Asana & Mind: Twisting as a State not an Action

Don't we imagine that the goal is to twist as far as we possibly can? Of course we all begin with striving and measuring how we think we do in relation to images in our mind or presented by the bodies next to us. The next stage is our effort to identify what is happening and how it happens  and in doing that we get attached to the specifics like pressing into the thumb and index finger in downward facing dog or focusing on drawing the left ribs towards the back body or towards the ceiling in a spinal twist. But these are not the goals nor are they really the pivotal mechanisms in that down dog or spinal twist, warrior or headstand. We can only find our way once we see where it is in our self that yearns and overworks, where our energy disconnects or pools, and how our judging mind blocks our path and builds our habitual patterns. Yes, there is a building of familiarity with how the body works, and our own body in particular, but the twist is more about opening the mind, than seeing the room behind you.

Beginning,  we open our attention to new places in the body and experience our own efforts with both wariness and awareness. Once we feel the outer edge of that foot in a standing pose and discover the internal shift it takes to feel the inner heel at the same time, we can stop focusing on that and begin to follow the line up the body, balancing the pelvis between the legs, then drawing the energy up the legs and in towards the pelvis and then moving our awareness from place to place, adjusting the fulcrum of our attention and effort. In  beginning we must activate an acuity of attention and forge a balance in our awareness and effort.

Then we let that go. We are not perfecting a particular pressure of foot or angle of hip. We are not drawing the ribs around the body to create torque in the spine and a sore ribcage. More effort is not the goal nor does it produce bliss. Even worse than our habitual patterns might be replacing them with over efforting and rigid assumptions. In this process we can learn about inquiry, about our actions, our urgencies, and our minds.

Effort is required of the mind to observe and attend to the body in any moment.  Effort is also required in the body to bring the mind into an alert and informed state. It is at this point that spaciousness and ease can enter the practice. The equation shifts when we allow the body to relax into a posture of supported effort and the mind to release judging and adjusting that effort and begin to explore being in a pose. It is this quality of being that opens the box of possibilities.

It is this moment that may be missed  if our practice requires constant  motion and use of effort to keep going. though we may burn through resistance of one kind we may be catering to habitual patterns of resistance too. We can build muscular and cardiovascular strength and cultivate intimacy when we let go of the constant physical negotiation for deeper, harder, or really just more.  In the silence of being in a pose, we find our breath, we can use the mind to soften the fierceness of the body. By opening ease in the midst of all the effort we begin a new adventure of adeptly holding a posture without continuing to "work" on it. Then the work is in the energy, breath, and awareness, supported by mindful conscious alignment of bone and muscle.

At a certain point in the twist it is important to let go of the act of twisting and experience the support and clarity of being twisted.

Escalating Practice: Encouraging or Lost in Ego?

It is nearly impossible to ignore the sparkle of doing more, the allure of the challenge in the physical asana, or the hierarchy of yoga classes and practices deemed a "higher level." We all see yoga in the external images, those crowning aspects of back bends and inversions that seem so graceful yet unapproachable to so many of us. Without exception, we can find ourselves in classes with bodies that seem more able than our own, or at the very least, we know of such classes labeled "advanced." Is this how we deepen our practice, inspired and driven beyond our current limitations? If not for setting a goal of building strength, or gaining flexibility, or holding steady through that moment when we want to give up, how else do we get beyond feeling weak, inept and unsure of ourselves?

The way I see it, the very first commitment we make to our practice is a step beyond this allure of escalation. Embedded in that first commitment is an inkling of non-dualistic thinking: that even with our flaws and weaknesses, strengths and proclivities, we can experience the truth of this moment and release our judging mind into the role of observer/witness. Even as we struggle in the first moments of a meditative centering, even as we worry about our tight hamstrings in a forward fold or weak abdominal muscles or sore wrists or tight lower back or whatever it is, we can begin to see it as it is and with a focus on this inhale and exhale we can allow ourself the experience of observing as our own awareness begins to broaden. This is the heart of practice at any stage, after any number of years. If you began the practice as an accomplished athlete in perfect physical form, you would still run right up against this greatest challenge: to be fully present in a broadened perception with a focus of awareness in this moment.

