A change of perspective.
I’ve been practicing and teaching yoga for a long time, and the ways that I practice and teach have evolved over time. I’ll admit that when I first started practicing yoga I was drawn to challenging vinyasa styles of yoga, viewed achieving difficult postures as success in yoga, and generally bought into the “yoga as a fitness modality” trend that our capitalistic, diet and exercise obsessed culture tends to promote. When I started teaching yoga, I approached my teaching the same way I approached my practice — and since vinyasa yoga as fitness was what the people wanted it’s mostly what I gave them.
With time and consistent practice, and lots of study, I’ve been able to reflect and develop self-awareness. I’ve learned more about yogic practices other than āsana, and I’ve also learned about the nervous system, stress, āyurveda, and so much more. And as a result of all of this learning my practice and my teaching have changed and evolved. I no longer seek out challenging yoga classes, instead I opt for gentler and more restorative practice that is rooted in a good foundation of anatomy and physiology, as well as āyurveda. Fancy sequences, fancy transitions, and fancy “party trick” postures no longer interest me. I no longer teach in a way that’s challenging just for the sake of being challenging. Now the classes I teach are taught with a deep understanding of anatomy and physiology, a solid foundation in āyurveda, and maybe most importantly, knowledge of the nervous system. You might say that I’m no longer interested in teaching what diet, exercise, and capitalistic culture make people think they want, and instead I teach what people NEED! How does that Rolling Stones lyric go again? Right, “You can't always get what you want, But if you try sometimes, well, you might find, You get what you need”. That’s essentially my motto for teaching — what I teach might not be in demand, and it might not be popular by Western Yoga standards, but I’m convinced it’s exactly what folks need.
We live in a fast paced society. Life is full of stressors. Our nervous systems are dysregulated, and it’s wreaking havoc on our physical and mental health and wellbeing. Despite what most people think, yoga āsana is a stressor (yeah, I know, yoga is supposed to be about stress relief, right?), and I’ve never, in the 14 years I’ve been teaching yoga, met someone that needed MORE stressors in their life. When āsana is taught in conjunction with breath, bandha, drishti, and plenty of time for stillness it can serve as a controlled stress environment wherein we learn the skills to help us build resilience to the stressors in our day to day life. But rarely is yoga āsana taught as a complete system in this way. Instead we pile on more and more stressors - hot yoga, power yoga, yoga sculpt, quickie classes with almost no time dedicated to relaxation, etc. Now, don’t get me wrong, our bodies absolutely need to be challenged - we need resistance training, we need cardiovascular training, we need weight bearing, but we DO NOT need to add those things to our yoga.
Originally, the traditions of yoga were to liberate our souls from the cycle of samsara, or reincarnation. Those of us steeped in Western cultures and traditions may not subscribe to the idea of reincarnation, but yoga, the way the ancient yogis taught it, with it’s pranayama (breathing) techniques, meditation practices, and simple seated postures can still serve us well in a modern context. Science is proving the benefits of meditation practice, and confirming that the breathing techniques from some ancient texts play a role in toning and regulating the nervous system, and that the simple, seated stretching seen as the majority of the postures described in the Hatha Yoga Pradipika have immense benefits both physically and physiologically for the body.
I think it’s time we leave fitness in the gym and off of our yoga mats. Let’s use yoga for yoga’s intended purpose - to settle and calm the nervous system for the purpose of settling the mind and connecting more deeply with your source. This is going to require a shift in perspective for most of us, to think about yoga in a way that our culture mostly ignores. We tend to approach almost every activity in life from the perspective of “what am I going to get out of this?”, but yoga requires us to think about the world differently — it’s not a question of what we can get out of yoga, but instead, what can yoga get out of us? Challenge yourself to change your perspective about your yoga practice, see if you can start to view it not in terms of what you will gain from it. Look at your practice in terms of what it can draw out of you.
Take off your fitness tracker when you practice! Not only does your fitness tracker/apple watch keep you thinking about what you’re gaining from yoga (how many calories you burned, did you close an exercise ring, how much physical activity did you track), they are also a distraction. I literally see people checking their text messages and their emails on their apple watches DURING PRACTICE!! Give yourself a break from the distractions. Set boundaries, and let your yoga time be time you are absolutely not available to anyone else. You’ve got to stay present with the practice for yoga to draw your essence out.
Add a gentle or restorative class into your yoga schedule. Do you always attend flow and vinyasa style classes? Try stillness for a change. We hear from folks all of the time who say “I just don’t feel like I’m doing anything in a restorative class”. Well, THAT’S THE POINT! You don’t need to be doing something all of the time. You are a human being, not a human doing. Slow down and give yourself a chance to just be.
Go beyond the āsana. Yoga is an entire system of practices and lifestyles that goes far beyond the postures you do on your mat. Prānāyāma (breathing practices), meditation, observing a moral/ethical code of conduct, these are all part of the same system. Learn more about yoga beyond the āsana - The Heart of Yoga by T.K.V Desikachar is a great place to start!