Bowspring in Spain – 2023

In the Summer of 2013, Desi and I went to Europe for the first time together to introduce our new Bowspring method. One of the first European cities in which we presented the Bowspring was Madrid, Spain, where almost 120 students attended the classes in a big hall. Among the attendees, there was a lot of open-hearted interest and excited curiosity about our new alignment method – a new yoga system – Sridaiva Yoga, particularly among many of my former Anusara yoga students there in Spain.

In retrospect, the overall reaction and receptivity of the Spaniards to the radically new paradigm ideas of the Bowspring was surprise, discomfort, and shock! Over the previous 15 years in Madrid and Barcelona, in workshop classes and in yoga conference master classes, the Spanish yoga community expected enthusiastically for me to teach the “Universal Principles of Alignment” or the standard model alignment.

What I offered with the Bowspring alignment was opposite (180 degree polar actions – lift the tail v. tuck the tail) to the Anusara alignments and to the standard model alignment. For a quite a few in the community, this antithetical alignment short-circuited their minds, cut their hearts.

Why would I shift my view of alignment so much, so suddenly? Particularly in the wake of me leaving Anusara with bad feelings on how it all went down with so many with whom I thought I was close friends. Maybe I created an opposite alignment system to Anusara or standard model biomechanics in yoga just for the spite of it, vindictiveness, or a wild media stunt out of desperation to save my relevance out of Anusara?! Or I am publicly turning it all upside down as a crazy heretic challenging the Establishment of modern postural yoga?

In any case, their faith and commitment to the ‘yoga’, to the community (kula), was shaken and rocked by how I owned my blindspots and revealed the long-term negative effects of the standard model alignment.

The Spanish students are passionate and lovers of God, and devoted to their teachers and family, and so when my Anusara students in Spain realized that I was openly criticizing the standard model alignment as being harmful and deleterious over time, their faith in me was lost.

In their minds, I publicly blew up Anusara, then was offering an alternative yoga practice, which contradicted and challenged my old system! And the new yoga system – Sridaiva Yoga, co-founded by Desi Springer, a former student of mine for 8 years, was exceedingly difficult to do — physically and psycho-emotionally for almost everyone, particularly for the yoga teachers! In 2013, the ‘Bowspring postural revolution’ was all too much for 95% of the yoga students.

Now – 10 years later, and 3 years since the Pandemic lockdowns, Desi and I returned to Palma de Mallorca, Spain in late June 2023 to present a 4-day workshop to a very diverse group of around 50 students, ranging from beginners to European Bowspring teachers.

Desi and I hadn’t taught in Europe since 2019, and so this trip was very special, being reunited in community there for the first time in 4 challenging years. Most students who attended were Spaniards, but we also had students from Croatia, England, Germany, Austria, France, Switzerland, Crete, and Italy in attendance.

Everyone, except some of the Swiss, said that the last 4 years have been very rough economically and culturally for them. Most described a terrible period of isolation, uncertainty, confusion, and distress on their interpersonal relationships.

The support of the in-person community connection was profoundly missed in these last years. Hugs from old friends, who have personally gone through a lot in the last years, were healing for our hearts and souls, bringing tears and laughter to many of the attendees.

The theme of the Mallorca workshop was “the Postural Revolution”, and our focus was on the sacred geometry of the human body, the universal patterns in our alignment, which can be enhanced and utilized for the highest natural health and optimal functional movement.

In many ways, our teachings were fundamentally the same as we presented 10 years ago in Madrid, but now our presentation is simpler and there has also been a cultural shift in which there is more open-mindedness to this paradigm shift in postural alignment. When we first presented the Bowspring alignment 10 years ago, we tried to prove the power of the new alignment by rocking everyone with the Roots sequence – an advanced, complex asana practice.

Our strategy backfired since the Roots practice is too difficult for new students to the method, which we learned the hard way as few students returned to the Bowspring after that initial experience with the method!

Over the last few years as the world has changed so much and there has been a broad breakdown in culture, people are now more accepting and open to paradigm shifts like the Bowspring. At the same time, the Bowspring is still very challenging both mentally and physically especially in the first few weeks.

But because most people experience feeling better in their first classes – less pain and more agility – they tend to stick with the Bowspring practice, despite the psychological discomfort and challenge in the beginning.

Desi and I have also improved our presentation to make the method more accessible and doable for everyone, especially beginners. In Mallorca this time, we slowed down the pacing of the practice, and focused on more basic positions. Beginners were better able to learn the fundamentals of the Bowspring, while teachers took advantage of the opportunity to go deeper in their refinements of the practice.

The feedback on the classes was overwhelmingly positive so we intend to return to Spain in 2024 to present an expanded program!

Great thanks to Gabriella and to Joan Ramon for their fabulous hosting of the event! Please follow Gabriela at universobowspring.com and Joan Ramon at pramubowspring.com for Bowspring classes in Mallorca.

Also, please stay in touch with us at Bowspring.com. We will be touring the US in the Fall of 2023 and internationally again in 2024!