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6:30 PM - 7:30 PM (UTC+5.5)
Beyond Asanas: Drawing Lines Between Mythology and Modern Asana Practice By Pragya Bhatt
Using a subset of the asanas in her book titled ‘Beyond Asanas,’ Pragya will be talking about the mythological context of asanas and how this mythology informs the spiritual lessons embodied by them. She will use several images of the asanas to depict the myths. She will also be speaking about the asanas from a modern practice perspective, to demonstrate that asanas themselves are constantly evolving. She will speak extensively from her experience as a practitioner, scholar and a teacher with over a decade of asana teaching experience. This presentation will be from the point of view of a practitioner-scholar i.e. someone who has first traversed the practical path of seeking yogic wisdom (through a search for teachers and masters) and then supplemented that quest with academic knowledge. Her perspective on yoga is of someone who has spent considerable time studying with living teachers and masters and this experience informs her academic pursuit of yogvidya.
Speakers
Pragya Bhatt
yoga practitioner-scholar
Pragya Bhatt is a yoga practitioner-scholar interested in the intersection of contemporary yoga entrepreneurship and traditional practice and teachings. Having a father who was a diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service, Pragya grew up learning the best from all the places she lived. Her first book "Beyond Asanas: The Myths and Legends Behind Yogic Postures" was published in 2019 by Penguin. Pragya worked as a software engineer for companies such as Infosys and Accenture, before hanging up her business suit to immerse herself full time into the practice of yoga. She studied under various teachers before she found a resonance with the Iyengar style of yoga practice. Pragya is also an avid Vedanta student under Smt. Subhadra Devi. She lives and works in Bangalore, but is frequently found elsewhere because of a penchant for spontaneous travel. With over a decade of experience teaching asana, Pragya considers both technique and alignment in her teaching. She regularly contributes to newspapers and periodicals and is a compulsive blogger and diarist.
Sophia French
Host, Journalist
Sophia has been a journalist for over 15 years, and she has been practising hatha yoga for 20 years. She completed a yoga and Vedanta course at the Sivananda Yoga and Vedanta Ashram in Netala, and she's been practising hatha yoga in the Iyengar and Krishnamacharya systems. She is currently studying Indian philosophy and is a regular journalist