David Life and Sharon Gannon are the creators of Jivamukti Yoga, a flowing, fast paced, vinyasa-style practice that is at the forefront of yoga’s current popularity. Headquartered in New York City since the 1980s, Jivamukti now has official yoga centers in Toronto, London, and Munich, as well as classes all over the world, courtesy of the scores of graduates of their prestigious training program. Now you can see for yourself what Jivamukti Yoga is all about thanks to video Transform Yourself with Jivamukti Yoga with David Life and Sharon Gannon.
The video gets right into it with a series of sun salutations. Although the video is labeled for “Experienced Beginners and Beyond,” I would emphasize the “experienced” part. The sun salutations include jumping back and forward and chaturangas from the very start, so a familiarity with vinyasa yoga and an intermediate level of physical fitness are helpful. In voice-over instruction (you choose whether to hear Life or Gannon, which keeps things fresh), poses are often called by their
Sanskrit names.
Practicing in what looks like an ersatz harem, where they are accompanied by live musicians on traditional instruments, Life and Gannon demonstrate each pose, providing excellent visual instruction though not much commentary on alignment. It’s extremely helpful to have both beginning and advanced versions of the postures demonstrated side by side, by Gannon and Life respectively, and it’s nice to see them get a little sweaty over the course of the hour-long video, since you certainly will, too.
One of Jivamukti’s strengths is its creative, intelligent sequencing, and this video class is no exception. Life and Gannon lead us through sun salutations, standing poses, hip openers, a little balancing, quite a lot of back bending, forward bends, and inversions.
This video is best suited to yoga students at the intermediate level with experience in vinyasa-style yoga who enjoy a vigorous, flowing practice. As such, it provides a great sequence of poses and serves as an excellent introduction to the Jivamukti method.
To find out more about how Jivamukti began, read my interview with David Life and Sharon Gannon.
