What if the average yoga class started with instructions to swallow some cloth before pulling it out again? How about if that were followed by administering an enema? Or inserting a thread up one nostril and out of your mouth? This might have been more common until relatively recently.
James Russell researches intersections between haṭha yoga and Indian medical traditions. He’s also an experienced teacher and practitioner of kriyās, which are purifying preliminaries that have a lot more prominence in pre-modern texts.
Our conversation explores where they come from, how their form and function change, and the ways they’re used in contemporary practice. In the process, we consider how optional they may have been at first, and why they’ve since been eclipsed by more popular methods, such as postures and breath-control.
We also reflect on resistance to scholarly findings – particularly those that conflict with established narratives, such as James’s work on sun salutations, which suggests they were inspired in part by a Persian wrestling technique.
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