The word “yoga” comes from the Sanskrit verb, yuj, to unite or unite.
In complete ignorance and at the behest of my osteopath, I took up yoga for the well-being of my body, which is prone to structural insanity.
There are many forms of yoga, but since it was closer to my office, I chose an Iyengar yoga school.
Iyengar yoga focuses on the body, strengthening it, lengthening the muscles, and developing a finely detailed awareness of the musculature and skeletal structure.
The poses are named and the teacher directs us, body movement by body movement, how to achieve them. When I do what is asked of me and use the correct muscles to achieve the pose, I am horrified at how poorly I have been using my body. No wonder I lost my balance so badly I no longer wanted to climb on the roof or jump off the dock onto the deck of a boat.
More importantly, I suddenly see that it is possible to regain my balance, and with it my strength.
Our teacher is like a drill sergeant. Fortunately he has a great sense of humor. We all tried the poses. We use aids such as ropes, belts, wooden blocks, blankets, chairs, and bolsters to achieve postures without risk of injury and that eventually allow us to manage without props.
I knew that yoga could be a complicated form of physical origami, but I had thought of it as a new age form of gentle exercise. Imagine my surprise when we were directed into a pose that required absolutely no movement, but had us panting and sweating, heart rate racing, and face red within seconds.
This form of yoga uses gravity, the earth’s natural energetic force, to achieve alignment. If the body is not in alignment, ankles below knees directly below hips, tailbone tucked into body, spine extending up away from the ground, then it is fighting gravity.
And this makes sense. If we are on the planet by virtue of gravity, then we must stick out at an angle to the planet. Like the spines of a sea egg, we point our heads into space and cannot help but act as gravity (energy) conduits. Just as electricity needs to be grounded, we also need to “ground” gravity through our feet.
We ground the gravitational stream by standing squarely on the ground, with all four corners of each foot.
Just to get an idea, try this most basic Iyengar yoga pose, the standing pose is called Tadasana. You’ll be surprised.
Stand with your bare feet hip-width apart.
Feel the four corners of each foot, the little toe side, the big toe side, the inner and outer heels.
This is the interesting part, feeling each individual corner of your foot, simultaneously. It doesn’t matter if you can’t feel it… visualize the four corners of each foot… your imagination will activate the correct muscles.
Shoulders slumped, shoulder blades slipping into the lower back. Try to feel how the tailbone goes in. The knee pads are raised towards the thighs. It’s a very active pose but since you use gravity to achieve it, once the correct muscles have been strengthened, you don’t get tired.
Lift your toes up from the base of your big toe, spread them apart, and tuck them back in (adds tremendous stability).
These are not big moves. Most are small adjustments. Fine tunings, to create alignment throughout the body. With practice, and it doesn’t take long, Tadasana results in the natural posture required to use instead of fighting gravity.
If our feet are not square to the floor and parts of our body sink, the conduit becomes faulty and the energy is stopped or diverted, resulting, I suppose, in much of the disease on the planet today. How many corners of your foot are normally on the ground? Apparently, Westerners tend to walk on the little toe side and Easterners on the big toe side.
Iyengar Yoga strengthens your musculature, ligaments and tendons so that you are physically able to experience and practice alignment and thus be fully on the planet. It also tones the organs and the digestive, nervous, respiratory and circulatory systems. It works from the premise that you need to be aware of your body in order to have control over it. Once awareness of the dense body is achieved, then awareness of the subtleties of the breath that oxygenates each cell can occur. Then you can really start living!
Iyengar Yoga is not about achieving the pose, but about working towards it. There is a big difference. Since I started, (about 3 months of it), I have not needed to visit an osteopath.