Rox Does Yoga

Yoga, Wellness, and Life

The Four Duties of a Yogi August 1, 2011

Filed under: yoga,yoga lifestyle,yoga philosophy — R. H. Ward @ 8:23 am
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At our last teacher training session, we talked about the four duties of a yogi. These duties are not for renunciates or monks but for householder yogis, yogis in the world like us. Here they are, in order:

  1. Yourself.
  2. Family.
  3. Work.
  4. Community/society/nation.

What do you think about that order? Does it seem selfish to put yourself first? This is something that many people struggle with. “My family has to come first in everything,” someone might say. But really think about it. Putting others first is a concept that many of us, especially women, have taken to heart as our duty. We’re constantly giving everything we’ve got – driving kids to soccer practice, staying late at the office, making time to help your husband with a project or to visit your in-laws, but never making time for yourself. And when you don’t make time to take care of yourself, you can get burnt out or even sick. It doesn’t have to be a lot of time. It can be something as simple as making sure you get to yoga class once a week, getting up early for some private time in the morning, getting to bed early to get a good night’s sleep, or treating yourself to a pedicure or a bubble bath. It could be scheduling that long overdue doctor’s appointment, getting your teeth cleaned, going for a massage: taking care of your own health so you don’t get sick or hurt. Whatever it is for you, it will help you to relax, recharge, and stay healthy. And when you’re healthy and you have a lot of energy, you have so much more to give to your family, work, church or community. If you take care of yourself first, you’ll be able to serve others with more energy and joy.

Compare that to when you’re feeling burnt out – how long does it take you to get back on an even keel? We can rarely give up our duties entirely for a vacation (and even a vacation away from home involves making travel plans, caring for the kids, worrying over the budget, etc). Sometimes, when we keep on putting others before ourselves, we get so run down that we become sick, our bodies forcing us to take a break, and even then we’ll still keep pushing on, going to the office instead of getting the rest we need. And really, what’s so important at the office? Things at the office will go on without you just fine, or things will wait until you’re feeling better. There are few things so important that you need to attend to them while you’re sick. Give both your body and your ego a rest and take care of yourself.

By caring for ourselves first, we can stay healthier, avoiding getting sick and rundown in the first place. By taking care of ourselves, we have more energy, more balance, and are happier and fuller in ourselves, meaning we have more to give to the people we love. The ancient yogis realized that when you take care of yourself first, everybody wins.

 

Four Paths: Raja Yoga July 31, 2011

Filed under: bhagavad gita,yoga lifestyle,yoga philosophy — R. H. Ward @ 12:22 pm
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In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna describes the four paths of yoga:

Each of these paths has the potential to lead a yogi to enlightenment, so you choose your path based on your temperament and personality. Choosing the wrong path will make it much more difficult to make progress, because essentially you’re fighting your nature. This month, my assignment is to consider the four paths and decide which one appeals to me the most.

Today I’ll talk about Raja Yoga, the path of meditation. Also know as “the royal path”, this is the path described in the Yoga Sutras and by Swami Rama in his book The Royal Path. Raja yoga is often called the eightfold path, since it is comprised of eight steps:

  1. yamas: moral restraints
  2. niyamas: moral practices
  3. asana: posture
  4. pranayama: control of the breath
  5. pratyahara: withdrawal and control of the senses
  6. dharana: concentration
  7. dhyana: meditation
  8. samadhi: enlightenment

We’ve already talked about most of these steps here on this blog, and most of them will appear in all four of the yoga paths at some point – for example, no matter what path you’re following, you’re going to do some yoga postures and you’re going to meditate. The difference is that someone drawn to Raja yoga will make meditation her main spiritual practice and the focus of her efforts. A Raja yogi is someone who would really enjoy a weeklong meditation retreat: eating meals in silence, getting up early to spend hours meditating. You can learn more about Raja yoga in chapter 6 of the Bhagavad Gita.

Although I’ve really been enjoying my meditation practice, and I’m glad to be devoting time to it every day, I don’t think that Raja yoga is my path. I’m getting better at calming my mind, but such a quiet, still practice I don’t think would be ideal for me spiritually. However, I’m really looking forward to spending more time exploring meditation as a part of whatever path I choose.

