A friend wants to start a class, question...

[JDas]

Hi folks.

A friend of mine is considering leading a class which is composed of meditation, pranayama and asana. The original class from which she is borrowing the idea and spreading the concept consisted of two rounds of each, and lasted about three hours.

Do you have any advice for her?

Me, I'm thinking, given Yogani's caution against too much, that maybe she should reduce it to one round? And I'm thinking that she should also caution participants to continually monitor the inner processes so as not to over-do it.

What do you think?

Tks.

[Shanti]

Three hours?
One lesson for three hours?
Wow.. that's a lot!!!

You may want to suggest doing some asanas for 15-20 min, followed by pranayama and meditation for maybe 20-30 min.. rest for a few min and maybe talk/question session for a few min after that. Even that can be a bit much for people starting out.. so ask her to let newbies know that they can skip pranayam in the beginning or do it only for a min or two. She really does not want to be dealing with too many overloads.

[Etherfish]

I know people who do zen "sitting" for three hours or all day, and it doesn't cause overloads. But add in mantras or pranayama and you're asking for trouble.

[Shanti]

That's right.. if she is going to teach something similar to spinal breathing (along with mudras bandhas) and mantra meditation then more than 20-30 min will cause overload. I don't know about Buddhist style of meditation. So I guess it depends on what she is teaching. Moderation is the key. Overload are no fun as you know.

[YogaIsLife]

I've done AYP for 10 months and just recently been doing breath-awareness and buddhist style meditation because of overloads. Indeed, breath-awareness and mindfullness seems much gentler. I can easily do it for 20-30min whilst with the I AM mantra more than 10min would be too much for me.

Etherfish said it all above really!

[CarsonZi]

I would agree with the general consensus I feel is here already...It really depends on the style of meditation how long is appropriate, but doing long sessions of pranayama or mantra meditation (or even asanas really too) can be both physically and spiritually dangerous IMO.  For example, with Metta meditation, if you are adept at it, it is supposed to be done (at least the way I was taught) for 20 minutes per "stage".  There are 5 stages.  So that means doing meditation for a total of 100 minutes.  And I don't find (if you are doing Metta meditation) that going this long is guaranteed to push me into overload.  Going that long with DM and I'd be scraping myself off the ceiling with a spatula for sure.  I'd say the same for asanas as well.  There are some styles of yoga postures that aren't as physically demanding and it is possible to do say an hour without any adverse effects.  But then there are some other styles of yoga postures that doing an hour of will leave me personally sore for several days afterwards and I usually find that my flexibility is decreased (not increased) by the time I feel not sore anymore.  So.....hope some of these responses help a little.

Love,
Carson[^]

[JDas]

Thanks, folks, for taking the time to pass on your experience to help me out.
I will pass this info onto my friend for her consideration.

Namaste and love to all.

Jon