A Recipe for Magic

What does it mean when something looks complicated? We feel a desire to understand, to explain. Our reductionist model of thinking nags at us to break it down, layer by layer, make some sense of it, solve the puzzle. What happens if you are so struck by the beauty of something, that you immediately strip down its layers making a beeline for its inner core? -you simply have to get to the bottom of this!

This approach is a gut reaction at times, and if we get stuck here, we are in danger of missing the forest for the trees. We miss the lesson because we are too busy breaking down its components. We miss the big picture because we are too distracted at the tiny brush strokes. Although this reductionist process is helpful for the learning process, the act of complete immersion is also beneficial.

Have you ever been driving and suddenly reached your destination and couldn’t remember a few minutes worth of driving? Where did you go? You had an experience, but you weren’t thinking about all the small movements your hands, feet and eyes made. Now, would we expect a brand new driver to do this? Probably not right away. They would need to focus much more on the movements of their hands and feet. What about watching someone draw a picture -its much more dramatic to suddenly see the final product, whereas watching the process unfold can be meditative and almost hypnotic.

Now let’s consider asana. Here I am in Eka Pada Sirsasana with an arm bind. As a still photo, the pose is complicated looking, lots of angles and unusual positions. Perhaps the shape is pleasing to look at, perhaps it invokes another emotion, perhaps you find warrior poses or backbends more appealing and this is not your cup of tea, perhaps it inspires you.

We can break down this pose, we can take it apart piece by piece. I can show you the step by step entrance and talk about the requirements; hip and shoulder mobility, leg and neck strength. We can go further and look at “drills” or other postures that facilitate hip and shoulder mobility and explore ways to build the necessary strength. This would definitely be beneficial if you are learning the pose.

Or, we can take the pose for what it is -a shape within intermediate series Ashtanga Yoga, and realize that it is a beautiful coalescence of strength, flexibility and mental resilience built over time. We can get on our mats and work the hips, shoulders, and strength in many different postures, exploring what feels natural in our bodies and developing this intimate relationship with ourselves in asana. As we attempt Eka Pada in this way, the posture can be expressed in the most natural way possible. We learn to communicate with our body, developing new neural pathways. We experience the posture -whether its deep and open, or tight and strenuous.

Both approaches are useful, for different reasons. I try and teach like this, encouraging open exploration with a balance of attention to detail. Not every practice needs each method each day either -its like a recipe that gets reconfigured each morning when I greet my students (and myself). Part intuition, part experience, knowing when to challenge students/myself and when to offer grace and space.

The danger then, is getting stuck in one approach or the other. If we never pay attention to detail, practice can look sloppy and our minds are probably floating somewhere around our to do list or our plan for dinner that night. We may find obstacles in certain postures because we overlooked a technicality in an earlier pose. However, if we never allow ourselves the experience of just feeling the pose, we miss the entire point of the practice. We can spend months working different “drills” for handstands (strength is required of course) but if we never take the leap (literally) we are going to be stuck on the wall forever. We might have the strength of the handstand, but we miss the experience of the actual pose for fear of falling. The same goes for backbending, and eka pada, and any other “complicated” posture. We can break it down, take apart the puzzle, but it doesn’t quite get built the same way does it? Don’t be so mesmerized by the puzzle that you dismantle all its pieces.

Do the thing. Don’t cheat yourself out of the magic of feeling it all come together.