I was reminded recently of the difference between focusing on creating a posture from the outside in rather than focusing on the “actions” that underlie the creation of the posture, and making it come from the inside. One way to think of it is in terms of making a painting. Everyone knows a really great painter will know all about color and what happens when you combine different colors, right. Well, imagine a painter who didn’t know anything about that stuff and they just wanted to draw a mountain because they saw someone else draw a mountain and they wanted to draw one to look just like it. You can imagine that just focusing on drawing a mountain, without learning about color, wouldn’t turn one into an artist – it would most likely make them want to quit because they couldn’t paint.
Now imagine a yogi doing a similar thing (which we’ve all done, I’m sure). We see someone else in a posture and instead of learning about the color of what makes the posture art, we just try to do the posture. After a while this is not just frustrating, but can get you hurt. What is needed is to understand the actions that help create the posture. What’s going on the alignment of the feet? What’s going on the mind? What’s the quality of the heart? Basically, what do you need to do in your mind, body, and spirit to create the art of the posture.
When you learn these underlying principles — or even just start to consider them — the asana starts to move from being created on the outside to rising from the inside.
In this week’s video I touch a bit on this with some hip openers. We focus on the actions of the thighs getting back and the scoping the tailbone in to create deeper and more meaningful postures.
Enjoy, and let me know what you think. John