I’ve been practicing yoga for over 15 years, and am finally completing my yoga teacher certification. It’s been so wonderful to really focus on my practice in this way, and it’s also reinvigorated my love for it. I’ve also realized how much is going ON during my practice. Yoga is much more than simply moving your body around a mat – it’s a mind-body discipline, designed specifically to connect those two elements. I love this philosophical and spiritual aspect of yoga, and this is what has kept me practicing year over year. No matter what your body feels like today there is a way to explore, reflect, learn, and grow. I wanted to share some of my favorite ways to expand and deepen a yoga practice, and maybe you’ll find a little nugget for yourself!
In the classical yogi text the Yoga Sutras, Patanjali describes the physical practice of yoga (asana) as “sthira sukham asanam,” loosely translating to “through effort and ease you can fully inhibit your body.” Sthira means strong, steady, stable. Sukha means comfortable, relaxed, with ease. Asanam refers to the physical practice of yoga. This concept of balancing effort and ease flows throughout yogic wisdom, and can bring a whole new perspective not just to your asana practice, but to your life!
Studies repeatedly show that humans perform best when slightly outside our comfort zone. If you want to get fancy, you can call this beneficial stress by its proper name of “eustress”, which is famously associated with being the state of flow. Like that relaxed-yet-slowly-tightening grip that allows you to latch onto a rope tow, sthira sukham allows you to onboard to experiences outside your current abilities without breaking yourself.
Your edge changes day to day, and being able to tune in to explore today’s edge is a key part of a robust practice. Accepting and loving your body is a critical foundation, but your practice won’t progress if you don’t also push yourself right up to it or maybe even past your edge occasionally.
This is not “No Pain No Gain”.
This is not “Go Big Or Go Home”.
This is the subtle art of finding your edge and knowing your edge and exploring that edge. This is about learning how to get in touch and stay in touch with your physical and mental body at the same time, and how to harness that to stay present in the discomfort of a new experience while still maintaining enough control to stay safe. From Erich Schiffman’s great book Moving Into Stillness: “Your skill in yoga has little to do with your degree of flexibility or where your edges happen to be. Rather, it is a function of how sensitively you play your edges, no matter where they are.” This is not really about your edge. It’s not about where your edge is. It’s about your relationship to that edge. How you relate to it. How you handle yourself around it. Your edge is a tool for self-discovery.
This especially comes to life for me in all types of backbends. I am naturally quite flexible, so when I first started practicing yoga backbends appeared to come easily. I could take my body into what looked like the right shape, and that was that. As my body has aged however, I am much more aware of how backbends trigger low back issues for me. While I can still make it into that backbend shape, I feel the bend coming exclusively from a very few vertebrae in my lower back instead of being distributed across my entire spine. Whilst in the pose, and after exiting it, I am in mild to severe pain (the “have I injured myself?” variety). And thus my approach to backbends has evolved. For a time, I simply stopped doing them. Even though I knew I could “do it”, I knew it wasn’t the best for my body. I’d simply skip that pose, or do something different that I felt I needed that day.
I am now working on reincorporating backbends but really prioritizing the safety of my lower back. For example, Urdhva Dhanurasana (a.k.a. Chakrasana, or Wheel) regularly. As I work back into doing this pose, I educated myself about it. You need to know the pose first, so you can push into it a safe way (and, relax into it in a safe way!). I learned that it’s much more about the legs and core, less about just extending the bejeezus out of your spine (handy Yoga Journal article here). If I were to organize my process for reintegrating backbends, here is how it works:
- From the start of my practice, I am paying attention to how all spinal extension feels… even Up Dog! If I can’t keep my collarbones open in up dog by the middle of my practice, then I know it’s not a good day for Wheel. Or, how is Bridge pose feeling? Sometimes, even in Bridge my lower back will feel tweaked. If spinal flexion is generally tweaky or painful, I won’t even think about attempting Wheel that day. Think of yoga as an experiment, instead of trying to “nail” a pose. Yoga is a laboratory we can use to inspect ourselves… mind, body and spirit. And the more we simply observe, the more information we have to work with and build upon.
- I regularly focus on moving spinal flexion into my upper back and out of my lower back. Warrior 1 is a great example – it’s so easy to really go for the “full expression” of a heart opener here with arms extended up and back, but I now tend to focus a lot more on keeping an engaged lower core and envisioning more of a “candy cane” shape with my spine where my upper back is doing the lion’s share of flexion. Same idea in nearly any lunge – I really work hard on keeping my low back safe in all of these, to build the muscle memory for deeper backbends. I started doing Pilates so I could strengthen and build awareness and control in my core, and I now swear by it!
- I’ve put a lot more focus on opening the front of the hips and the front of the shoulders, so that backbending can come from those areas instead of just low back. I love doing Pavanmuktasana (Wind Release pose) with my sacrum on a block, extending one leg at a time to stretch the hip flexor and psoas. I also focus on opening the front of the hip in all lunges. Here in particular, I have a lot of room to work into the discomfort and just stay with it, breathe with it. Discomfort (physical or mental) is a signal to pay attention, inspect and learn.
- As for shoulders, I learned from my physical therapist that many modern day folks have tight pecs that hunch them forward and chronically stretch their upper back. The upper back then seizes up, which is why so many people complain of tight upper back and neck. So, I focus on opening the pecs with Intense Shoulder Stretch. I also really pay attention with Cow, Up Dog, Cobra… keeping my collarbones open and rotated up. This has also had the added benefit of giving me a new perspective on arm balances, which are my absolute favorite type of pose. Maybe because they require precision. It’s hard to get into an arm balance if you are being sloppy or not engaged with every part of your body. Being in touch with shoulder positioning has really increased the precision, control, and “hang time” I can get in arm balances.
It’s this balance of effort and ease (and the attention needed to maintain this) that lets you stay consistent with your practice. And consistency creates progress, and room for creativity.