July 2008 | Healthy Living :: Yogapedia
Universal Yoga
Defining yoga, one style at a time
By Julia Steinberger
Origins Universal Yoga founder Andrey Lappa was a Ukranian national swimming champ and engineering PhD before devoting his life to yoga. Lappa proposes there are seven koshas, or layers, to a human being (traditional yoga recognizes five; most Western yoga classes address only the two outermost layers: physical body and energy). A well-structured Universal practice integrates all seven for unification and whole-being balance.
What to Expect Lappa’s mechanical and physical expertise informs the Universal practice, which pays individual attention to each joint in the body and takes students in multidirectional patterns in space (think sequences like Sun Salutes performed in a circular flow, vs. the standard forward-facing rectangular space of a yoga mat). But there are as many different styles of teaching UY as there are teachers. Although Lappa strictly trains his own students in Universal Yoga foundations, he stresses that once they have mastered the vocabulary, they can bring unlimited interpretation to their practice and teaching style. “The yoga practitioner has total responsibility,” he explains, “but at the same time, complete freedom.”
Signature Poses Lappa’s own series of asanas for the arms have added a new dimension to the yogic upper body approach. Poses like Eka Bhuja Padmasana (“one-armed lotus pose,” pronounced EHK-ah BOO-jah pad-MA-sa-na) delve into the same range of motion in the shoulders, arms and wrists that common poses like Lotus and Pigeon explore with the hips, knees and ankles. And Mandala (multidirectional) sequencing breaks your practice out of expected patterns, deepening your level of awareness and concentration.
Where to Find It Katerina Wen, Lappa’s most accomplished disciple, opened Yogi Way studio in Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood in 2006 (yogiway.com). One of only two studios in the United States to feature a custom-made “one-mat” lightly cushioned floor, Yogi Way offers the chance to explore multi-directional movement without boundaries. Find more Universal Yoga classes and instructors at universal-yoga.com.
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