Asana is NOT Your Practice
/Alchemical Ritual of Practice
I started teaching classes at Pacific Edge Climbing Gym last week for the first time in months. It got me thinking about the rituals that are a part of our yoga practice. The way the room, light, teacher, other students, and pace of movements all have an effect on our body-mind-heart.
We come to rely upon that particular alchemy to help us experience presence and ease.
I would argue that the ritual of practice begins not when class starts, but when you make the decision to practice.
You bring clothing with you to work that allows for comfort during your practice. You might have an afternoon snack knowing that dinner will be later that evening. Your mindset starts to shift on your commute to the studio. Taking off your shoes is like a metaphor for moving from the outer world to your inner world. Unrolling your mat and setting up props invites colors, textures, and sensations to be forefront. Memories of past practices start to surface. As the teacher speaks, you follow their guidance and feel into your breath, movement, and form.
There is the pulse of your heart; the woosh of your breath; the heat of engagement and effort; the sounds of others breathing in unison with you; the tingling of sensation in new or familiar places; the texture of your skin on sticky-mat.
When in class with a familiar teacher, you know the arc and pace of what is to come. Familiarity and novelty weave together for that day's experience. There is a beginning, a middle, and an end. The class ends, but the ritual has shifted you in some way and that experience moves with you back into your day.
All of these examples are part of building a container for your practice.
While this container supports you in many ways, I want to emphasize that the container is not the point of the practice itself.
Let me say that another way, the class/postures/sequences/etc. are not just the practice; they are the containers for your practice.
Practice is What You Do & What You Experience
The practice is also your experience that unfolds in the moment.
For me, it is often some combination of awareness, presence, inquiry, and space. Space allows what I need to face to become clear and that can bring tears or a bubbling up of some buried emotion.
The Container Changes
Six months ago, the yoga rooms we practiced in were suddenly closed, and with this closure the rituals we thought of and relied on for the experience of yoga disappeared.
Where did you practice when the studios were closed? How did you create a ritual when your practice was interrupted by pets, kids, working from home, the buzz of a cell phone?
How did your yoga practice evolve when the container changed so suddenly and completely?
I learned to use Zoom and dove into teaching online. Eventually, I taught classes outside in small groups.
Sheltering at home left me feeling unsettled and I had a difficult time connecting to myself during asana and movement practice. My energy was low and it was hard to find the vigor I needed to move. I spent less time on my mat and would head to the woods with a steep hike, a plunge in a cold creek, and listening to the water move on rocks with my whole beingness.
When smoke filled the sky, it evolved again to be a pen on paper.
I allowed the container of my practice to evolve so it could hold the unearthed and unsettling changes happening in my life and the world. It held all of that AND the potential for presence and spaciousness.
What do you need for your practice?
We are slowly being invited back into the studio for practice. So the question is: What container do you need for your practice? What does that container hold?
If your practice isn't the postures/sequences/classes, what is it?
Can you allow your container for practice to be steady and evolve?
I continue to experience huge changes in my personal life and in the world. It's clear to me that I need a ritual for practice that allows me to feel the fear, uncertainty, and excitement of those changes. I'm grateful that my practice is continuing to evolve and support me because I am asking these questions of myself.
It's also clear to me that I am not doing this alone. Conversations with friends, colleagues, and mentors have helped me so much in the last 6 months.
Please reach out: to me or anyone in your life that can help you fortify or change the container for your practice. Find the courage to challenge your assumptions and expectations.
Listen with tenderness to yourself and others; we are charting a new path in unprecedented times.
We are here for one another.
