Asana: Where steadiness and ease overlap
The great physical feats of some of the great yogis passed continue to captivate the imagination of many, often acting as the first doorway onto the path of yoga. Whilst it is important to have goals in all aspects of our practice, two things are vitally important in relation to them 1) that we hold the goal lightly and 2) that the goal is actually in the direction of yoga, not in the direction of suffering.
When we have a goal in the physical practice it is necessary to know why a particular posture is our goal, then we can assess the quality of its direction. If I choose to have a headstand as my goal because headstands bring about some fear and I would like to come to a place where I have, overtime, dissolved that fear, then this would be considered in the direction of yoga - which is to bring us out of suffering. If we choose headstand as the goal because it displays our physical prowess and feeds asmita (ego/I-ness), then the direction is toward further dukha (suffering). Continuing with the same example, if there had been an existing pathology that contra-indicated headstand (cardio problems or problems in udana vayu for example) then for a student to come to the place over much time and many steps to achieve the goal of a handstand being not just available but appropriate, would mean that the pathology would have to be gone before the diligent student could even attempt it. Achievement of the goal then becomes the symbol that the student had successfully come out of problems.
Often ‘yoga’ which is generally only referencing the tool of asana, is described as being too difficult for the inflexible, too strong for the weak, too dangerous for the fragile, too soft for the muscle-bound or too slow for the busy-minded. Yet by the very definition of yoga, the physical practice of asana should meet every individual where they are at. I will never forget seeing a student in my teacher’s clinic in India who had stepped on a landmine in his early twenties, losing both his legs and the function of one arm. Due to the misunderstanding of yoga asana, many would not look at him and think he would be capable of a great physical practice in yoga but working with his body as it was, finding steadiness and ease in the postures as those adjectives related to him, he was able to practice at his fullest potential in many familiar, and of course modified, asana. This individualisation is a very difficult challenge in the context of general classes, so how then do we as the student find our right place within it?
Yoga Sutra II:46 is so potent, life-changing, it reads ‘Sthirasukhamasanam’. Translation - asana (a physical posture of yoga) is steady without tension, as well as ease that has no heaviness. Where these two seemingly opposing qualities overlap, is where yoga lives. Whenever we change from posture to posture, we assess these two qualities within us in relation to that particular posture. What nuances need to be made to ensure my alertness to the present? What adjustments do I need to make to my body, to be comfortable? When sthiram (steadiness) and sukham (ease) are present in the physical practice of yoga, the breath can be undisturbed and the practice becomes deeply meaningful to all layers of the constitution.
In the commitment to this sutra, every single person can find the individuality of their own practice, even in a general class. We can understand the deep importance of an ever-changing practice. It is asana that gifts an amazing relationship with impermanence, in an ever-changing landscape we know how to find solid ground within. In the process of moving the body into different shapes that may not be part of our everyday, we can see the whole of our physical selves and understand how much we are also changing from moment to moment.