Early Morning Ashtanga Led Class and Holi

Date/s:

Friday, 22.03.2024.
6:00 - 7:45 am

Price:

As per usual attendance

Teacher:

Bogi Zajacz

Holi, the Festival of Colours, originates from India and it is celebrated by many all around the world by throwing colourful powders at each other and engaging in banter. The Holi festivities also mark an occasion to reset and renew ruptured relationships, end conflicts and rid one’s self of accumulated emotional impurities from the past to welcome the arrival of Spring on the Northern Hemisphere.

On the Friday Ashtanga Led class, following this tradition, dress up into colourful (but still comfortable and non-restrictive) attire for a light hearted yoga class. 

 

Colours for Holi on sale at a market in Mysore

About the Class

The Ashtanga Yoga classes are suited to practitioners with some experience in Yoga who want a joy-filled challenge! The focus is on linking movement with breath throughout the Ashtanga Primary Sequence.

The Led class is an excellent opportunity to become familiar with and learn the vinyasas of the sequence, including Sanskrit counting. For the regular Mysore style practitioners, the class helps to highlight the parts of their practice where the ‘autopilot’ kicks in, where distraction often occurs and where fidgeting emerges due to habits.

Integrating Led classes into your regular practice schedule, can improve focus and the ability to balance one’s energies more evenly for the entirety of the sequence.

People celebrating Holi

Holi

Holi is the festival celebrated as the Festival of ColoursLove, and Spring. It celebrates the eternal and divine love of the deities Radha and Krishna. Additionally, the day signifies the triumph of good over evil, as it commemorates the victory of Vishnu as Narasimha over Hiranyakashipu. Holi originated and is predominantly celebrated in the Indian subcontinent, but has also spread to other regions of Asia and parts of the Western world. 

This ancient Hindu festival with its own cultural rituals started from the Prahladpuri Temple, in the city of Multan, in what is now Punjab, Pakistan. The festival finds colour in numerous scriptures, such as in works like Jaimini’s Purva Mimamsa Sutras and Kathaka-Grhya-Sutras with even more detailed descriptions in ancient texts like the Narad Purana and Bhavishyad Purana. The festival of “holikotsav” was also mentioned in the 7th century work, Ratnavali, by King Harsha. It is mentioned in the Puranas, Dasakumara Charita, and by the poet Kālidāsa during the 4th century reign of Chandragupta II.

Radha Krishna

In the Braj region of India, where the Hindu deities Radha and Krishna grew up, the festival is celebrated until Rang Panchmi in commemoration of their divine love for each other. The festivities officially usher in spring, with Holi celebrated as a festival of love. Garga Samhita, a puranic work by Sage Garga was the first work of literature to mention the romantic description of Radha and Krishna playing Holi. There is also a popular symbolic legend behind the festival. In his youth, Krishna despaired whether the fair-skinned Radha would like him because of his dark skin colour. His mother Yashoda, tired of his desperation, asks him to approach Radha and ask her to colour his face in any colour she wanted. This Radha did, and Radha and Krishna became a couple. Ever since, the playful colouring of Radha and Krishna’s faces has been commemorated as Holi.

Vishnu

There is a symbolic legend found in the 7th chapter of the Bhagavata Purana explaining why Holi is celebrated as a festival of triumph of good over evil in the honour of Hindu god Vishnu and his devotee Prahlada. King Hiranyakashipu, the father of Prahlada, was the king of demonic Asuras and had earned a boon that gave him five special powers: he could be killed by neither a human being nor an animal, neither indoors nor outdoors, neither at day nor at night, neither by astra (projectile weapons) nor by any shastra (handheld weapons), and neither on land nor in water or air. Hiranyakashipu grew arrogant, thought he was God, and demanded that everyone worship only him. Hiranyakashipu’s own son, Prahlada, however, remained devoted to Vishnu.  This infuriated Hiranyakashipu. He subjected Prahlada to cruel punishments, none of which affected the boy or his resolve to do what he thought was right. Finally, Holika, Prahlada’s evil aunt, tricked him into sitting on a pyre with her. Holika was wearing a cloak that made her immune to injury from fire, while Prahlada was not. As the fire spread, the cloak flew from Holika and encased Prahlada, who survived while Holika burned. Vishnu, the god who appears as an avatar to restore Dharma in Hindu beliefs, took the form of Narasimha – half human and half lion (which is neither a human nor an animal), at dusk (when it was neither day nor night), took Hiranyakashyapu at a doorstep (which was neither indoors nor outdoors), placed him on his lap (which was neither land, water nor air), and then eviscerated and killed the king with his lion claws (which were neither a handheld weapon nor a launched weapon).

Kama and Rati

Among other Hindu traditions such as Shaivism and Shaktism, the legendary significance of Holi is linked to Shiva in yoga and deep meditation. Goddess Parvati wanting to bring Shiva back into the world, seeks help from the Hindu god of love called Kamadeva on Vasant Panchami. The love god shoots arrows at Shiva, the yogi opens his third eye and burns Kama to ashes. This upsets both Kama’s wife Rati (Kamadevi) and his own wife ParvatiRati performs her own meditative asceticism for forty days, upon which Shiva understands, forgives out of compassion and restores the god of love. This return of the god of love, is celebrated on the 40th day after the Vasant Panchami festival as Holi. The Kama legend and its significance to Holi has many variant forms, particularly in South India.

Significance

The Holi festival has a cultural significance among various Hindu traditions. It is the festive day to end and rid oneself of past errors, to end conflicts by meeting others, a day to forget and forgive. People pay or forgive debts, as well as deal anew with those in their lives. Holi also marks the start of spring, an occasion for people to enjoy the changing seasons and make new friends.

People smear and drench each other with colours. Water guns and water-filled balloons are often used to play and colour each other, with anyone and any place being considered fair game to colour. Groups often carry drums and other musical instruments going from place to place singing and dancing. Throughout the day people visit family, and friends and foes come together to chat, enjoy food and drink, and partake in Holi delicacies. Holi is also a festival of forgiveness and new starts, which ritually aims to generate harmony in society.

The spring season, during which the weather changes, is believed to cause viral fever and cold. The playful throwing of natural coloured powders, called gulal has a medicinal significance: the colours are traditionally made of neem, kumkum, haldi, bilva and other medicinal herbs suggested by Āyurvedic doctors. Some of the traditional natural plant-based sources of colours are:

  • Orange and red
  • Green
  • Yellow
  • Blue
  • Magenta and purple
  • Brown
  • Black

Date/s:

Friday, 22.03.2024.
6:00 - 7:45 am

Price:

As per usual attendance

Teacher:

Bogi Zajacz