FULL BODY AWARENESS
When I travelled to India to complete my first Yoga Teacher Training I believed I had a pretty solid Asana practise, but I soon learned otherwise when one of the Yoga Masters told me I had “sloppy fingers” and that I “wasn’t spreading awareness through my entire body”. No, he didn’t tell me this to crush my spirits and it wasn’t told with any intention of offending me or hurting me. He told me this to teach me what the physical aspect of Yoga (Asana) actually is.
Practising poses on your mat regularly will keep your blood and your energy circulating through every cell of your being without any blockages. By supplying each and every cell with a steady flow of energy you’re able to keep your body in an optimal state of health, but to do this we must first be aware that all of these cells even exist.
“Where awareness goes, energy flows.”
When you practise ‘Ardo Mukha Vrkasana’ (Handstand) where does your awareness go? If you’ve never tried the pose before your awareness will most likely be on your hands and I doubt that there will be even a sliver of attention going towards what your toes are doing. Full mastery of Asana is not necessarily achieved by the guy who can do all the poses, full mastery of Asana is achieved when an unwavering awareness is spread throughout the entire body. When the practitioner is able to hold this awareness throughout the entire practise and adjust the body in every moment to maintain an ideal shape with his/her body, in each pose and transition, without any fluctuations of the mind and without forgetting about parts of the body that aren’t needed to physically hold a pose - That’s mastery of Asana. This is one of the first things I learned about practising Yoga when I went to India. It’s not a normal workout and it’s not about progressing as quick as you can so that you can do ‘cool’ looking shapes with your body to take pictures and post on Instagram. Asana is one of the steps towards achieving Samadhi (liberation of the soul) and to achieve this one of the things we must do is establish a strong awareness of the body.
So how do you get to this point? How can you begin to work on this full-body-awareness I speak of?
Instead of focussing just on the parts of the body that are contracting and putting in the work to hold your body in that position, try to soften the mind and notice what other parts of your body are doing too. The perfect place to start is with the hands, especially in standing postures where your legs are doing most of the work. Next time your in a standing pose such as Virabhadrasana II (Warrior 2) or Tadasana (Mountain Pose) focus on what your hands are doing. Just by bringing awareness to your hands energy will start to flow there. If the hands are limp then bring a bit of heat there, spread your fingers and spark them up!
Once you begin to get better at keeping awareness spread throughout your whole body your practise will feel a lot lighter and easier, both physically and mentally. This is because you’re not just focussing on the effort you’re giving, your’e not just focussing on the struggle, you’re simply ‘being’ in the moment, observing the body and adjusting continually to keep yourself in the perfect shape to circulate energy. So instead of being caught up with the emotions that you’re experiencing and the sensations you feel in the body, you’re actually studying yourself on a deeper level and observing the moment from an honest place, without being controlled by the (sometimes) never-ending thoughts bombarding your mind.
It’s a normal human instinct to avoid discomfort so don’t expect this process to happen over-night. Yoga is a life-long practise. I’m not even close to achieving the pinnacle of an Asana practise, I probably won’t ever get to this point, but that’s okay because i’m enjoying very much the benefits of practising it every day on my mat. I’m getting better at it and my body is becoming healthier, my mind is becoming clearer and I feel happier every day, just for trying.
Look at those fingers… far from sloppy. That’s what I call ‘Progress’ Baby!