The elements of asana practice

People come to Yoga for various reasons but the most common reason for people to stay is when they realise how much more there is to Yoga than whatever it was that brought them on to the Yoga mat in the first place.

The Body

Through practicing Yoga asanas (the physical postures of Yoga) we become more connected with our bodies, which is valuable because the body is extremely intelligent. When we learn to listen to the body we begin to notice that the body gives us all kinds of signals. These signals are different sensations which we experience in the body.

An example of this would be what we often refer to as a “gut feeling”. Sometimes you might feel tightness in your chest when you feel sad, tension in the jaw or the neck when you are stressed or a rush of energy running through the body when you feel excitement. These physical sensations inform us when something such as, a specific movement (like a yoga posture), a person or a lifestyle is or isn’t working for us. The body is also very good at telling us what sort of food we should eat, what sort of exercise we should do and when we need to rest.

When the body-mind connection is disturbed we become unaware of these important signals and then end up making choices that drain our energy (ex. excessive drinking, bad relationships, sleep deprivation) instead of choosing things such as foods, people and activities that benefit us.

The breath

Breath control (pranayama) is the action of breathing in various controlled ways. For example, breathing through the nose, inhaling for the count of 4 and exhaling for the count of 8. The Sanskrit word pranayama means literally extending the life force and its healing benefits include calming down the nervous system, clearing the mind and improving focus.

In asana practise, we use pranayma (usually the ujjayi breath) to create a rhythm to the practice. Linking the breath with the movement allows us to send oxygen to the muscles, and extend our awareness of the body. Since the human brain works so that we can only be focused at one task at a time, when we are concentrated in combining the breath with the movement we automatically turn our focus into the present moment. We stop thinking about the past and the future, and begin to live in the now.

The breath also works an an indicator of where we are in our asana practice. The basic idea is that the breath should always feel comfortable and easy. If the breath gets stuck and you find it difficult to breath it usually means that you are pushing your self too hard.

The gaze

Calming the mind takes lots of effort. It is not an easy task in the world in which we have so many stimuli bombarding us from every direction. Therefore, we need to actively focus on directing our awareness back into ourselves. In asana practice we use our gaze (drishti) to aid our focus and to help us keep the attention inwards. The general idea is to not look around, to keep the gaze soft and the eyes relaxed, and depending on the style of Yoga sometimes even letting the eyes close.

The intention

Traditionally, the intention behind practising Yoga is to work towards attaining enlightenment but for a person living in a modern-day urban society that might sometimes feel a bit too far fetched. However, to achieve the full benefits of the practice there needs to be an intention to self-discovery. An intention to quiet down and to listen to whats happening in your inner world. 

Through meditation which asana practice ultimately is, a meditation in movement, we begin to clear the mind from some of the internal chatter that clutters it and we begin to focus on the more important things. Ultimately, we become more in tune with our bodies, our breath and our minds and we start to understand ourselves better.

“You already have the answers, you just need to learn how to listen.”

S x