Asana practice – part 3
All the poses need to be practice regularly and in a non competitive way, and then our physical limitations will start to become less restricting because the mind starts to relax due to no more judgment, competition, comparison, criticism and expectation. The body will become more flexible and strong. We will feel easier and more comfortable in each pose. Everything will become easy for us. Our confidence will become stronger and fear has become less. Those seemed like “dangerous” poses are not “dangerous” for us now. In fact they have become something “fun” and “enjoyable” thing to do.
It doesn’t matter what poses that we do, we are doing it with full awareness and concentration, being at the present moment without judgment, criticism, comparison, competition and expectation. And we accept ourselves as we are at that present moment of what we can do and cannot do, whether we have improved or declined, and whether we feel good or not good, and not categorize the poses as easy or difficult, comfortable or not comfortable, and not generate like and dislike, craving and aversion.
We learn to stay detached from the body and the mind, not identify with them, and observe all the body sensations, thoughts and feelings that arise when we are doing the asana poses without identifying with them, let them come and let them disappear eventually. And we try to stay focus on what we are doing and on the breath as much as possible. Once we aware that the mind has wondered somewhere else on the thoughts, without feeling frustration we bring the mind focus back onto the present moment on the breathing. And keep doing this until it becomes a natural habit which doesn’t require much effort for us to stay focus at the present moment and it won’t irritates us whenever the mind wonders away again and again.
Yoga asana should be done with great humility and gratitude in a non-rushing manner. Usually a traditional complete asana session will last between one and a half hours to two and a half hours even though time or duration is not an important issue here.
It is not about doing as many asanas as possible within a class, or training the body to perform such and such poses to challenge the ability of the body for competition with others, or to show off to our friends that we can do such and such poses, or to perform on stage for some audiences to watch (showing the students how to move into a pose during teaching a class is something completely different from performing some poses on stage for entertaining purposes or to amuse other people).
It is about doing each asanas with self-awareness at the present moment, accepting ourselves as we are at the present moment of what we can do and cannot do, of whether we feel good or not good. The condition of our body and the mind is changing all the time and from moment to moment, we are not the same body and not the same mind. We cannot compare ourselves in the present moment with our past performance and experience, or relate our performance now with our future performance because our body is not in the same condition all the times.
We cannot really pre-judge or having pre-conception about ourselves of what we can do and cannot do from our past experiences or performances, even if we are being limited by some physical injuries but still it doesn’t indicate that forever we can’t do this or do that. Be very open minded and put down all our previous learning, knowledge, experience, familiarization and performance, and letting go of any expectations for the benefits from what we are doing.
The benefits will come even without us thinking about it. Just like when we try to do something, the result will come even without us having any expectations. In fact the bigger the expectation, the bigger the disappointment it will be. Tensions built up due to having great expectation.
We cannot compare ourselves with anybody as well because everyone has different type of physical body, flexibility, strength, stamina, ability, personality and understanding. Since there won’t be any comparison among ourselves and with other people, there won’t be any competition as well.
We also cannot have any judgments towards the object and the subject because of the law of nature – impermanence. Everything change from good to bad, from bad to good, from easy to difficult, from difficult to easy. Since we cannot have any judgment, there can’t be any expectation as well.
Letting go any judgment towards the poses whether they are easy or difficult for us, comfortable or discomfort for us, as well as judgment towards ourselves of whether we are good at doing the pose or not, or if we feel any good or bad feeling while doing the poses. Most of the time, lots of emotional tensions are being released when we do asana practice. We might feel bad, angry, sad and depress due to these emotional tensions come out to the surface. It is good to release these tensions and not to suppress them back into the system. What we can do is, observe these feelings, not to identify or associate with them and not to react. After some times, they will disappear into thin air. It is a good purification process.
We also learn not to be disturbed by the outside environment and the objects of our senses.
– The view of the surrounding – usually we keep the eyes closed during the asana practice. The mind is very curious trying to see what is happening outside;
– The sound of the surrounding – not to be distracted by any sound whether it is something nice or very irritating;
– The smell of the surrounding – not to be irritated by some body odour of other people or fragrances that people use, or nice smell or bad smell in the air;
– The taste – the sweat that might come into our mouth or the saliva changes due to the practice. We might feel dryness or wetness in the mouth and throat area;
– The touch – the skin in contact with the floor or our hands or feet touch some other people next to us. As well as the temperature of the surrounding – whether it is too hot or too cold;
– The thoughts and feelings that arise in the mind from time to time which is a normal character of the mind – it doesn’t like to stay focus at one object for a long time. The mind doesn’t like repetition of the same thing. It always wants something new and stimulating.
We learn to stay focus at the present moment on what we are doing and on the breathing while doing the asana practice which will make it into a habit for us to be able to stay focus on what we are doing in life. As we always said, yoga practice is not just within an asana class but it is in our life every moment in our heart.
A good asana practice will balance our energy field; generate more energy; channel the energy for a better quality of life; purify the energy; conserve the energy; strengthen our body and the immune system; increase the suppleness of the body; calming the mind; slower breathing rate and heart rate – the heart and lungs don’t need to work so hard as before. The mind is becoming clearer and sharper. Our self control over the thoughts, speech and actions is becoming stronger. The more we go deeper into the practice and manage to perform complicated asana poses, the more humble we are becoming and not being proud and arrogant of what we are capable of doing. And this will thin out the ego.
In a group class with people in different levels, is a very good place for everyone to learn to share, to be patient, to be open minded, to respect others, to adjust, to accommodate, and to tolerate and becoming selfless, compassionate and wise.
As yoga teachers, we need to have regular practice ourselves beside teaching classes. We should teach what we practice regularly and share our direct experience with the students. This is the lineage of yoga practice.
There is no meaning in teaching the students of what we read and saw from books and videos, or what we learnt from our teachers about this pose and that pose, or it is in the trend on the market now that everybody is doing such pose and such “style” of yoga but we didn’t practice them at all and have no direct experience about it.
It is like we can’t be teaching the student how to do headstand if we didn’t practice headstand at all or don’t know how to do headstand or have no confidence in headstand. If the teacher is afraid to do headstand, thinking that it is a dangerous pose and he or she might get broken neck or blood vessels might explode under great pressure or the eyes might become blind from doing headstand, then how can he or she teach headstand to the students? Certainly there are people with certain circumstances are not suitable to practice headstand, but that doesn’t determine that headstand is dangerous. What a huge ignorance.
It is like some people are allergic to fruit and vegetables and get sick after eating them, but that doesn’t determine that fruit and vegetables are bad and poisonous.
Imagine that there are some yoga teachers telling the students that they shouldn’t practice headstand because they might get broken neck; blood vessels will explode and become blind if they do headstand. What a confused “yoga industry” in the world nowadays. What “yoga” are they teaching?
If we don’t know how to do headstand and cannot teach or don’t want to teach headstand, it is absolutely nothing wrong but we shouldn’t condemn headstand is a dangerous pose or plant negativity and fear into the students’ mind about headstand is not a good idea because we are embarrassed that we ourselves don’t know how to do it or how to teach it, or fear that the students might get injury in our class and ruin our reputation.
We also should not have the idea that as a teacher we should be better than the students, or we should know all the poses, or the students should be like us or perform all the poses perfectly.
Yoga should start with our own self, and then we can share with others.
