play their edge in order to make mental breakthroughs. I think most of us have cried on our mat, if you're me notably in pigeon, often without any clear sense of why the tears are flowing. Yoga therapy-- at least the mental health type (as opposed to treating physical ailments like back pain, about which I have no information because that was not my interest) takes this one step further and adds a verbal component. What is going on for you right now? Even if you don't know concretely, even exploring the physical sensation can lead to a mental awakening, a clarification about situations in life which are causing stress and tension. I do not feel ready to do this yet, because I have no training in anatomy/physiology and am afraid I'd hurt someone. But there is a lot I can take from this, and even might begin to incorporate self-guided yoga postures into sessions. Not that I have any individual clients right now.

*Research such as what I am doing with Finding Om is much needed. From hearing the abstracts and papers others presented I think my study is pretty reasonable. Certainly not comparable to the multiple-author, multi-year, 100-subject studies of some, but there were definitely other pilot studies out there with roughly 10 subjects. All of them looked at yoga for much shorter times than I had thought would be the norm, making my 10 week study absolutely comparable to the length of others.

*If you are looking to treat depression with yoga, check out Amy Weintraub. Chick knows her stuff. If you want more info contact me.

PERSONAL:
*I do not, in general, enjoy a slow yoga practice. I need to MOVE. Give me my power yoga/ kundalini practice any day. Despite the morning practices led by celeb teachers such as Leslie Kaminer, I had to sneak out every day and go run on the beach. Short: just 30 mins one day and 40 the other, but that centered me a whole lot more than the chants and Swami Veda Bharata-led meditations that began each day.

*I am not seeking something new. I have a religion. I have an ethical system. I was a bit put off by the sizeable number of people at Sytar who seemed to think becoming a semi-Hindu was the secret to their redemption. This was not the majority of attendees, but a there were plenty of them. I am a Westerner grounded in western ways. I have been to India and love India. I named my daughter India. Nonetheless, if I feel some great need to chant I can go to synagogue on Friday night and be satisfied. (That said, the Saturday night kirtan with Dave Stringer was a total blast). That I like yoga and am in awe of its healing properties is kind of a duh to any reader of this blog. That said, I don't feel any need whatsoever to become other than what I am.

*Too much introspection may kill me. There was a lot of didactics combined with practice demos. For example, a workshop on yoga to treat depression led by Richard Miller and Amy Weintraub kicked off with a 1/2 hour tag team yoga nidra. In fact, every single session seemed to start and/or end with some kind of yoga nidra. At first it was really helpful and relaxing, and I even came up with a huge sankalpa to apply to my life (allow myself to be more vulnerable). But eventually, enough is enough. But maybe that's just me. I couldn't believe how many people showed up for the optional mediation on Saturday night with Swami Veda Bharata. More sitting and going internal???????? Not for me. I was thrilled to go meet my cousin who lives in LA and take a break from my month of abstinence (which, except for Saturday night, is going smoothly. Even withstood the sake test when we went out for sushi last night. Now that's what I call will power. Or determination. Or self-punishment. Or all of the above).