quote:

Originally posted by John U.:
[qb]... if you have any suggestions for links where I can learn about kriyas (I've seen some sites on the kriya yoga of Yogananda) I'd appreciate seeing them. [/qb]

Hi John,

Welcome. I enjoyed skimming your homepage.

Per your question, I've found articles and books by Stuart Sovatsky helpful. Sometimes he himself did/does spontaneous movement yoga as public performance. I have not met him, but as I recall, Phil has.

See, for example:

http://www.cit-sakti.com/kunda...spontaneous-yoga.htm

Hi Ryan,

This is excellent! It gives me confidence that some of my own observations in this area are not completely nuts

Basically what I've noticed, watching how children and dancers move, is that there seem to be a huge number of such spontaneous movements--let's stick with the term kriyas, and let's also keep a wide definition that includes other rhythmic movements like dance steps, gaits, perhaps swimming strokes, etc.

It seems to me that one of two things is going on:

1. These are like imprinted "programs" e.g., there are
a large, but perhaps finite number of genetically or
otherwise transmitted patterns for rhythmic
movements etc. OR

2. We inherit more basic raw materials--proto-movements, let's
call them--from which each person may spontaneously
assemble their own higher-order kriyas..

The two views are not mutually exclusive, of course.

Personally, I lean to model 1 above. One person "skips" pretty much like another, and animals do also. It seems like an instinctive behavior.

Anyway, my idea is that, in theory, there is something like a collective set of all such kriyas. I call this the "human choreome" (like the human genome, with "chore" for the Greek word for dance.)

So, just as we're mapping the human genome, it might be useful to catalog the entire contents of the human choreome.

I also see an analogy to biodiversity. Just as we're losing animal species due to modernization, we're losing touch with our huge repertoire of natural movements. We're becoming stiff and rigid, in other words, and this is a motor manifestation of more basic issues having to do with the suppression of the human spirit by modern society.

Perhaps more fundamentally, it may relate to an unresolved division between the physical and spiritual parts of human nature.

Anyway, at times it seems to me that if the human race wants to regain Eden in one way or another, we have to learn to dance through life again.

Hi John,

I too noticed an affinity with the movements of children when I was going through the intensity of spontaneous yoga.

Yesterday, I received some body psychotherapy from a professional who really knew her stuff. With her, I was able to do some of the spontaneous movements with another person present.

Like you, she observes that, in socialization, we select out certain movements and forget others. Spontaneous yoga allows us to go back and reprocess some of those developmental phases, making room for more options.

Dance, yes. St. Vitus is the patron saint of dancers.