Is this Yoga?

Last Saturday I went to an event announced as Yoga Seminar. As the advertising was all in Japanese – and my Japanese is still pretty crappy, I didn’t bother really reading it. So all I knew was, where the seminar will take place and what time it’ll start.

First surprise was, when I came there 10 minutes before, there was no one, the room was locked, quietness. Some minutes later 2 people appeared, who also wanted to attend the event. Hmmm.

So bit by bit some more people came, the room was opened and someone announced, the seminar will start half an hour later – OK….

In the room no one had a yoga mat, besides me, no one came in typical yoga cloth or would change his cloth. Then three guys came in, a tripod was built up. I slowly got the impression being on the wrong spot.

After some time one of them started talking, started talking about the chaotic energy field around people, painting funny graphics on the white board. My Japanese is not yet so sufficient that I could entirely follow what the guy said, so I went. All I wanted to do was Yoga Asana, to get some new input for my own teaching, especially with Japanese people, but obviously this was not part of the program. So I went.

I went down to Bon On Sha, a coffee bar in Koyasan, run by Takeshi a friend of mine. during a coffee, he translated the whole paper about the seminar for me and as it turned out, I got it all wrong. The teacher says, he can manipulate the energy field of people to become healthy by certain breathing techniques. I decided to go back and give it another shot to see what’s really going on.

When I came back the lecture was finished. People where sitting in groups and holding hands palm to palm each other without touching.

The teacher just became free and as his pamphlet stated that he learnt that in India, I assumed that he speaks English, so I went to him.

Oh, assumptions are evil, I was wrong, he didn’t. He immediately called for help, but the English of the guy he called was worse than my Japanese 😀

He was asking me to do Ujai breathing, the victorious pranayama, in a way I’m not familiar with. Ujai breath is usually done by closing Mulha bandha, the root lock and Jalandhara bandha, the throat lock. Breathing in and out is done though the nose and one can hear a sound while breathing. What he told me was different. He didn’t say anything about bandhas, but to breath through the mouth into the chakras from down to top and then keeping the air for a short time, like Kumbak. While I was breathing the way he desired me to do, he started to rotate his left index and middle fingers over my hand, causing a whirl in the energy field over my right palm, his right hand was gliding over my arm without touching it, like trying to figure out my energy field. After some time he went over my back and on the end he told me, my energy field is very nice, without any blockages. I was wondering, because I know this is not true.

Later he told me that this way of breathing comes from Qigong and that he learnt all these things from an Indian and a Taiwanese teacher in Kobe. He then send me to the guy, who tried to translate and he tried to apply the same techniques, like his teacher.

On the white board was a drawing showing the chakras in the body with number next to each chakra, starting with 5 at Muladhara and finishing with 20.000-30.000 next to the Sahasrara, the crown chakra. I was asking the guy who did the lecture about this and he told me, that every chakra has an energy load which starts with very low energy at the bottom and ends with a extreme high energy charge at the top. When I said, my understanding of the chakra system is different, he insisted that it is like that. Didn’t made any sense to continue this conversation.

On the end the whole group went to Miyasan, Koyasans excellent Izakaya, a place to enjoy food and drink.

To be honest this seminar left me with more questions than it gave me answers. I still doubt, he can really change or even manipulate the energy system of a person consciously. We all do constantly manipulate energy around us usually in an unconscious way. I experienced that acupuncture and acupressure can manipulate the energy system of a person to help someone to heal. I believe that this manipulation is temporary and only I by myself can change my energy system to the better or the worse. I also believe one can use the entry points of the energy system to do a lot of harm for example by targeting kyushus, vital points, with martial arts techniques the same way as these points can be used to heal with acupuncture or acupressure.

I clearly would state that this was not a Yoga seminar, but something different. I’m still unsure, if the guy is really able to do something to you, or if he’s just swimming on the „esoteric healing wave“. Personally I didn’t experience anything special there nor I think this is really helpful, it might be for someone else.

Comments? Anyone?

On the coast

Meanwhile I’m just 2 km away from Yakusōji, which is temple 23, on the coast. The route after will be pretty long, more than 75 km.
What’s it about?
Recently I’ve been thinking a lot, what to do with this blog here. Giving another more or less boring travel or better pilgrimage description, which anyway no one will read, besides some close friends and family? In the later case it would be probably better to write in German 😉
Some days ago I received an email from a dear friend and it hit me like a hammer. The question was, what’s the difference to pilgrimages in Bavaria and over there in Shikoku? Basically there is no difference, so why am I doing this?
I decided to write this blog on one side about this question – what do I want to get out of this? Where do I want to go from here. Obviously this will become some kind of personal growth story – hopefully 🙂
On the other side I will talk a bit about what happened and what I experience on this journey. Finding the answer to the question above is not only a dynamic process, it is directly connected with the experiences we make.

A Tip
After being at some of the temples, I think a good preparation for such a journey would be to find oneself a very long stairway and run it up and down for an hour. First without then with luggage on the back. Add a little more than you plan 😉
Just before going up to temple 20 I received some 3kgs of fruits as osettai. The weight diminished slowly. But the tough thing is to first walk up so many stairs with that package on ones back.

Big brother is watching you on [nearly] every gate

20120601-091208.jpgA-gyo20120601-091228.jpgUn-gyo