Posture Practice and Pratyahara
Okay, so here’s the deal… I’ve been teaching yoga since 2015 and have been exposed to the 8 Limbs of Yoga a number of times now. And it wasn’t until this year, while studying yoga and ayurveda through Kerala Ayurveda USA, that I was able to grasp the 8 Limbs. And by grasp, I mean, really understand how my practice and my teaching has been very heavily focused on only one part of the limbs (asana/postures) and that I had been engaging in at least some of the limbs as part of my own natural progression in my spiritual practice. Let me share more!
Anyone who has taken a 200 hour yoga teacher training in the US likely has heard of the 8 limbs and also likely knows of Patajali. Patajali is an ‘acharya’ or sage who is credited with having gathered and written the content of the 8 limbs. What I always felt was lacking in my yoga training was an understanding of how it is that I can engage in the different limbs and that we all, really should be engaging in the different limbs day to day….
Fast forward to this spring where I was able to learn about the limbs from an ayurvedic lens and with a much more clear state of mind so that I could ‘intake’ the information with ease. The 8 Limbs are the following:
Yamas
Niyamas
Asana
Pranayama
Pratyahara
Dharana
Dhyana
Samadhi
And there is so much to unpack and learn about in each of these. Literally, we could take lengthy classes on each to dive deep into each topic and there are plenty of resources out there if you are interested. What I want to focus more on is Asana and Pratyahara for no other reason other than, it is what has been on my mind lately.
Asana is the sanskrit term for pose/posture. When we look at this with a little more depth, we understand that asana is about a person with a still and undisturbed body. That’s it. Nothing about handstands, arm balances, warrior poses… nothing about creating sequences of poses with the latest pop songs (about codependent relationship patterns), while heat and humidity is being pumped out and we all end in a sweaty puddle and sometimes someone will say Namaste, or talk about joining a monthly membership….I say all of this fully owning that I have been that teacher. I have taught handstands in sweaty, hot studios, while meticulously planning songs that would match the vibe I was going for and I have ended all my classes saying ‘namaste’... I don’t think I ever actually chimed in a sales pitch at the end of class as we were supposed to at my big name corporate studio…. I digress… All of this to say that what many of us in the West understand as yoga is actually asana…. Or more specifically a group fitness class that we take at something called a ‘yoga studio’. I recently read that yoga in the US could be called a #posturepractice and I really like that. So I’m going to use it here. Again, I have to be clear, I have benefited from this posture practice, personally in a very deep way. I was able to pay the expensive membership fees and practice in the big corporate studio for years and I also took my teacher training through this same big studio. It got me to where I am now… And that is an article for another time. What I'm trying to get at… is that there is such a vast and expansive experience of yoga that exists in the 8 limbs of yoga, outside of yoga studios and outside of expensive membership fees.
In more modern times (and in ancient times) the use of the #posturepractice is (and was) meant to remove gunas (qualities in sanskrit) from the mind. These gunas are called rajas and tamas. Rajas is action and assertion. Tamas is dullness and darkness. We need both of these in our day to day, rajas is how we live during the day time and tamas is how we sleep. Because of the nature of our existence now, we are all often in these extreme (or even just in unbalanced) states of rajas and tamas. We rush around every day, we have a google calendar that is packed full and we have sleep that never feels like enough…. And then we take #posturepractices that may be really good and well intentioned, that may help release stored energy, but don’t give us the deeper awareness… of our own inner landscape. This is where pratyahara comes in.
Pratyahara is about a deep place of self knowledge. It is the ability to draw our senses (indriyas in sanskrit) inward, where all the inputs (ahara in sanskrit) can be sorted, stored, organized… made sense of. In ayurveda, we learn that there are 4 types of ahara: water, breath, food and perception. Perception is the one I want to focus on… because when we have the ‘right’ perception, that is neutral… that is the ability to see more than just your own perception in situations- that is authentic power. And this authentic power is something I think is missing in our culture and in our #posturepractices. This is all great and well… but how do we practice pratyahara? This is where I would always get stuck… like I can get the concept of this, but how does one practice this?
Yoga nidra. Nidra is sanskrit for sleep. But when I talk about yoga nidra here, I mean the practice of deep relaxation and rest. It is something that many of us desperately need but few of us actually obtain. Nidra, in this sense, is a sleep based meditation. It is used to place the body into deep relaxation and the mind in slower brain functioning so that all the sensory information, all the emotions, all the stressors can be processed and sorted. Kamini Desai, author of ‘Yoga Nidra: The Art of Transformational Sleep’ writes this about the practice, ‘we simply rest as the space through which all experiences come and go… the more we rest as who we are, the less we are at the effect of what is passing through… we can be at peace and steady in the midst of external and internal disturbance…’
The chaos of our world isn’t going anywhere… but maybe it could if we all dropped into the practice of pratyahara…
Please know, yoga nidra is not the only way to practice pratyahara, it just happens to be my current preference. Do you have your own preferences? I’d love to hear about them!
And you know, you can practice this using a few apps, from the comfort of your own home. I AM Yoga Nidra and also Insight Timer (then search for yoga nidra) are the two I am using (I have no affiliation with either one) I just want to share the resource. So when the #posturepractices cease to wow you, you can’t afford them, or you are just seeking something else… something deeper… something richer… look inward. Practice pratyahara.
