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Tempering Our Practice & Internalizing Our Progress:
It is very easy to get ‘goal oriented’ in our Ashtanga practice. This is natural for many of us. The catch though, is that it often leads us to injury, and thus becomes counter productive to acheiving the very ‘goal’ that promted us to over extend ourselves in the first place. This is a pattern that - if it appears in our practice - is probably also appearing in our life as well; so, it is well worth addressing. The solution is simple: balance our enthusiasm with self-contentment. Although this may seem paradoxical, the best results can be cultivated when we put ourselves fully into our task yet are content regardless of whether we ‘succeed’ or ‘fail’. This attitude allows for greater mental clarity and hence more efficient and appropriate application of our effort. This is the yogic way.
Yoga is mental and emotional steadiness or equanimity. Therefore, to become established in yoga, practice selflessly (i.e. without attachment to the results); practice with the mind steadily self-content through both successes and failures (Bhagavad Gita 2.48).
If we are experiencing some pain, and unable to maintain our ‘progress’, we most certainly need to shift our focus (or our goal) more internally so that we are able to back-off more than enough to allow the pain to begin dissipating. Much benefit can be gained by focusing more on the internal aspect of practice - i.e. the meditative quality accessed by refining our breath, bandhas & drishti. Our practice becomes lighter, mental equanimity increases, and we become more resilient to that which is beyond our capacity to change. These are qualities worth pursuing. These are the fruits of yoga.
Once bodily stability has been regained, the challenge is to maintain our newly refreshed internal focus so that we can rebuild our asana practice slowly & gradually - at the pace of nature - to avoid that old extroverted pattern which invokes injury. Injuries are - in truth - an opportunity to truly transform ourselves into a mature, sensitive & and ever vigilant yogi.
© David Miliotis, 2009. All rights reserved.