clevermanka (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
clevermanka) wrote2013-03-23 11:13 am
clevermanka) wrote2013-03-23 11:13 am
Entry tags:
Practice makes practice
This is the best yoga article I've read in a while. It might be the best general yoga article I've read ever.
Let’s just clear something up right away. You do not need to be flexible to do yoga. This is not a prerequisite to the practice. They call it a practice for a reason...If these poses feel overwhelming and impossible, then start off small. Find a pose you would really like to master and set aside ten to fifteen minutes to focus on it...Saying “I can’t do it” is self-defeating and does nothing but delay your practice even further. There will always be more to learn, accomplish, and strive for. You never really arrive at the destination, so you might as well try to enjoy the journey.
It makes me sad (or, if I'm in a mood, irritated) to hear people say "I can't do yoga. I'm not flexible enough." Or even "I couldn't do that pose. I'm not strong/flexible/whatever enough." Gopi, my first, and best-loved yoga teacher taught us that there is no one perfect form for a posture. One of the wonderful, beautiful, and inspiring things about yoga is that whatever your body can do in that pose in that particular moment is exactly how the pose should be done (assuming proper technique and form). Take Paschimottanasana, for example. That posture in the photograph there? I know maybe two people who can go that far into the posture. Yes, the professional yoga model is doing the full pose perfectly (surprise!). But so is this person. And this person. This person would be doing it perfectly if she wasn't trying to avoid squashing the cat in her lap.
Gopi also said that forcing our bodies to go deeper into a pose is a bad idea. Our bodies are like children--or teenagers. We can only ask them to do something, show them that it might be fun, and hope they join us. Pushing our muscles/joints/tissues into a pose only results in delayed progress at best and injury at worst. Studies have shown that forcing a stretch only results in more stiffness and a body's resistance to allowing future development of a pose (I'm not going to look up those studies for you--if you're that dubious, Google 'em yourself). It's important to do what you can do and what your body wants to do, at that moment.
Of course, you can't just sit there and expect your body to eventually fall perfectly into a pose. Yoga is work. A lot of work. Hard work. It takes practice (again with this idea of yoga as practice) to listen to your body and find out what it wants to do, how it wants to do it, and if it wants to try to do more. Those things can change from day to day, too, so don't ever stop listening.
Don't stop practicing.
Let’s just clear something up right away. You do not need to be flexible to do yoga. This is not a prerequisite to the practice. They call it a practice for a reason...If these poses feel overwhelming and impossible, then start off small. Find a pose you would really like to master and set aside ten to fifteen minutes to focus on it...Saying “I can’t do it” is self-defeating and does nothing but delay your practice even further. There will always be more to learn, accomplish, and strive for. You never really arrive at the destination, so you might as well try to enjoy the journey.
It makes me sad (or, if I'm in a mood, irritated) to hear people say "I can't do yoga. I'm not flexible enough." Or even "I couldn't do that pose. I'm not strong/flexible/whatever enough." Gopi, my first, and best-loved yoga teacher taught us that there is no one perfect form for a posture. One of the wonderful, beautiful, and inspiring things about yoga is that whatever your body can do in that pose in that particular moment is exactly how the pose should be done (assuming proper technique and form). Take Paschimottanasana, for example. That posture in the photograph there? I know maybe two people who can go that far into the posture. Yes, the professional yoga model is doing the full pose perfectly (surprise!). But so is this person. And this person. This person would be doing it perfectly if she wasn't trying to avoid squashing the cat in her lap.
Gopi also said that forcing our bodies to go deeper into a pose is a bad idea. Our bodies are like children--or teenagers. We can only ask them to do something, show them that it might be fun, and hope they join us. Pushing our muscles/joints/tissues into a pose only results in delayed progress at best and injury at worst. Studies have shown that forcing a stretch only results in more stiffness and a body's resistance to allowing future development of a pose (I'm not going to look up those studies for you--if you're that dubious, Google 'em yourself). It's important to do what you can do and what your body wants to do, at that moment.
Of course, you can't just sit there and expect your body to eventually fall perfectly into a pose. Yoga is work. A lot of work. Hard work. It takes practice (again with this idea of yoga as practice) to listen to your body and find out what it wants to do, how it wants to do it, and if it wants to try to do more. Those things can change from day to day, too, so don't ever stop listening.
Don't stop practicing.