Bodies & Poses
(Photo by LOGAN WEAVER | @LGNWVR on Unsplash)
This week I’ve been cheering in my yoga classes. In each class I’ve seen students refine their poses in so beautifully that it makes me squeal with delight. Every single student has been engaging with the poses in mindful ways - and no expression of the pose looks exactly like the one next to it. That, makes me very excited!
Alignment-Based Yoga
If you’ve ever taken yoga class with me, you know that I usually teach alignment-based yoga. That means I give a lot of information and instruction around how to get into the pose, what to do while you’re there, and how to get out of it. I give minute details about what your muscles are doing and how that may affect your bones. I give multiple layers of refinement for how to shift your postures over time.
I teach this way because it’s effective for my body and for the students (as far as I can tell). I teach this way because students say they like it. They tell me things like “I feel like a just had a chiropractic adjustment” and “My back was hurting when I came in and it feels so much better now.” and “OH! Now I understand what to do in the poses. Thank you for teaching me how to do that”
The Perfect Form
I believe there is real benefit in alignment-based yoga. But the unintended downfall is that with all of the description of muscle action and bone placement it’s easy to become perfectionistic about the practice. It’s a slippery slope from gathering information into seeing a ‘right way’ and ‘wrong way’ to express a pose. Then into trying to master and attain ‘perfect’ alignment in a pose. If you’re wired for perfectionism, or being the ‘good one’ then this kind of thinking will only perpetuate those habits.
This is compounded in a group class. In those practices I give general instructions to the entire student body, not refined instructions to each individual student. All a student has to do is to look at their classmates and see differences in poses to start into a downward spiral of judgement and self-doubt. Especially if that pose is hard for them. On the flip side, one can easily build one’s ego when poses come more easily and look like an Instagram post.
A Unique Expression
That’s why I’ve been so excited about practices this week. In the middle of group classes the students have been having their own experiences. They’ve always been doing that, but this week they seem to be better understanding that they have a unique and personal expression of the poses. One that has nothing to do with the other folks in the class. They seem to understand that while we are sharing a group experience, we each have an individual relationship to it.
It’s A Relationship
The relationship part is what’s so exciting. Yoga is relationship. The root of the Sanskrit word yoga is yuj which can be translated as union. Union is relationship, isn’t it?
When it comes to physical yoga there are poses and there’s your body. Then there is the relationship between them. Because each of us is in a unique physical body, each of us will have a unique relationship to each pose. That means you can’t possibly look like your neighbor in your pose, because you have a different body than your neighbor. That means there can’t possibly be ONE RIGHT WAY to do a pose because there isn’t one single body, there are multitudes and each one has its own relationship to the pose. (( This is compounded by the fact that even yoga teachers and different styles of yoga don’t agree on how to express each pose ))
The relationship between your body and the pose is a lot like any other relationship -
Sometimes the relationship is : “Absolutely Not”
Sometimes the relationship is: “Oh My Goddess, YES!”
Sometimes the relationship is: “Let’s just see what’s possible”
Sometimes the relationship is: “You’re good for me so let’s do this”
Sometimes the relationship is: “I’ve put in so much effort.. why can’t you change?”
Sometimes it’s all of that and more in a single pose or single class.
The point is that even though there can be a lot of information coming to you in an alignment-based class, we’re never attempting perfection. Instead we’re seeking to deepen the relationships that we’re building. Relationships of understanding of poses and relationships of refining your awareness of your body. Relationships go on from there…
Layers of Relationship
The refinement of awareness and deepening of relationships are ways that physical yoga gives way into the state of yoga - the state of union with the Heart. First you build a relationship with your body. Then you notice your breath and that relationship unfolds. Next may come a shift in your relationship with your mind and/or emotions. Then, as you become more receptive and subtle in your refinements you enter into relationship with those hidden parts of yourself. Doorways begin to open and wisdom pours through. Veils fall away and there is an opening.
Something More
Then there is the possibility of a relationship with something else. Something more. The yogic sages had many names for it: Consciousness, the Self, the Heart, pure Awareness. I like the Heart, or Mystery. Those names are pointing to something that our small minds can’t comprehend, but that our hearts are big enough to experience. This is where your yoga can take you.
At first it’s just a glimpse. Striving for the perfect pose falls away and you’re left with a pulsating sweetness in your heart- there it is, the first moment of relationship with something bigger. Follow that and let it lead you all the way home. All the way back into not just your heart but the Heart.
So, yes, I’ve been excited this week. I do love to see a beautifully refined pose. But more than that I am deeply excited about the relationships that are coming alive through this practice. That’s because I know they’re taking us somewhere important. I believe that if we continue in this direction we’ll end up in Union - the state of Yoga. And more than any pose, that’s what this practice is all about.