And so it is that I find myself too, right in the middle of standing on my head, and up until a specific moment, my energy is flowing freely and I am observing an array of sensations, including an openness and startling ease. Then, in an instant, my attention turns entirely to counting my breaths, and my mind establishes a goal -- that number of breaths that would put me in the "I DID IT" category. My experience of the moment is hijacked into holding on tight, counting my breaths and encouraging myself to just keep going until I reach that magic number that I've set myself. I hold on for that accomplishment and when I do release from the posture, I pause, observing the flow of energy in response to the asana, the sweep of the experience and my breath in that moment.

Is it any surprise that my practice was to see the grasping at the goal, after experiencing a new level of openness in the asana? Not at all. This is the essence of the practice itself, declining the invitation to escalate into a physical competition, inviting the increase in awareness of what is actually happening, and as always, seeing the dualistic way of thinking/being and not getting lost there. The significance in the number of breaths I remained in headstand is indeed in the experience of that gripping, my fear reaction to the openness in the pose, that by its very nature challenged everything about the status quo of my conditioned ways of seeing myself in the world. So much benefit in perceiving the choices of where we turn our attention! So much freedom comes in those choices!

Less is More - Make the Suggestion

It seems part of our human nature to push ourselves, to strive for things, to exert our energy and our influence in order to feel productive and even a little bit in control of the messy universe. I see my students over reaching, torquing joints in twists, yanking and pulling themselves inside and out. This is partly why they are in my class doing yoga, to have me reminding, cajoling, enticing, and surprising them as I gently suggest ways to let that go and find space of a different sort.

I have had some experiences with The Alexander Technique that had deep repercussions simply by suggesting that I think about something a different way. Just the suggestion evoked a new brain pattern, which in turn supported a new body pattern that brought ease where there had been tension, peace where there had been pain. Making the effort to put space in my painful shoulder did not work. There was no way I could muscularly pull that joint apart without tensing other muscles, and making more trouble for myself.

My yoga practice offers me the breath as the first tool, the first vehicle for change. Even though I practice often, teach often, and am living more and more in the framework of this practice, when I think of it I exhale and release my shoulders -- they are almost always carrying tension when I am not thinking about them. So I know that the vast majority of my students are also carrying their tensions, attitudes, anxieties in active ways throughout their bodies when they are not focused on releasing them.

Here is where the power of suggestion comes in. Doing less is certainly key when it comes to reducing the tendency to over-effort. But telling yourself to "do less" is like telling yourself "to relax" when you are tense. Yeah, sure, right, RELAX!! DO LESS!! (Can you tell I'm smiling?) We cannot effort our way into doing less or into relaxing, but we can make suggestions that often have quite wonderful effects.

Here are a few you can try with yourself.
Suggest that your skull is simply resting atop your spine. (It doesn't require any major effort to hold it there, it will not fall off!) Explore with tiny micro movements the way it can move by nodding ever so slightly, and turning as if saying no ever so subtly. Suggest that this connection can remain loose and spacious. (Just notice if this has any influence on the tension in your neck.)

Suggest that your shoulders, collar bones, and shoulder blades are floating above your ribcage. Let your inhale explore this feeling, rising throughout the ribs and allowing your shoulders to float like sticks atop the gentle waves of breath. Suggest that your exhale might leave bits of space between the bones of the shoulders, as the ribs gently rest on the receding breath. (See if your shoulders begin to relax as your heart opens, lungs filling the top of the rib cage, as the weight of the shoulders lightens.)

Suggest softness and space in your hip joints as you walk, imagining the bones of your thighs loosely wrapped by cushions of stretchy flexible bands. Allow this softness to permeate your movements, feeling the freedom of the swinging bones, the width of the motion, the range of your own stride. (Notice if your breath begins to follow your steps as you walk, taking pleasure in this new freedom!)

No one likes to be told what to do when they already know what to do. Perhaps we feel differently when we imagine that we do not know. I suggest that by opening an inquiry with suggestions rather than directions, you will discover all kinds of space and ease, and feel how much more there is in you when you do less! And of course, in every one of these suggestions you have shifted your focus, inward, to the breath, releasing the grip a little on the urge to control, to judge, to muscle. Through suggestion you offer yourself a moment -- this moment -- to be in the inquiry of who you are and how your body and mind work together in the present tense. That feeling is enough all by itself to help let go and breath a little easier!