 

Four Paths: Jnana Yoga July 28, 2011

Filed under: bhagavad gita,yoga lifestyle,yoga philosophy — R. H. Ward @ 2:06 pm
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In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna describes the four paths of yoga:

Each of these paths has the potential to lead a yogi to enlightenment, so you choose your path based on your temperament and personality. Choosing the wrong path will make it much more difficult to make progress, because essentially you’re fighting your nature. This month, my assignment is to consider the four paths and decide which one appeals to me the most.

Today I’ll talk about Jnana yoga (pronounced Yah-Nah), the path of knowledge. This is the most difficult path but can be the shortest. A yogi drawn to the Jnana path naturally gravitates towards contemplation, thinking about spiritual questions, and studying spiritual books. The Jnana yogi is often solitary, quiet, and introspective, and may be interested in renouncing the world for spiritual study and reflection. The Jnana yogi is less interested in the Divine in the person of a figure like Jesus or Krishna, and more interested in the idea of the Divine, in unmanifested form or as universal consciousness or energy.

To progress along the path, the Jnana yogi uses reason and discrimination to distinguish between what is real and what is unreal, what changes and what remains unchanging. The Jnana yogi practices mental collectedness and concentration, not allowing anything to distract from the spiritual path. To that end, you stop looking for personal gain from the results of your actions, instead doing your duty simply because it’s what’s required, and you make enlightenment your top priority, refraining from actions that aren’t relevant to this quest. For more on Jnana yoga, take a look at books 4 and 7 of the Bhagavad Gita.

At first it seemed like maybe Jnana yoga would be my path. There are a lot of appealing things about it: I love to read and I’m good at studying, for one. But the more I think about it, the more this path doesn’t seem to go with my nature. I’m smart, but I’ve never been a big thinker – I never enjoyed philosophy classes or philosophical debates, and while I can be quiet and introspective, I don’t think I’d call myself contemplative. I think this path requires more discipline in study than I think would work for me – there are many things I can be disciplined about, but for me, reading has always been for the love of it, and I wouldn’t want to turn that into work. It’s a path that is a little more removed from the world than I think I can be. In many ways it’s a path I wish I could follow, but I don’t think it’s the right one for me.

Stay tuned for more on the other three paths!

 

July Teacher Training Weekend: Saturday (and a little Tuesday) July 20, 2011

Filed under: teacher training,yoga,yoga philosophy — R. H. Ward @ 2:19 pm
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At Saturday’s teacher training session, we spent lunch and a little class time on one-on-ones, so J & N could meet with each trainee individually to see how we’re doing. The one-on-ones lasted longer than planned, so some of us had to wait and do ours during the week. (I had mine last night, Tuesday, after class, and got to enjoy a really good conversation with N that helped me clarify that, yes, I’m on the right track; yes, I’m doing the best I can right now and once things calm down in my life my practice is going to take off; and yes, I should talk more in class; and yes, my papers are really good, but you all knew that part already because you’re basically reading my papers all month long. N also says she needs to see me teach more, which I totally understand, and that I am to thwack her in the head and remind her next time I’m in one of her classes so that I can teach a pose. I told her about my practice class at the pond and she was really glad to hear that I’d done that. Again, I’ll be trying to bank some teaching practice at home once we’re more settled in to our new house. Can’t fit more than one yogi on the porch right now since there’s still a queen-sized box spring sitting on it. Which reminds me, does anyone need a queen-sized box spring?)

Our actual class lecture on Saturday was Intro to the Bhagavad Gita. We talked about the four paths of yoga:

  • Karma Yoga: the path of action
  • Raja Yoga: the path of meditation
  • Jnana Yoga: the path of wisdom/knowledge
  • Bhakti Yoga: the path of love/devotion

We also discussed the three gunas. Guna means “strand or quality”; the gunas are three moods or influences or qualities that affect pretty much everything that happens:

  • Sattva: peacefulness, calm, contentment
  • Rajas: activity, sensuality; full of desires, attachments, and enjoyments
  • Tamas: confusion, laziness, lethargy, ignorance

The four paths and the three gunas are discussed in depth in the Bhagavad Gita, which is our reading assignment for this month. You can probably all predict that you’ll be hearing a lot more about these things later this month. We also talked about karma and about the four duties of a yogi, which I’ll describe further in a later post too.

