YogMantra | Valentine’s Day May be Over But Keep the Spark Alive in Season of Love With Couples Yoga

Couples Yoga or Partner Yoga is a new concept from the West, where Yoga professionals design classes with ‘poses for couples’. These poses are meant to be fun while boosting flexibility and strength, and they apparently also foster communication, trust, and relationship satisfaction.

Couple poses can be challenging. If you’re opting for such a course, it may be a good idea to learn the poses individually first, so that the body and mind can attain enough stability and endurance. Once perfected, then try couple poses.

Also, ensure that the Yoga instructors have a long-term plan for relationship satisfaction and compatibility. The chemistry and connection must remain long past the course is over.

THE YOGA OF LOVE AND CARING

“Love is not just looking at each other; it’s looking in the same direction,” said Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. This would require a more nuanced approach to Couples Yoga.

For perspective, we spoke to Yoga Guru Dr Hansaji of The Yoga Institute, Santacruz, Mumbai. Couples Yoga classes, a combination of Yoga practices and counselling, have been a regular course at the Institute since 1973. They were originally conducted jointly by Dr Hansaji and her husband Dr Jayadeva Yogendra, then director of the institute.

“In Couples Yoga, we emphasise that both should function together, with faith in each other. Love should grow, and that love would be visible in the caring,” she says.

Through regular yoga practice, couples learn to share, build trust, build intimacy, bond with each other, and function as a team. Conflict-resolution becomes easier as both partners learn to relax and develop a new understanding. Now, they are in agreement on how best to take care of children and elders, manage finances, manage expectations, and other important issues.

PARTNER YOGA ~ LIFE-PARTNER YOGA

Attending Yoga classes together helps in supporting and correcting not just each other’s poses, breathing practices, meditation, etc., but also notions.

Through the very first step of Yoga — the yamas and niyamas, or the social and personal equations — couples refresh their understanding and introspect. Ahimsa means they should not hurt each other. Satya means the entire relationship would be at stake if they are not truthful. Asteya — let alone stealing material things, not giving credit where it is due is also a form of stealing. Brahmacharya is control over senses and here, mutual respect, selflessness, and purity in thoughts and deeds are key. Sharing and caring as householders, rather than hoarding, is Aparigraha.

Doing Yoga together ensures they remain on the same page regarding lifestyle and way of life.

COUPLES YOGA ~ SOULMATES YOGA

Yoga, by definition, is more than physical exercise; the poses are mere means to a fit body and concentrated mind to move towards peace and freedom from misery.

Growth is the purpose of life and marriage is the best opportunity for self-improvement, a very strong medium to learn to let go of oneself. One progresses only when there is total surrender. In live-in arrangements, you are still holding onto yourself. It’s like comfortable spirituality. People must flow together, adjust even without letting the other person know they have done it for them.

“Whenever Dr Jayadeva was asked `who is your Guru’, he would say `My wife is my Guru’, and I would always say `My husband is my Guru,’” reveals Dr Hansaji. “He was scholarly, knowledgeable and introverted, with not much experience of life. I enjoyed everything in life, and when I put these ideas across to him, he was willing to learn. The quiet, serene person learnt to be more expressive; and I to be patient, have no expectations, and remaining unaffected by others’ opinions.”

Hansaji and Dr Jayadeva Yogendra travelled widely within India and abroad to share their Yoga knowledge selflessly. In 1989, the couple helped design the Yoga education syllabus for schools, which was implemented throughout the country by NCERT, BMC schools and University of Mumbai.

INDIAN TRADITION OF YOGA COUPLES

Yogendra and Sitadevi: The founder of The Yoga Institute, Santacruz, Yogendra was a disciple of Paramahamsa Madhavdas and a `Householder Yogi’. He married Sitadevi in 1927. Sitadevi did four years of intense study of Yoga soon after and then offered her honourary services to the institute. First, she was trusted with conducting the women’s section and then given the responsibility of secretary to the institute. She treated over 5,000 cases. In 1934, for the first time in the modern history of Yoga, a text for guiding women in Practical Yoga was published under her authorship. This unique contribution to public health got her an invitation as a delegate at the Health Welfare Congress at the New York World Fair in 1939. Both their books are preserved in the ‘Crypt of Civilization’ to be read after 6,000 years.

T Krishnamacharya and Namagiriamma: Namagiriamma, wife of Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, the ‘Father of Modern Yoga’, was his dedicated partner in life and in his mission to preserve and spread the teachings of Yoga. Married at the age of 12 in 1925, she later became a student of Krishnamacharya. There is footage from 1938 of Namagiriamma performing Yoga inversion asanas like ‘Padma Salamba Sirsasana’ in a saree! Watch it here.

BKS Iyengar and Ramamani: Well-known Yoga guru BKS Iyengar said in a tribute to his wife Ramamani that she didn’t know Yoga when she married him in 1943 but seeing him practice every day, she developed a keen interest and became his pupil. He taught her to assist him to improve his methods. This made her a good teacher and she was able to teach his lady students independently. She sacrificed her own interests for his practise. “Slowly we understood each other and lived happily, spiritually and were devoted to each other… We lived without conflicts as if our souls were one,” he said.

Yājńavalkya and Maitreyi: In history, Maitreyi was initiated into Yoga by her Yogi husband, Yājńavalkya.

Lord Shiva and Parvati: Ancient authorities on Yoga unanimously say that Lord Shiva taught Yoga first to his wife Parvati.

The author is a journalist, cancer survivor and certified yoga teacher. She can be reached at [email protected].