Professional Documents
Culture Documents
YOGA
Flow Beyond Thought
by Scott Sonnon
the flow coach
Credits
Editing: Amy Norcross
Design and Layout: Wade Munson www.wadeincreativity.com
Photography: John Meloy www.johnnydanger.net
Contributing Authors: Coach Ryan Hurst, CST3; Coach Jarlo Ilano, CST2;
and Mushtaq Ali Al-Ansari, Ph.D.
Sanskrit Provided By: Mushtaq Ali Al-Ansari, Ph.D.
Photographic Model: Summer Huntington
Disclaimer
None of the information contained in this book is intended to be taken as medical advice. Should you have
any condition that requires professional medical attention, please always consult a doctor before you begin any
exercises presented in this book or any other source. Albeit the information and advice in this book are believed
to be accurate, neither the publisher nor the author will be held liable for any injury, damages, losses, claims,
actions, proceedings, expenses, or costs (including legal) that result from using instructions, advice, or exercises
in this book.
ii
I walked backwards into yoga, and fell into the arms of the most beautiful
person I have ever met, Sri Mata Amritanandamayi Devi (www.amma.org).
This book, everything I believe that I know, have yet to understand, and will
strive my life in living up to in gratitude, I devote to her humanitarian eorts.
As Amma says, Where there is love, there is no eort.
The physical discipline of yoga, Amma teaches, prepares us to serve others
through love. If this book can help you make that preparation more useful and
accessible, then I feel grateful.
In love and service,
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
PART ONE
Research Impetus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Wheres the Mind?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Yoga That Isnt Fixed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Zenos Paradox: Innite Digression and Movement Impossibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The Arrow Paradox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
No Abiding Place. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Ongoing Evolution. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Reclaiming the Personal Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Defining Prasara . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Prasara Yoga and the Spirit of Patanjali . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Vinyasa: The Art of Breath . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Prasara: The Art of Movement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Flow: The Eighth Limb of Yoga . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Syncing Breath . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Breath Mastery Scale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Depth of Breath . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Relationship Between Depth and Eort . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Perpetual Flow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The Sun Salutation Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Finding a Match . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Hemming It Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Adding a Patch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
We Are Only in Transition from One Thing to the Next! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
PART TWO
Forest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Spider Monkey. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Diving Dolphin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Tumbleweed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Flock of Pigeons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Introduction
I have been involved with physical activities since a very young age. I spent more than 10 years
competing in gymnastics and have been involved with martial arts twice as long. While I was
studying martial arts in Japan, a friend of mine rst introduced me to yoga and the many
health benets that can be achieved through the daily study of it. I soon realized that yoga was
a great way to help with the stress of daily life, especially while living in Japan. I religiously
Down-Dogged myself into my yoga practice and found that the movements and breathing
exercises really helped me clear my head after a long day of packed trains and fast-talking
Osakans. That was a little more than eight years ago.
I continued with my daily practice, but it wasnt until I was introduced to Scott Sonnon that
my physical, and especially mental, practice took on a completely new light.
The gymnastic-like movements of Prasara yoga brought me back to the times of when I was
young, and I immediately fell in love with this new yoga. But you dont have to be a gymnast,
a martial artist, or an athlete to fully receive the benets of Prasara yoga.
When I rst became involved with Prasara yoga I knew that it was something special.
However, I didnt realize just what an impact it would have on the way I viewed my personal
practice and how I now view yoga as a whole. What I thought was this new yoga called Prasara
was actually the essence of what we are striving for in our own yoga. That essence is ow.
Yoga in Sanskrit means to yoke or to join. Many yoga systems talk about joining the body
with the mind and the breathing with the poses in order to attain ow. Yet what Prasara yoga
shows is that there is one very important component that has been missing from Western
yoga to attain ow. That component is including movement. Flow is not just where breathing
and structure, the poses, merge. It is also the merging of the integral element of movement.
Without the joined forces of these three structure, breathing, and movement you will
not nd your ow.
Finding your ow and learning how to apply it in your daily life are what this book is about.
ixix
Defining Prasara
Prasara Yoga and the Spirit of Patanjali
We have had some idea of the practice of yoga here in America for at least the last hundred
years, in Europe for somewhat longer. In the early part of the 20th century, Paramhansa
Yogananda introduced the percepts of yoga to a wide Western audience with his SelfRealization Fellowship, including the idea of Hatha yoga.
Hatha yoga is an expression of one of the eight limbs (Ashtanga) of yoga as dened by
Patanjali in the Sadhana Pada of the Yoga Sutras. The particular limb is Asana, which literally
means to sit or a posture. Interestingly, Hatha means force or violence, which gives the
phrase Hatha yoga a possible meaning of union by force.
Without a doubt, the person who fundamentally dened Hatha yoga in the West was
Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, the teacher of such luminaries as B. K. S. Iyengar, T. K. F.
Desikachar, and K. Pattabhi Jois. Of the three students, Iyengar could be said to have laid the
foundations for todays Hatha yoga with his impeccable attention to the structure of postures.
In the mid-1970s we saw the emergence of a new idea within the yoga community with the
introduction of K. Pattabhi Jois Ashtanga Vinyasa yoga.
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SPIDER
MONKEY
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Boguk, Nikolay. Clinical Anatomy of the Lumbar Spine. 1987.
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Boyd, John, Col. Patterns of Conict.
Chek, Paul. The Inner Unit: A New Frontier In Abdominal Training. IAAF Technical
Quarterly: New Studies in Athletics (April 1999).
Csikszentmiahlyi, Mihaly. Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention. New
York: Harper Perennial. 1996.
Csikszentmiahlyi, Mihaly. Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life Basic
Books. reprint edition. April 1998.
Csikszentmiahlyi, Mihaly. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. reprint edition. Harper
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Csikszentmiahlyi, Mihaly. The Evolving Self. reprint edition. Harper Perennial. August 3,
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Csikszentmiahlyi, Mihaly. Flow in Sports. Human Kinetics Publishers. June 1999.
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Dawkins, Richard. The Selsh Gene.
DesMaisons, Kathleen. Potatoes Not Prozac.
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