My homework for this month is to read the Bhagavad Gita and write a reflection paper on which yogic path seems to suit my personality the best, including why I think that, what about that path resonates for me, and what evidence in my life leads me to this conclusion. We’re also doing two posture write-ups this month on twists (any ol’ twist: seated, standing, or reclining). It seems like a light homework month, but I think the intention is really for us to focus on the Gita and the four paths and to think carefully about it.

I already owned a copy of the Bhagavad Gita: Stephen Mitchell’s translation. The rest of the class is reading Eknath Easwaran’s translation. At first I figured, I already have the book, I don’t need to buy another copy, but now I’m reconsidering. First, I absolutely loved Easwaran’s Passage Meditation, so I would be very interested to see his take on the Gita. Also, given that we’re being provided the time to do some real hard work on this, I think it might benefit me to read the thing twice. I’ve already started on the Mitchell translation (just finished chapter 3, I think), and I’m a fast reader, so I’ve got plenty of time. It seems like, of all the books on yoga and spirituality out there, the Bhagavad Gita is one that it might be nice to own two translations of.

 

Practicing Patience, Patient Practice July 8, 2011

Filed under: reflections,yoga lifestyle,yoga philosophy — R. H. Ward @ 2:29 pm
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The other day in the car at rush hour, I was stuck at a red light behind a guy in a jeep. His mind clearly wasn’t on the the road. First he vigorously dug around on the floor on both the passenger side and all over the backseat, all while letting his car inch forward bit by bit as cars progressed through the light, barely glancing ahead as he did so. Then he leaned out the window to fix his hair in the side mirror. When the light turned green, he was all ready to move forward, only to throw his hands up in frustration when it changed to red before he made it through the intersection. When he did finally make it through, he stomped on the gas going up the hill… only to have to stop at the next light. Watching him, I couldn’t help but realize that I know I act like that all the time, but how silly it looks to see it! I had a much better experience in traffic that day than the guy in the jeep did, partly because I was entertained and horrified by his antics, and partly because I spent the time practicing patience.

I have always had a really difficult time being patient. As a kid, if I wasn’t good enough at something to do it right the very first time, I just wasn’t interested. Patience? Practice? Nah. Everything to do with reading and books and school came naturally to me, so that’s what I did and that’s what I got better at, and I decided sports were stupid. I could have been good at sports too if I’d wanted to be, if I’d practiced hard, but I wasn’t interested in being patient. I didn’t understand that good things come to those who wait; I wanted good things right now.

Many of the different texts I’ve read so far in yoga teacher training have emphasized being patient, slowing down, using time more mindfully. Mr. Easwaran includes a whole chapter on slowing down in Passage Meditation, because going slower allows us to think through our choices before we decide, helps us remember to be kinder to others. All the pranayama breathing techniques I learned last month emphasize that the breath should be slow and deep and even; the breath and the mind are closely related, so if you slow down the breath, you calm the mind too. Calm minds generally make better decisions, and calm people are often more content.

In the yoga sutras about the yamas and niyamas, we read about asteya (non-stealing), which includes being generous with our time. If we stop rushing around and leave when we need to leave to get to our destination on time, we’re going to have a much more pleasant experience. Don’t be distracted thinking about the next thing, but focus your attention on what’s going on right now. Sometimes what’s going on right now may be boring, but if we’re patient, we may learn something useful.

It’s important, too, to practice patience in yoga class. We can only do what our bodies are able to do that day. Sometimes I can get my leg straight in revolved triangle, and sometimes I can’t. Sometimes I feel strong enough to hold side plank pose comfortably; sometimes, no matter how I modify it, I wobble around. When we see someone demonstrate an exciting new pose, of course we want to try it right away, but our bodies might not be ready for that pose, or it might be hard to get the hang of it on the first try. We have to be mindful of our limits as we practice, be patient with ourselves, and not force our bodies into postures that could harm us. A patient practice is a healthy practice.

