A workshop on "SubtleYoga for AT Students and Teachers" with Mika Hadar-Borthwick

SubtleYoga workshop for AT Students and Teachers

A workshop with Mika Hadar-Borthwick

Notes by Jessamy Harvey

“Yoga must not be practised to control the body: it is the opposite, it must bring freedom to the body, all the freedom it needs.” Vanda Scaravelli (1908-1999)

Mika Hadar had a warm and welcoming approach from the start of the day, as she invited us to share who we were, what stage of the training we were at and if we had any yoga experience. Of all those present, I was probably the only one who had but a mere passing acquaintance with yoga but at no point did this appear to matter. Mika, in her own words, “developed the practice of Subtle Yoga through healing and her work in teaching yoga and Alexander Technique”. This workshop was, therefore, an opportunity to appreciate what Mika could teach us about the connections between these somatic fields. The Alexander Technique, which is part of a Western tradition in mind/body integration, and Yoga, which emerges from the East and has ancient roots; though, as in any tradition or field, yoga has experienced mutations, adaptations and translations as it has travelled through time, across the globe and been transmitted via different practitioners. In introducing herself, Mika spoke about Vanda Scaravelli as well as mentioning that her Alexander Technique training was with Misha Magidov.

It was useful to learn about her connection to Scaravelli. Mainly because Mika wanted us to understand that yoga is a practice that is accessible to anyone. Scaravelli came to yoga in her mid-forties and continued to practice until the end of her life. Mika clearly wanted to challenge the idea that yoga is predominantly about flexibility and strength so that we might let go of stereotypical ideas about the yoga body which could be holding us back. This had the effect of making us all feel much more at ease and created a sense of openness to experiencing subtle yoga through movement and breathing in the day ahead. However, although the day was primarily about exploring yoga through practice, Mika’s wealth of knowledge afforded us a glimpse into the spiritual and philosophical aspects of this tradition. Although I only managed to scribble down some names, her explanations throughout the day have since lead me to look more into Scaravelli, who wrote Awakening the Spine (1991), and the connections between her and the yoga master Iyengar (1918-2014) and the philosopher Krishnamurti (1895-1986). 

So Mika was introducing us to a specific strand of yoga, which she has further developed as her own (‘subtle yoga’), and set about helping us see the differences between it and the Alexander Technique whilst also showing us the points of contact. The day was well structured, and we explored stretches and poses, the importance of exhalation over inhalation, and the wave in the spine. Mika maintained the distinctions between each practice so, for example, she noted that in the Alexander Technique one tunes into the exhalation because that is when there is softness, but in yoga there are different moves depending on whether one is inhaling or exhaling. She shared some of yoga’s key concepts, like aparigraha (non-attachment), and asked us to talk about those central to AT: inhibition, primary control, and directions. Although there were a number of movements explored throughout the day, from unwinding the body’s memory by working in pairs to each one of us practicing the downward-facing dog pose, my personal favourite was the meditation talk-through. Lying on our mats, Mika talked us through the art of observing our breathing allowing us to enter a mode of deep relaxation whilst also gently bringing us back to a state of rested alertness. Though in different ways, both the practice of meditation and the semi-supine position awakens the parasympathetic nervous system allowing us to take time out to rest, repair and refresh. I left the workshop with the sense that Mika had not only demystified yoga for me, by making it more accessible, but that she had helped reinforce some of the concepts of the Alexander Technique through her comparative approach. I may not take up saluting the sun on a regular basis, but now I know that there isn’t a right or a wrong way to do it and, as in the Alexander Technique, it is all about learning to work with our body rather than against it.