Present Tense
Why do I invite you to hold the yoga asanas for a certain duration? What is the "correct" amount of time to hold a pose? Why do we do hold some poses for longer than others?
Many of you have asked these questions after yoga class. There are some ways to answer these questions and I've heard them answered well by different teachers. Then there are teachers who choose not to answer these at all, telling you to simply follow their instructions and hold for as long as they say so. There are good reasons for all of these responses.
The fact of the matter is that as you practise yoga, you will get a sense on how long to hold the poses – then all you have to do is to “listen” to your body. In the meantime, the question you really should be asking is not "how long to hold?" but "why am I holding?" Yes, we hold the pose for a while once we arrive in the pose to "reap" the maximum health benefits of the pose, whether it's to allow the muscles to stretch or to develop a good sense of balance, etc. But the purpose of holding can be found in the instruction given by our teachers to "hold the pose but not hold your breath", to focus on our breathing and stay aware of the changes of the body while holding the pose still and in silence, usually with eyes shut, in steadiness and comfort. While this may be a easy thing to do in Child's Pose/Balasana, it could be a tall order when in Camel's Pose/Ustrasana (backbend in kneeling position).
Yet, as you practise, you will come to approach all poses in the same way, they each allow us an opportunity to be present to the present: whether you are in comfort, in discomfort, in relaxation, in tension, in peace, in agitation. We are completely enveloped into the fullness of our present experience – without resistance, without the mind escaping into fantasy or indolence.
Human beings are hardwired to choose pleasure over pain ten times out of ten. When faced with an unpleasant experience, we tend to want to run away from it or to visualise a situation when we are free from the experience. When faced with a pleasant experience, we tend to invest more and more of our energies to pursuing that pleasure or we are afraid of the pleasure coming to an end. This creates problems in our lives. We are in a way compromising ourselves by living in our minds (in an illusory past or future) rather than living in the present situation we are in. We are forever uncomfortable in the present and we find ourselves in a strange paradoxical existence that is extremely limiting and unsatisfactory. This is where the yoga practice comes in. In holding each pose, whether pleasant or unpleasant and learning to surrender the mind and body into the present experience, we develop a quality of equanimity. No longer tense with the present, we can reside fully, mind and body, in the present – a good thing too because the present is the only reality we exist in.
Hence we hold each yoga pose to the extent that we can be present and undistractedly so. In this way we learn the difficult but powerful skill of equanimity: having an even mind, clearly seeing the face of the present, in the face of all of life’s ups and downs.
Many of you have asked these questions after yoga class. There are some ways to answer these questions and I've heard them answered well by different teachers. Then there are teachers who choose not to answer these at all, telling you to simply follow their instructions and hold for as long as they say so. There are good reasons for all of these responses.
The fact of the matter is that as you practise yoga, you will get a sense on how long to hold the poses – then all you have to do is to “listen” to your body. In the meantime, the question you really should be asking is not "how long to hold?" but "why am I holding?" Yes, we hold the pose for a while once we arrive in the pose to "reap" the maximum health benefits of the pose, whether it's to allow the muscles to stretch or to develop a good sense of balance, etc. But the purpose of holding can be found in the instruction given by our teachers to "hold the pose but not hold your breath", to focus on our breathing and stay aware of the changes of the body while holding the pose still and in silence, usually with eyes shut, in steadiness and comfort. While this may be a easy thing to do in Child's Pose/Balasana, it could be a tall order when in Camel's Pose/Ustrasana (backbend in kneeling position).
Yet, as you practise, you will come to approach all poses in the same way, they each allow us an opportunity to be present to the present: whether you are in comfort, in discomfort, in relaxation, in tension, in peace, in agitation. We are completely enveloped into the fullness of our present experience – without resistance, without the mind escaping into fantasy or indolence.
Human beings are hardwired to choose pleasure over pain ten times out of ten. When faced with an unpleasant experience, we tend to want to run away from it or to visualise a situation when we are free from the experience. When faced with a pleasant experience, we tend to invest more and more of our energies to pursuing that pleasure or we are afraid of the pleasure coming to an end. This creates problems in our lives. We are in a way compromising ourselves by living in our minds (in an illusory past or future) rather than living in the present situation we are in. We are forever uncomfortable in the present and we find ourselves in a strange paradoxical existence that is extremely limiting and unsatisfactory. This is where the yoga practice comes in. In holding each pose, whether pleasant or unpleasant and learning to surrender the mind and body into the present experience, we develop a quality of equanimity. No longer tense with the present, we can reside fully, mind and body, in the present – a good thing too because the present is the only reality we exist in.
Hence we hold each yoga pose to the extent that we can be present and undistractedly so. In this way we learn the difficult but powerful skill of equanimity: having an even mind, clearly seeing the face of the present, in the face of all of life’s ups and downs.