 

Kleshas July 7, 2011

Filed under: yoga philosophy — R. H. Ward @ 9:29 pm
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In the yoga sutras, Patanjali identifies five “kleshas” or obstacles to achieving enlightenment. These kleshas are ignorance, egoism, attachment, hatred, and fear of death. Each of us has these five obstacles rooted in our minds, but by following the teachings in the yoga sutras, we can learn how to push the kleshas down so they have less power over us.

Ignorance is the first and most important of the kleshas. By “ignorance” Patanjali doesn’t mean simply not knowing something; if I held up a banana but you’d never seen one before, you won’t know what it is or that it’s good to eat. Patanjali isn’t talking about that sort of normal ignorance, he’s talking about ignorance on the spiritual level. Our world, our posessions, even our bodies are changing all the time, but we keep on trying to view these things as permanent, trying to make them be permanent. We blind ourselves to the fact that things change. The only thing that doesn’t change is our true Self, the innermost Self that doesn’t age or get sick. We say, “I’m tired” or “I’m sad”, even though it is the body that gets tired and the mind that feels sad, not really “I”, our true unchanging Self. When we remain ignorant about our true nature, this prevents us from making progress on our spiritual path. Ignorance is the most important of the kleshas because once you remove it, all the other kleshas fall away too.

Egoism is the second klesha. We fall victim to egoism when we confuse our true Divine Self with the individual self. We all have a tendency to get caught up in our egos. We insist on looking at the world from our own limited perspective, not thinking about how others feel or what we can do to help. To remove egoism, we practice humility.

The third and fourth kleshas, attachment and hatred, go hand in hand. We tend to focus on our likes and dislikes, disregarding what’s truly healthy for the body and for the spirit in order to pursue pleasure or avoid discomfort, but pleasure and discomfort are both momentary. Of course we want to enjoy pleasant experiences to the fullest, but it’s important to keep an awareness that they only last a short time. When unpleasant situations come up, we should face them head-on, knowing that the challenge will make us stronger.

The final klesha is fear of death or clinging to life. Because of our egos and our attachments, we’re afraid to leave this world. It’s hard to get around this one – I for one really like my life and don’t want to give it up any time soon. But what I think Patanjali is getting at here is that everyone someday must die and there’s nothing we can do to change that, so why suffer needlessly with worry? Patanjali thinks we should practice acceptance: love our lives while we’re here, but go forth unafraid when the time comes.

These five kleshas hold us back, keeping us focused on the material world and preventing us from achieving enlightenment. So how do we combat them? Practicing the yamas and niyamas seems like a good plan. Patanjali specifically recommends three of the niyamas: tapas (self-discipline), svadhyaya (spiritual study), and ishvara pranidhana (surrender, faith, devotion). This makes sense: spiritual study is an obvious way to combat ignorance, and practicing surrender would certainly help the fear-of-death thing. (And tapas, of course, is good for everything.) There’s also a lot in the yamas that can help. Practicing satya, or truthfulness, can be a reminder that everything changes except our true Self. Asteya, or non-stealing, and aparigraha, non-greed, remind us not to cling so tightly to material possessions, and ahimsa, of course, reminds us to put others first and be kind to all. When I first read the yoga sutras about the kleshas, I felt down – here’s yet another thing to worry about – but putting it in the context of the yamas and niyamas, which I already understand, helped to make this complex spiritual concept feel more manageable. I’m already working on this!

For more on the kleshas, and how you can use backbending yoga poses to work with the kleshas in your life, check out the great article “Fear No Backbend” by Hillari Dowdle in the June 2011 issue of Yoga Journal (84-91, 114).

 

Pratyahara and Non-Attachment July 3, 2011

Filed under: reflections,yoga lifestyle,yoga philosophy — R. H. Ward @ 1:39 pm
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One thing I’ve been thinking a lot about lately is pratyahara, the drawing-in of the senses. When we practice pratyahara, we refuse to let our senses make our decisions for us. So often, our senses will identify something they like and want more of it. That pizza tastes good! I like watching this show! It’s comfortable to relax on the couch! and so we eat more pizza, we watch two more episodes of Doctor Who, and we curl up on the couch for four hours. The problem is not in any one of those things in themselves. It’s fine to eat pizza sometimes, and Doctor Who is probably my favorite show. The issue arises when I’m not making my decision for myself but rather letting my senses make the decision. Two or three slices of pizza is great, but I don’t need to eat the whole pie, and I don’t need to order another pizza tomorrow. When I let myself binge out on something, I’m not consciously making that decision but rather allowing my senses to overdose on things that I like. Practicing pratyahara means that maybe I have some pizza today, but not every day, and I have a side salad or maybe go jogging afterwards; it means that I watch one episode of Doctor Who, but then I get up off the couch and start my evening routine so I can be in bed on time and get a good night’s sleep. If I make decisions consciously, then I will be taking better care of myself.

