paying attention to your alignment when doing yoga postures makes sense in the same way it makes sense to feel and be quiet when are walking through the woods. if you grow still enough to notice the sounds and movements around you in nature, you find yourself able to take in all kinds of data that come in as neither overwhelming nor stressful.

When you are in a yoga class, listen to your teacher as well as the sounds of your breath. notice the look of your arm upraised in warrior 1, or the toes in seated forward fold. the more you allow yourself to take in these details as though you were part of them — like they are in and of your world, just as the trees and the ground and the bushes in the woods — the more you notice. and the more you steady yourself into relaxing.

relaxing into the world around you requires a relaxation from within. we have yoga postures in order to measure and observe our daily ability to take in that world. it’s a process, and you learn (and get better at it) only by practicing.

yesterday, after a restorative class i’d taught her, a client of mine said,

huh, that’s interesting. so restorative yoga is mostly about bending the spine this way and that way, in order to release it.

she was sitting when she said this. when she said “this way” she bent forward; when she said “that way,” she bent backward.

it was a simple moment after a simple practice. What struck me, though, was not that her observation is mostly correct–restorative yoga requires the practitioner to hold poses for long periods of time in order release through the spine in several directions. what struck me was the point my client was making about all yoga poses. the point of yoga is always to release energy through the spine. that’s what makes an asana (pose) different from just about any other practice you could engage in.

one of the markers of the west is its emphasis on the superficial. yoga, by definition, is intended to take us away from that superficiality into deeper levels of consciousness–through the unwinding of the spine. each pose has been designed over thousands of years to enable us to examine the steadiness and ease in each posture–so that we can examine the stillness, or lack thereof, in our own minds.

and thus, we engage in practice. even one of the most demanding poses you could imagine:

is meant to release energy through the spine for the same purpose as the most relaxed you could imagine:

this is what we are learning in a yoga class– how to be steady and easy no matter what the “pose.”

sometimes that’s what it takes. to peel yourself off the wall of your own patterns, to go inside and let the breath take you.

an asana (pose) actually takes a lot of control — that’s why we refine them over time and attempt more difficult ones as our practice deepens.

the more we control the body’s response to the shape, which exists outside us in nature (triangle, mountain, tree), the more we free the breath, which exists inside, to enliven us exquisitely.

this, the paradox of practice.

i was standing in line today at citibank, and i noticed that without irony, cyndi lauper’s money changes everything had been chosen to play through the speakers for customers waiting in line.

experienced in a yoga class, the first chakra comes alive in the legs, eyes, and inner ears. the stronger and more tubular the legs, the more relaxed and receptive the eyes and ears (and, by association, the rest of the senses).

try it. in your standing poses this week, imagine your legs waking up like as though they were controlled by that game litebrite some of played as kids, and see how you feel. post here to tell me what happens.

i read in my day-by-day calendar, insights from the dalai lama:

only human beings can judge and reason; we understand consequences and think in the long term. it is also true that human beings can develop infinite love, whereas to the best of our knowledge animals can have only limited forms of affection and love. however, when humans become angry, all of this potential is lost. no enemy armed with mere weapons can undo these qualities, but anger can. it is the destroyer.

i’ve lately been pondering my voice and presence in a yoga class. the type of yoga i learned originally, sri swami satchidananda’s integral yoga, teaches a particular language, sequencing, and orientation for students in the class. the vinyasa style of yoga, derived from modern-day ashtanga yoga, also arranges the class (ashtanga more than vinyasa, in this case) in a particular way.

to be sure, most forms of hatha yoga have a style of teaching rooted in similar language (inhale/exhale), sequencing (standing poses before inverted poses), and orientation to what you are actually doing in the room (pray to the divine, or just notice your muscles). today what’s interesting to me is whether or how that approach gets stale if you don’t challenge yourself to renew your approach occasionally.

i wonder what other teachers and students think about the kinds of words they want to say or hear. it’s easy to be rote; you can say the same thing about the same pose every time. on the other hand, the ways of describing the body in space and time are endless — and experimenting too much maddens.

teachers: do you find yourself wanting to repeat yourself sometimes, or are you always thinking of new ways to describe the class experience? students: do you want to hear the same thing week to week, perhaps in order to learn the poses better, or do you like the language fresh and changing each time you come to class?