Utilisateur:Dona Well Heac/Brouillon

Chuck Miller has been practicing yoga earnestly since 1971. He met Sri K. Pattabhi Jois in 1980 and studied intensively with him for over 18 years, including numerous extended and familial encounters in America and nearly two years spent in visits to Mysore in South India. Chuck continued studying intermittently with Jois until his death in May 2009 at the age of 94.

Chuck enjoys teaching with a focus on the holistic nature of Ashtanga yoga, presenting it as a philosophical system as well as a strong practical method. Chuck is known for his gentle but deliberate hands-on adjustments which are both reassuring and challenging.

Yoga teacher since 1988, Chuck is a former Director of Astanga Yoga and co-owned the original Yoga Works in Santa Monica, CA, for over 16 years. He is frequently traveling and teaching around the world.

History

He don't know exactly when he first got interested in yoga. It seems the urge was there from a very early age. He think that is true for many of us. We don't know what it is that is calling us and yet we definitely feel it. What is interesting is what makes us answer the call! What you can no longer ignore!

   In 1971, at the age of 17, a friend and he went to hear a free lecture on Transcendental Meditation in their local elementary school, Killington, Vermont. A very small rural town in the Green Mountains of 'New England.' The man was talking about following one's thoughts back to where they came from, as they bubbled up through multiple layers of awareness until they surfaced into our consciousness. That it might be possible to get to the source of thought! To be able to perceive the world, to respond and even think from the origin of thought, instead of from the outer shells. To act from a deeper place, without being trapped in the realms of pre-conditioned, biased, cyclic thought! They were trying to sell us on returning the next day, paying our $35 to take a short course and receive a free personalized mantra.

  Later that year he found a book, "Be Here Now," by Baba Ram Das, which included simple pranayama and asana practices which I also included on a daily basis. He was hooked! It connected many of the missing links he was struggling with. The title of the book became his mantra! "Be Here Now!"

   In 1974 he found the book Light on Yoga by BKS Iyengar. The Introduction was one of the most profound things he had read up to that moment. He began working through the practices contained in there. They were laid out in weekly routines, with photos in a different part of the book and descriptions for how to do the postures in yet another place! Complicated! It was later edited to be more usable.

In 1980, intrigued that here was a man who had studied with the same teacher as Iyengar, He met Sri K Pattabhi Jois. When he asked me who his teacher was he replied "book." What book he asked. "Light on Yoga." Oh, you are Iyengar student! So he called me that for the first month as he began practicing Ashtanga Yoga. He continued with him intensively for many years and intermittently until his death.

   In March of 1988 He got permission from Guru-ji  to teach Primary Series and was pushed into the yoga room and began teaching Ashtanga Yoga. He taught in the same school, almost the same time for 17 years. Many of the students came for years and years. It was a great experience for him. He hope it was for them as well!

After selling the school and moving to Hawaii Island, "The Big Island," He began accepting invitations to teach in other cities around the world and continue to do that today.

   Having the belief that Ashtanga Yoga is strong enough, with enough internal integrity to withstand scrutiny, he studied with many different teachers and tested those teachings on his own mat... that continues today! He found the same internal truths in the deeper realms of all great practices and started calling the conflicts between them "semantic differences."

  Today he like to point to what I call "Sama," as that sameness that exists everywhere.

 Finding the sameness between Philosophy and Practice continues to inform my practice and thus my teaching.

Philosophy

Vinyasa, The motive force of Ashtanga Yoga.

Understanding ever deeper and deeper, the meaning of the word Vinyasa, is important for those of us intent to learn, to study, to practice this great method called Ashtanga (vinyasa) Yoga.

Gradual, Step-by-Step, Approach! All three of those are interesting in the explorations of Ashtanga Yoga.

Gradual is something that needs to be determined, in Real-Time, as we go, in the Here and Now! It will change all the time! That, in itself, helps us to become more Present! Perhaps the greatest Gift of the practice! It is also the very first word of Patanjla Yoga Dharshana, or 'The Yoga Sutras.' It is never done! It is never finished. That idea is false, Maya, an illusion! As if it could be grabbed! Not!

Each student needs to take responsibility to perceive what Gradual means, in the present moment! It is not static. It involves perception, listening to the body/mind. Feeling the muscles, and ligaments, the joints and organs! Feeling the effect of our practice in the Breath! Adjusting to keep it returning to this state of balance and Oneness we are calling Sama!

Step-by-Step refers to the linking of the BreathMovements into a flowing sequence. It is like taking a walk. Each step is connected, leads to and follows another. Each step is both a preparation for the one to come, a balancing in the Present, and a clearing of any stress from the one we just passed. The steps are unified BreathMovement. A Continuum. They are linked together like beads on a string. That string could be seen as our consciousness. The beads are not pieces or glass, or dead wood. They are alive. Like Seeds! Each seed needs to be planted in the fertile ground of our practice. Cared for, tended, cultivated until they wake up and begin to grow. We soak them with our love, in our sweat! They get fat, they swell, they wake up, just like seeds. A Root is formed, from Consciousness and Energy! That root pushes through the hard shell of the outer layers and finds the Ground, the Earth! The Earth gives back as much as she receives, or more! And there is a Magical Springing Up!

It is a Rebounding, an Uprising! It is Radical, of the root!

Uj, or Ud as in Ujjayi, or Uddiyana. From the connection to the Roots, we reach up into the Heavens, and we occupy the place between. Sama.

Approach is also an appropriate and interesting word! It involves some different qualities. There is an aspect of perspective, of which way and how we are looking, like the Buddha's 'Right View!' That aids us in deciding the direction we choose to go. The word 'approach' means to move towards, and there can be in that a feeling of moving gradually.

It is like the word Attitude, our mental state which influences our positive and negative attractions. A way of looking at the world which affects our feelings and reactions and responses. It changes the way we 'see' the world. The way we 'see' our selves. It changes the way we all perceive how we 'sit inside' of ourselves. It shapes our life! And our Life and our Practice become ONE! Sama.