I teach and practise Sivananda Yoga. It is a form of Hatha Yoga that is slow, meditative and interior-oriented; how the posture feels in the body, what is the quality of the breath and the quality of the mind while holding the postures. The aim of the yoga asana practice is to lead one into a meditative state, albeit still moving, by slowly bringing the awareness from external stimuli to internal sensations. I loved the peace and tranquility of this practice, and it was the bridge that led me to experience and explore the path of meditation.
A few years ago just before the pandemic, I started attending to more yoga asana classes that were more alignment based just out of curiosity. It started first from a few classes online, and then when the pandemic hit, I began practising regularly online with an experienced yoga teacher based in the US. Maybe it is the nerd in me, and having experienced some previous injuries through yoga practice, I enjoyed every nuanced bits of her cues and instructions while learning how to approach each posture knowing the relevant muscles, joint rotations and even names of the internal body parts.
As I relished learning more about the subtle mechanics of the body, I also started to miss the quiet of my usual practice. I started to compare the classes and thought that I was ‘moving away’ from the practice I was used to.
Both styles were largely different yet I benefitted so much from each of them.. I wondered. did I have to make a choice, was one better than the other? I started to have doubts as well, was I practising yoga asana with a dogmatic belief that there is only one lineage/school for me?
If I do not focus purely on one and start to mix these up, can I still a ‘respectable yoga teacher’?
Can I try to teach everything at the same time?
The answer was not easy and I did not come to one conclusion. Instead, I did whatever felt right to me at the moment, regardless of “shoulds” or “should-nots”. Over time, I observed that my poses were becoming more precise due to the focus in alignment practice. At the same time, I observed that I could not practise an entire class only focused on alignment class as I will need to tune inwards during my practice. That pendulum swing finally kind of settled into a self-practice that I was at ease with and it spilled over to the way I taught, finding a balance between the interiority and exteriority of the asanas.
There are countless ways to approach a yoga asana practice, and most of the time we are all somewhere along the spectrum. Thinking that we need to choose either at focusing on the exterior or the interior is a zero-sum game which subconsciously perpetuates a dualistic way of looking at the world.
The majesty of a yoga practice is in its subjectivity. What a yoga practice is to me can be very different to another being. Even though the ultimate level is to transcend the gross body and mind and goes within to the interior, we still need a point of entry, a point of reference which the body readily provides.
This post is inspired by Christina Sell’s latest Instagram story.