Non-attachment goes hand in hand with pratyahara. When our senses get used to having their way all the time, they begin to crave the things they like. When I haven’t had any pizza for a few days, I start to feel it. I WANT pizza. If somebody in my office gets pizza for lunch, the smell wafts over and I get all jittery and want it so badly. If I let my senses be in charge, I’d be running for the elevator, walking down to my favorite pizza shop, and trying to justify it because after all I did get the veggie slice. Practicing non-attachment, though, allows me to separate myself from that craving. I take a minute and think, do I really need pizza today? The craving doesn’t run my life, I do not NEED a slice of pizza right now, and I have a perfectly good lunch in the fridge waiting for me.

When we practice non-attachment with the objects in our lives, we can still enjoy things, still go shopping, still have stuff, but all those things don’t run our lives. We’re able to clean out our closets and take the old clothes to Goodwill. We’re able to lend out our books without stressing out about when or if we’ll get them back. If a vase gets broken, oh well, there are plenty more vases. If your husband eats the ice cream you were saving for Saturday, it’s not a big deal. Any one of those things could be upsetting or frustrating, but if you’re practicing non-attachment, you can come at the situation more calmly, with a little bit of distance that allows you to see things more clearly. Your husband didn’t know you were saving that ice cream; whoever broke the vase feels terribly about it. Having a little distance allows you to choose how you’ll react, so that rather than just yelling, you can choose to treat the other person with kindness and make a bad situation better instead of worse.

What are some ways you know to take control of your senses, rather than letting them rule over you? How do you cultivate non-attachment in your daily life?

 

Meditation introduction June 30, 2011

Filed under: meditation,yoga philosophy — R. H. Ward @ 2:17 pm
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Recently I talked with a friend who mentioned having some medical problems. I said I’d heard that yoga could help with the problem she was experiencing (because really, what else do I talk about these days), and she said, “I tried yoga once in college but I couldn’t get into it! That last pose – the instructor kept saying we had to make our minds TOTALLY BLANK. And I just can’t do that!” I wanted to hug my poor friend because she got cheated so badly! Here’s someone willing to give yoga a try, who could really be helped by it, who’s been turned off from yoga because of bad and inaccurate teaching. I wish I could give her old instructor a talking-to! Instead, all I could do was tell my friend I hoped she’d give it another try with a new teacher and that it might be different for her this time.

Contrary to what a lot of people may believe, meditation isn’t about making the mind a blank. The mind is never blank! Anyone who says that to practice meditation we need to make our minds completely blank is dead wrong. Our minds are like crazy drunk monkeys, careening around from one thing to another. Meditation, savasana, pratyahara, the pranayama breathing exercises I did last month – it’s all about calming down the monkey in our brains and training it to do what we want it to do. It’s still a monkey – it’s always going to be a little crazy! But you can teach the monkey to listen. Meditation isn’t about making the mind a blank, because that’s impossible; meditation is about working with what you have and learning to calm your monkey down.

The first step in meditation is to give your mind as little to worry about as possible. Sit in a comfortable position, arrange your clothing so nothing’s bothering you, take off your sweatshirt or put on some socks, blow your nose, drink some water, shut the door, tell your family not to come in for a few minutes. Eliminate the distractions before you get started, so that once you start, you can stay put. Before meditation, do some yoga poses: they keep the body limber and healthy, so that when we sit for meditation, we can be still for a while without the body distracting us. (I got a reminder of that this morning, when I skipped yoga and went right to meditation, and my back ached the whole time.) You could also take a walk, which allows you get some fresh air and some exercise, refreshing you before meditation. Try reading from a sacred book or inspirational text to get in the mood for spiritual practice. It’s also good to do some pranayama breathing exercises like alternate-nostril breathing: this slows down your breathing and gets the mind starting to focus on the breath.

