Many of us have a very similar story to tell about our first experience with yoga and the romancing of our senses whilst ‘falling in love’ with the practice. Early on in our yoga journey we become addicted to its mesmerizing qualities that shape shift our body, mind, and spirit along with our newly mindful lives.
We attend a yoga class or two, return with increasing regularity, and before you know it we make room in our lives for our practice day in and day out. (Many of us diligently organize our entire lives around our yoga practice.) There is a familiarity and calling or something we can’t pinpoint at first, but we recognize its inherent benefits and how we feel after practice. This is what brings us back to our mats again and again.
Yoga is endlessly fascinating and available for an entire lifetime of practice. One of the pivotal practices that can be quite therapeutic and revealing is ‘Kurunta Yoga” developed by BKS Iyengar and adapted to our modern day life and equipment. Kurunta translates to ~puppeteer~ and at times you really embody a puppet as you traction, hang and move thorough many directions of the spine. Its fascinating, exhilarating, exhausting and revelation of your physical youthfulness.
The ancient modality of Kurunta Yoga requires us to coordinate our movements in another plane and in many directions from that plane in unique and vast shapes. Yogasana is challenged through mental and physical resistance, with respect to gravity, yielding coordinated strength and resiliency. Its an exhilarating and exciting practice that promotes a progressive strength as we gradually use the opposing energetic forces of the 5 Vayus or movements in yoga. These energetic forces lead one to an inner and outer body somatic awareness with personal proprioception. Our breath mobilizes the mindful rope wall practice gifting us a whole energetic and physical moving meditation.
I was extremely fortunate to study with Allison West of Yoga Union in 2018 with a,handful of gifted teachers. Since then I have enjoyed the gift of teaching and exploration at the Great Yoga Wall. The progression of this refined practice gifts us with an understanding and refinement of this modality has created a teaching tool for greater understanding, clarity, and empowerment.
Teaching all abilities and levels of rope wall yoga can be super challenging for each participant and yet, also a safe haven for the beginner and advanced practitioner. The ropes and pelvic sling are a speed course to greater understanding and allowing the student to investigate their physical strengths and even more importantly their weaknesses. Innate postural imbalances, muscular instabilities, core strength and pelvic floor issues are revealed and addressed at the rope wall over time, through practice and mindfulness. These ropes let you discover and feel with great clarity. The intention and foundation behind each pose promotes sthira and sukha (strength & stability ~ ease and effort) to harness and progressively deepen each pose. This leads to a greater understanding and productive refinement of an asana practice and also your daily patterns that may or may not need to be addressed.
The Rope Wall is a place to ‘hang out’ and relieve compaction. In some ways we have the opportunity to defy gravity by inverting, pulling , distracting joints and also using the pendulum power of brachiation as a form of suspension and locomotion for the forelimbs as well as grip strength.
Improving grip strength increases longevity and the quality of life and independence. Modern studies reveal improved cognitive, physical, and overall wHolistic health along with a reduction in cardiovascular disease. When we use our hands and upper limbs to hold, hang and brachiate there is increased skeletal muscle mass in the hands, limbs, and upper torso which helps with arthritis as well as maintaining bone density. As we age it is important to 'get a grip on life’. The Rope wall challenges us to do this as a metaphor and also in reality. When we embrace all of life with its ups and downs, we can observe our emotions emote while 'hanging in there’ remaining calm and resilient.
In the hands (and ropes) of a trained and skillful teacher you can address traction and suspension to promote positive habitual postural patterns. The Great Rope Wall is a fantastic modality to effectively improve posture, promote back care, assist with herniation, scoliosis, imbalances in the body, recovery of various injuries and benefit imbalances due to one sided dominant lifestyle patterns. There are remarkable results using the rope wall for the active engagement and wisdom in a yoga practice or as a powerful enlightening form of physical therapy that is beneficial for a multitude of issues and longevity.
