Thursday, June 13, 2013

Apr 13 - Holding an Unpleasant Eagle Pose

I went to another workshop with Sean Feit at Yoga Tree in Berkeley.  The focus was on Pratyahara - or "withdrawal of the senses" - which is the 5th stage of yoga.

There are 8 limbs of yoga according to Patanjali.  The basic idea is that is one must work towards "pure bliss."  Interestingly, asana practice (the physical practice of yoga) is just one of the 8 stages and is designed to help quiet the mind.  The 8 limbs are:

  1. Yama - moral commandments
  2. Niyama - self purification by discipline
  3. Asana - physical practice, postures
  4. Pranayama - rhythmic, controlled breathing
  5. Pratyahara - withdrawal of the mind from the senses
  6. Dharana - concentration
  7. Dyhyana - meditation
  8. Samadhi - pure bliss, become one with the Universal Spirit
I love that Bija emphasizes that yoga is more than physical and extends beyond the mat.  I had previously learned from Deborah Burkman - an amazing yoga teacher in San Francisco - that yoga was intended to help people be able to sit for hours in meditation.  Understanding the 8 limbs of yoga really helped me put this into a broader context.

One of the ways that Sean had us practice Pratyahara was by doing postures that we typically think we "like" or "dislike" and try to do them without theses habitual reactions.  He urged us to notice if the pose was "pleasant" or "unpleasant" but not to react.  I decided to do garudasana (eagle) pose, which I had decided awhile ago I didn't like.  I recognized that I found it unpleasant but tried not to react to this observation.  In doing this, I realized that since I had decided that I didn't like garudasana, I often rushed through it.  By not reacting I found that I was able to to stay in the pose much longer and hold it steady.  And amazingly, this made it much less unpleasant!  Pretty amazing cycle.  





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