When we sit down to practice meditation, our crazy monkey brains are going to be bored. They’re going to want to do anything other than meditate. If you sit down and try to just make your mind a blank, your mind will fight you! It’ll make lists of everything you need to do after this, it’ll wonder what happened to Kristin who sat next to you in third grade, it’ll replay every embarrassing moment with every past sweetheart, it’ll remind you to call your mother. But if you give the mind something to do, something to focus on, it won’t have a chance to do all those things, and this makes the whole process easier.

The simplest thing to do is just to focus on the breath. Make the breath quiet and calm; on each inhale, say to yourself “inhale”, and on each exhale, say “exhale”. You could also try working with your breath energy: inhale “peace” and feel peacefulness flooding through your body; exhale “love” and imagine your love and compassion going out to all beings in the world. Choose any concept or word that resonates with you. You’ll get distracted at some point, because that’s what happens, you can’t avoid it. Don’t get angry or upset, as that just gives your monkey brain more ammunition to work with. When you get distracted, just accept it calmly and start over, bringing it back to your practice, inhaling and exhaling.

There are a few other meditation practices that I’ll share with you over the course of this month. What’s key is to remember two things. First, meditation is hard work, requiring a lot of self-control and self-discipline. Second, anyone can meditate. Not just Buddhist monks in orange robes, not just really holy people, but everybody. The more crazy stuff you have going on in your life, the more you probably need to meditate! Be open to learning, be gentle with yourself, and pretty soon you’ll start to enjoy those quiet moments.

 

June Teacher Training Weekend: Saturday: pratyahara, meditation, and teaching practice June 29, 2011

Filed under: meditation,teacher training,yoga,yoga philosophy — R. H. Ward @ 1:50 pm
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In Saturday’s teacher training class, we continued our discussion of relaxation and moved on to pratyahara and meditation.

Pratyahara refers to the drawing-in of the senses. It’s a gateway to higher levels of consciousness, which makes sense when you think about it, because it’s our senses that distract us from meditation and spiritual practice. We want to look out the window, we hear a strange sound, we adjust our clothing or shift around, something smells funny, and it all leads to distraction, whether you’re in a church or on your yoga mat. Our senses exist to protect us and help us to survive, but in the modern day and age, we rarely need to rely on our senses for survival anymore. Drawing in the senses, blocking out the outside world, can help us to focus on our meditation or spiritual practice.

J gave a great talk on meditation as well. Meditation begins with concentration, and we actually start meditation right in the middle of yoga practice as we concentrate on our asana postures. Then we take that concentration and apply it to focusing our minds. This month, I’ll be talking a lot about concentration and meditation as I practice these things every day. Here are this month’s homework projects:

  • Read the book Passage Meditation by Eknath Easwaran
  • Read book II of the Yoga Sutras (we’ve read some of this; just need to finish whatever we haven’t done yet)
  • Practice meditation daily
  • Keep a journal of my meditation practice; write a reflection paper based on the experience
  • Write up a guided relaxation sequence
  • Pose of the Month write-ups: two backbends

When I first heard the homework assignments, I was excited because I’ve wanted to do more with meditation for a long time. Then J began to talk about how important it is to practice meditation every single day, always at the same time and in the same place. This month, F and I are going to be moving to a new home – there won’t be a same time, same place for a while, at least not every day. As J talked, I began to feel discouraged before I even began. I asked J for advice, and he said, “Then practice meditation sitting with your boxes.” He said not to let the situation get in the way of my practice, and to focus on appreciating the boxes – after all, they mean we’re moving to a beautiful new home! I felt so much better and was glad I’d said something.

Saturday’s class was a big help to me because I always feel like I’m doing meditation wrong. I read a lot of books by Buddhist monks and other spiritual authors, and they always say that it’s difficult to calm the mind, but I figured, a Buddhist monk has no experience with the insanity going on in my brain. I thought I must be terrible at meditation because I keep getting so distracted. Now, though, I feel a little more reassured that getting distracted is part of the experience – that’s just what happens, and it happens to everybody. I’m not doing it wrong, and I’m actually doing it not too badly. I have a variety of meditation exercises to try this month, and I’ll share them all with you here.

