The notes below are designed to give prospective readers an idea of what to expect from the book, and to aid in making a decision on whether to buy it.
Yoga Body: The Origins of Modern Posture Practice, Mark Singleton
This book has a bit of a slow start but gets much better later on.
General Notes
Asanas were absent from most of yoga before 1900 in India. Shiva came about around 2,500 BC.
Breath (prana) absorbed into void-ness leads to Samadhi.
Europeans came in as barbarians with the East India company. Militarized yogis. Some did shows for money, but few did the asanas for meditation with colonialism. Iyangar’s asanas changed a lot of this. Siddhis (super powers) occult and not salvation.
Raja yoga rejects hatha yoga as a good way to make men live a long life. Irony as Raja yogi Vivekananda died at age 40. His guru Ramakrishna dismissed hatha yoga as a queer breathing exercise or gymnastics.
Bengal is the real yoga of Bhakti and Jana is not hatha. Raja Yoga book is anti-hatha.
1900s physical wellness was not the trend, until the YMC changed it with the focus on mind, body and part. Mind via the body. Eugenics also occurring in the early 1900s.
Yoga askahras or resistance centers were anti-British.
Ramauthi support system via training bodies. Physical cultural clubs occurred. The asana revival occurred in the 1920s and 1930s via Krisnamachyra.
First photo book of hatha yoga was by Yogi Rishi Singh.
Swami Kavalayanda taught combat gymnastics. They were used to cure disease as well. Taught from 1900 to 1940s. Yoga therapeutics detailed in Joseph Alter’s book.
Yogendra similar to Yoga for Personal Hipo. Yoga aims at the interrelated harmonious development of one’s body, mind, and psychic aspects.
You must link the postures with the outcomes. It’s not mystical; it’s science.
Iyer was a high potential in India from 1897 to 1980 and offered alternate to Swiss Ling gymnastics. Suryanamaskar or the Pratinidhi Pant system of body building was not yoga. The Acme of Psychical perfection.
New thought was by Yogi Ramacharya, Paramahamsa Yoganda (brother of BC Gosh) that was the merger of the cosmic and cosmetic. Raja and Hatha.
Nauli cleans and reinvigorates digestive fire. Yogi Rishi Singh Gherwall wrote Practical Hathat Yoga, Science of Health in 1923. It was a photo manual.
Wesson wrote Soroda System of Yoga Philosophy in 1925. How to link vibrations with mood.
Hari Ram Yoga System of Study in 1926.
Shri Yogadra first yoga in the USA in 1921. Cajzoron Ali was the second in 1928. Equilibrium with body, mind, and universe.
William Reich (1897-1957) key to hold the yoga postures and psychical changes.
Centered body via kundalini reigns. Shoulders moon exiting and all the right alignment.
Photos increased social consciousness and self-consciousness. Mass adoption occurred because of cheap primers.
Manuals included Joya Pradikika (1737) with 84 asanas and 24 mudras. Not linked with ancients.
Yoga Sopanao manual in the 1920s.
Jaganmohan Palace in Mysore was a big place by T Krishnamachya’s yoga sala.
Yoga bodies are the focus in manuals now, but before it was different.
Krishnamachyra (1888-1989) was the leader.
Beryl Bender Birch and Larry Schlz (students of Patabi Jois) were the founders of power yoga.
Krishnamachyra opened yoga sala in 1933. He studied the yoga sutras at Lake Mansarour in Tibet. He instructed when he went home to India and taught. Mahraja supported Krishnamachyra and asked him to train the palace guards. Surii namiskari was a prohibited posture. Raot Iyer taught just 50 miles away. Iyer introduced the suyranamaskri.
Himalayan guru Raminohaj Brahmacari taught based upon a 5,000 year old book called the Yoga Kurunta, but it’s unclear if it really existed as it was eaten by ants.
Krishnamachyra also wrote books Yoga Makaranda and Yoga Sanagaha.
Krishnamachyra did not focus on kirtans because they were not in the Yoga Sutras. He rejected Sat Karmas. No rigid order or explorations, but explored what worked. Part of it was designed to be a royal show. Sometimes it seemed too much like circus tricks.
He would stay in the poses for 3-15 minutes each. Some students felt it focused too much on the postures. Originally he taught the Mimama but it became too difficult and the Maharaja reassigned him.
He worked on rice plantations in 1932 before he gave into the Maharaja. Gym equipment was used in the yoga hall. Studied with Kuvalayanda and adopted some drill like aspects from Limb gymnastics. References to sutras and gurus often.
Asanas are a psychical flow informed by culture. This gym-like nature is at odds with the spiritual system. Bikra wanted more of a gym.
Will yoga ever be an event at the Olympics? Vivekanda’s Raja Yoga.