Where You're at Yoga

Stretching – called Asana practice within yogic tradition – is definitely the best known part of yoga. But Asana is only one limb of 8 branches of yoga. We aren’t going to go into all 8 limbs today. Let’s just talk about how an asana practice is more than just an exercise – and how it’s often done in a way where you might not recognize that more is happening!

Most people that come to my classes aren’t looking for a full, 8-limbed practice. They’re looking for stretches, for the health benefits of yoga, and maybe for a sense of safe community. People look for what they need. A lot of people come to me in discomfort. I really believe in that whole “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable” adage. So I focus on easing that disease over promoting a belief system.

Even though the spiritual aspect of asanas is not loud, it is present.

I learned to base my classes on the 5 Koshas. The “sheaths” are the filters through which we all experience the material plane. These sheaths loosely parallel the western esoteric elemental system – earth, air, fire, water, an spirit.

Please don’t assume that the attributions make them interchangeable – it does not! How we born to the west understand elements differs from our eastern counterparts. The relationship of those teachers from thousands of years ago to these koshas differed a great deal. Why? Because in yogic spirituality, we see ourselves as part of a greater whole. In western esotericism, even if we know we’re part of a greater whole, we categorize and label to make ourselves separate.

When a teacher guides you through a series of poses, they usually use the koshas as the guideline.

Here is an example practice:

1. Annamaya Kosha – the earth, food, digestion, gravity,

I have you lay on your back, and after Wind-releasing pose, hold your belly lovingly. I will direct your attention to the feeling of gravity in your body. I tell you to imagine a conversation between the cells of your body and Mother Earth. What gets said?

2. Pranamaya Kosha – the water element, vitality, energy

Breath (Prana), from the yogic perspective is a way of directing fluids. The energies around us, especially Prana as a life force, are seen as invisible liquids that give us vitality and allow us to reach equilibriums through breathing exercises. So as you lay on the floor, rolling your knees around your stomach, I encourage you to breathe. Breathe out the criticism that gave you harm over improvement. Breathe out the anxieties of who is looking and judging. Breathe in – for a count of 4 – gentle, supporting energy into those places that you just made room for kindness.

3. Manamaya Kosha – Fire

While some will assume fire breath to build energy, and it is absolutely a key practice in Hatha yoga, I already set our intention towards starting self-love. We need a gentler form of heat for that – and it is already worked into the Pranamaya Kosha. I ask you to look for the judgments and harm, that is fire, and breathe them out, which is water.

4. Vijnamaya-Kosha – Air

The Vijnamaya Kosha for the teacher is about directing thoughts. It is me giving cues for your imagination, even as I give cues for your body. I will tell you as you come into Cat-Cow to have your shoulders and hands aligned. I have you stand in Tadasana and tell you to check that your hips shoulder width apart. I also give cues for your thoughts. “Look for those little critical thougths that are popping up even as you’re laying here. Are they helping? Do they need to hang out? What can you start saying to yourself instead?”

5. Anandamaya Kohsa – Bliss, or Spirit as the parallel

Ideally, when we come to Shavasana or closing meditation, you’ve moved out some old energy. The rest period at the end of class gives you time to integrate new, hopefully healthier energy.

Everyone in class will have had a different experience than everyone else in class.

For some, the integration may only be learning how self-talk affects their pain levels. That may not be considered a lesson of spiritual depth, it is a significant change in that person’s lived experience. It matters as much as someone who spoke to the divine during that integration time.

Why would those experiences be equal? Because we are all connected – one person’s speaking to the divine is beneficial to the all. A person relieved of pain is also beneficial to all. Everyone around those in pain experience that impact. Improving that impact improves everyone’s lived experience.

You don’t need to know any of those details if you’re coming into an asana practice for your own needs. You don’t need to know I am drawing on my spiritually to guide your experience.

If you’re non-spiritual you can still appreciate the mental and physical benefits without being pressured to believe as I believe. How you interpret the mechanics of the mental guidance is up to you.

The only place you may see that spirituality it in a class is when someone has a closing ritual, such as chanting AUM. Depending on the teacher, you might witness a full on ritual.

Teaching yoga is a spiritual practice in itself for me. It is ancestral, in that I come from a long line of teachers of various specialties. I perform a closing practice because it honors the culture and tradition of yoga that I am lineaged from. It is important to me to do so. However, it is not important that you have the same relationship to asana practice that I do.

Where you’re at also accounts for being in different places. You don’t have to AUM with me, just hold space for that moment of me being in a different place from you.

No, a well-taught Asana class is not only stretching. But the more than stretching might not be wholly visible to you, until you need it to be.