At the end of Saturday’s class, we did some yoga teaching practice. J told us to pair up, but my pair decided to join with another pair into a group of four. This meant that none of us got quite as much teaching practice – instead of teaching half of the time, we each taught a quarter of the time – but the experience more than made up for this. It was really good to work with my classmates and hear their voices as teachers. We’re all getting much more confident! We also had the freedom this time to teach poses that aren’t necessarily part of J’s or N’s usual repertoire. Sarah gave us some challenging standing poses to do, and I taught some of my favorite seated poses. We’re all getting there! I don’t know if I’ll have time to practice teaching on friends and family this month, but I hope I get the chance soon.

 

June Teacher Training Weekend: Friday: relaxation/savasana discussion June 28, 2011

Filed under: teacher training,yoga,yoga philosophy — R. H. Ward @ 8:40 pm
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Friday night was the start of our fourth teacher training weekend. This month, our topics were relaxation, pratyahara, and meditation; on Friday we talked about relaxation, and savasana in particular.

In Western culture, we tend to rely on external things in order to relax: TV, computers, music, video games, alcohol, social events, all kinds of things that are external. We fill our lives with these things, telling ourselves that they help us to relax, but really when we depend on external things to help us relax, we become unable to relax without those things. In yoga, all you need to relax is yourself. Relaxation in savasana is an active, conscious process, but one that relies on nothing but your own mind and body.

Savasana, or corpse/rest pose, is the final pose at the end of a yoga class. After working hard and exerting yourself throughout your yoga practice, you come down to the floor, lie on your back, let your feet flop open and your arms rest and your eyes close. Although it’s an easy pose physically, savasana is said to be the most difficult of all yoga poses, because it’s here that you lie still, quieting and slowing down your mind. For many people, it’s incredibly difficult simply to be still; for others, it’s hard to release all the tension that builds up in the body. Many students come into savasana but can’t keep their eyes shut, can’t stop moving (maybe scratching an itch, maybe adjusting their clothing, maybe just moving around), can’t quiet the mind. I’m a victim of this too as much as anybody.

What I learned on Friday night is that savasana, like any yoga pose, needs to be practiced actively. In most yoga poses, you’re active physically; for example, in Warrior 2, I’m always thinking, is my knee right over my ankle, is my back leg straight, am I pressing through the back foot, are my arms high enough, is my core balanced, are my abs engaged. Even when I’m just holding the pose, I’m actively working to improve my posture. In savasana, you do the same work, but you do it just in your mind, working to observe the breathing and observe the mind, to let the body relax, and to learn to enjoy being still. In yoga asana practice we exert conscious effort; in savasana we enter conscious relaxation.

As a yoga teacher in training, it’s important that I learn how to teach savasana. If even I still have trouble surrendering and relaxing in this pose, then my future students certainly will. Many yoga studios, and especially yoga teachers at gyms and fitness centers, do not really teach their students how to relax, so this is crucially important for me to learn.

Savasana is valuable because it allows the body to truly relax. Did you ever have a night where your dreams were so vivid and so engaging that, when you woke up in the morning, you felt like you didn’t get any rest? The mind interprets dreams as if they’re really happening, so all night long while we dream we’re still working. In savasana, when it’s done correctly, you can properly, consciously relax. J told us about a past teacher of his who never seemed to sleep, because he got all his rest during savasana so that he didn’t need to sleep at night. That’s a little extreme, but savasana or conscious relaxation can give us that little bit of extra rest to help us feel refreshed and ready to tackle the day’s problems.

On Friday night, we talked about all these aspects of savasana. We did a little basic stretching, and then N put us into a deep relaxation. She used a 61-point relaxation exercise and talked us through it. We all left the yoga center on Friday night feeling profoundly relaxed and calm. I got a great night’s sleep on Friday night (although at least one of my classmates reported a restless night, as if the deep relaxation had thrown off her usual rest patterns). The experience made me think a lot about my usual practice of savasana, and ways to consciously improve my experience of this pose.