To get the full benefits of a yoga or asana pose, you often have to learn to recognize boundaries. It is a learning that can be useful in many aspects of life.
In a previous article I talked about the benefits of dedicating yourself to thoroughly explore a position in terms of self-knowledge. Today I tell you what I mean when I say “thoroughly explore a position” with a practical example.
KNOWING YOUR LIMITS IN YOGA AND IN LIFE
When you reach a point in the execution of a posture where you feel that you can no longer evolve, would you say that it is because you lack strength, because something slows you down, or because you are at your point of balance?
If you think you lack strength, where would you increase it, would you use it to pull or to push?
If you think something is holding you back, would you say that removing the brake is the solution or do you think that the brake will loosen when you find some more stability?
If you come to the conclusion that this is your point of balance, what sensations have made you think, or is it not sensations, but what you think is the point of balance in posture?
These are just some of the questions you can ask yourself when you reach your limit in building an asana.
We can ask ourselves those same questions outside of mat: taking an important step in any aspect of life or developing some of our skills.
ARE YOU LACKING MOMENTUM OR SLOWING DOWN?
For example, let’s look at flexion postures like paschimottanasana, the posture in which the trunk folds over the outstretched legs (see photo).
When the person reaches their spontaneous limit and wants to keep moving forward and down, these are some of the most frequent strategies:
- Lower the head, wanting to pull with it the whole trunk.
- Advance the chin, with the same objective as before.
- Open the buttocks and push them back, to look for thrust from the floor towards the head.
What other strategies can we take to explore ourselves in an asana like paschimottanasana?
Our goal is discovery. Therefore, with the suggestions that I give below we seek to answer some of the questions we have raised before. Or discover new paths to travel, always full of new questions that will invite us to follow.
The strategies I mentioned above respond to solutions taken by a person who considers that he has stopped due to lack of strength and impulse, and whose motor of movement is in the head and is linked to pulling, in the first two cases, or in the buttocks and is linked to pushing, in the third case.
Continuing with the possibility that strength or momentum is lacking, we can also activate the movement from an area that we are not using. Continuing with the example, we would see that we still have to test the possibility of projecting forward the center of the pelvis or the chest.
What could we do if we open ourselves to the possibility that we have enough momentum and that the movement is stopped because of a brake?
HOW TO OVERCOME THE BRAKE
In this case, in which we are accepting that there may be an excess of force contrary to the movement that is intended, we can:
- Loosen the anal muscles and buttocks, ceasing to hold the trunk and allowing the hamstrings to elongate.
- Let the ischia descend towards the ground to remove tension in the groin, with the same objective as before and to feel greater contact with the ground and more stability.
- Observe the respiratory flow to discover the hypercontracted areas and thus be able to test with the possibility of loosening them. This is always the beginning of exciting journeys.
HOW TO DISCOVER IF WE HAVE REACHED OUR EQUILIBRIUM POINT?
Detecting when it is enough is an art. The best way to check if we are at the point of balance is to get out of it and observe the sensations in terms of vitality, strength, tranquility and freedom of movement.
Getting out of any position should be something simple and effortless, if not it is because we have gone beyond the point of return, the point of balance.
If when introducing changes in a posture any of these parameters goes down, it indicates that we were better before.
Let’s go back to the beginning. This exploration of our path and positioning in the construction of paschimottanasana can be adapted to the realization of any other asana and any other movement on the mat or outside it.
Going through the mat can be an excellent way to return to our daily lives with some more resource, and not only that of serenity, which is already very good.
PHYSICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL HABITS
Entering an asana or deploying a movement paying attention to the moments when its deployment stops will give us a lot of information about our body and psychological movement habits.
In those moments a possibility opens up for us: to abandon the objective of moving in that direction to focus on other goals: to discover why and how we have stopped, to realize whether stopping is now a problem for us or a solution, and to exercise the resources we have to move forward on that path or another. that we have not yet begun to travel.
From that understanding, from that contact with one’s own resources, we will see the emergence of clarity and the ability to take the next step at the right time and in the right direction.