Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Spring Sadhana 2014

10,000 hours to earn 'master' status, according to Gladwell in Outliers. The last 42 hours of this Spring sadhana are less than .5%.

Although the claim has since been widely disputed, I thought it might be fun to do a rough calculation to see whether I come close to that magic number with my Iyengar yoga practise. Not by a long shot.

A conservative estimate would put me in the range of around 2500-3000 hours, counting the time I've spent in my home practise. Obviously still a long way to go! Coming up this weekend & next week is the 'intensive', and if I manage to hang in it will be an additional 20 or so hours. Little by little it does add up, so at this rate, in another 50 or so years I might pass the 10K hour mark for total hours of practice.

BKS Iyengar, at 90 years of age, had reduced his daily asana practise to 3 hours, with an additional 1 hour for pranayama. Raya, visiting YCT from India says BKS, pictured on the right at 96, still does headstand about 30 minutes a day, along with a host of other poses. Likely the guru has literally spent years in headstand.


  • ~ 162 Sadhana hours
    • By quick math I've added about 42 hours the last 30 days (missed 2 days). Previous sadhanas, about 120 hours.
  • ~  925 class hours
    • weekly class with Tina, around 10 years, assuming a few weeks off a year for holidays (500)
    • weekly classes at YCT for about 5 years, (275) then up the ante to twice a week for 2 years (150)
  • ~ 260 workshops, conventions
    • 4 years convention, roughly 20 hours (80)
    • YCT, roughly 30 hours total per year 6 years (180)
  • ~ 1270 Home practise hours
    • 5 years of daily practise, average 30 minutes a day x 5 days a week x 52 (650)
    • 10 years sporadic, 1 hour a week (520)

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