This conversation is one that I hope delights and inspires you. Always clear, succinct and, though he argues with this last point, original, Paul Grilley brought so much to the project that is The Weeks Well. I would call him—and Sarah Powers, who will be on the show in two weeks—the OG of Yin Yoga. In combining an East Asian word or concept with a South Asian word or concept, they have not only officially, through our industry’s nomenclature, broadened the definition and reach of yoga, they have underscored how yoga “is a thing in itself.”
We talked about the chakras as the multiverse, your body as something akin to a kind of clay you are working with, and, coolest of all for me, about how the body is a battlefield between higher spiritual ambitions and animalistic instincts you need to survive in this world.
Your sense of wellbeing is an even flow of energy. Learn more about what Paul and his many students and sub-students think about how to get there. Enjoy!
____
Terms and references:
1. Paul Grilley
2. Paul's recent essay on chakras, bandhas, and mudras
3. Sarah Powers
4. Bikram yoga: a system of hot yoga, founded by Bikram Choudhury, featuring a fixed sequence of 26 poses
5. Power yoga: vinyasa-style yoga focused on building strength and endurance
6. Ashtanga yoga: a style of yoga, popularized by Pattabhi Jois, consisting of six series with a fixed order of poses
8. Hiroshi Motoyama: a Japanese parapsychologist, scientist, spiritual instructor, and author who focused on spiritual self-cultivation and the relationship between the mind and body
10. Chakras: seven energy centers that run from the base of the spine to the top of the head
11. Mudras: signs, seals or symbols
12. Bandhas: locks
13. Samskaras: mental impressions or memories
14. Nadis: channels of energy
15. Sushumna nadi: the primary of the three main nadis in the body.
16. Chittra ni nadi: an energetic canal within the spinal column
18. Medulla oblongata: the connection between the brain stem and the spinal cord
19. Dharma: one's duty
20. Physicalism: the doctrine that the real world consists simply of the physical world
21. Idealism: the practice of forming or pursuing ideals, especially unrealistically
22. Prakriti: the Nature
23. Purusha: the divine Self which resides in all beings
24. Vin Yin Yoga: blends the yang elements of a vinyasa class with the restorative benefits of yin yoga
25. Rudolf Steiner: an Austrian occultist, social reformer, architect, esotericist, and claimed clairvoyant
26. Vinyasa: a style of yoga characterized by moving seamlessly from one pose to the next using the breath
27. John Schumacher
28. Savasana: corpse pose
29. Pranayama: breath control, one of the eight limbs of yoga
____
Episode credits:
Original music by Kim's band Governess.
Produced by Alyssa Yeroshefsky and Kim Weeks.
____
Subscribe to the Weeks Well newsletter and to our latest regular content community, Substack. For more info on Kim Weeks, visit www.weekswell.com.
Follow Kim on Instagram (@weeks.well), Facebook (@weeks.well), Twitter (@weeks_well), YouTube (@weekswell), Patreon (Weeks Well), and TikTok (@weekswell).
Copyright © 2023 Weeks Well®.