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SUMMER 2004
NAMASTE,
Students occasionally ask, "Why isn’t my practice at home like it is in class?"
Sometimes what they’re really asking is why can’t they seem to bring themselves to work as hard at home as they do in class. More often, though, I think they want to know why they don’t feel the same way after their home practice as they do after class- energized, relaxed, clear, alive.
There are lots of reasons why a class may feel better than your own practice. Skillful sequencing by the teacher is one. To try to recapture the experience, you could write down the sequence after class and recreate it in your practice. Although it would be the same sequence, still it wouldn’t feel the same. I’ve done it. I have shelves full of sequences that I have been taught by the Iyengar’s and others. I’ve practiced them pose for pose. They don’t feel the same as when I was taught them.
Getting good information - verbally, visually, and manually - from the teacher about how to do the poses correctly is another reason for the difference. Remembering the good information you got in class will help you have a better home practice experience, but it isn’t the same as when the teacher is there in the class with you, observing and guiding you moment to moment.
Lack of physical intensity is another reason. At home, folks tend to be, well, ...just a little bit lazier or more casual. (Sorry, but it’s true, isn’t it?) Even so, just pushing yourself harder won’t, in and of itself, get you that feeling you get from class, either.
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Group energy is another reason. And to tell you the truth, this part of the equation starts to get at what I think is the primary reason why most people’s home practice often feels less dynamic and fulfilling than their class experience.
That reason is attention: specifically, the quality of your attention.
Certainly when you are in class, the energy of the group helps you to direct your attention toward the task at hand. The focusing of a number of minds has a power of its own that the power of one mind rarely has. A Rolling Stones concert is, after all, a different experience from listening to Mick and Keith and the gang on your stereo, even if they play the tunes almost exactly the same. Part of the reason the concert experience is more engaging and uplifting is that you and thousands of other people are on the same wavelength, focusing on the same thing. Even if you practiced your yoga with a group to try to recreate the energy of the group experience, though, it still wouldn’t have the same quality as when you are in class with the teacher.
That’s because teachers do a lot of things, several of which I have mentioned already. They give you information, put things together for you, and encourage you to work to your potential. They also provide an example, and the power of their presence is an important aspect of their creating an uplifting experience to the extent that they do. This, however, is a subject for another newsletter
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What I want to suggest and emphasize here is the role the teacher plays in helping you to focus your attention and direct it. When you pay attention, you are learning the art of concentration. Just as a magnifying glass has the power to gather the scattered rays of the sun into a single, powerful beam capable of igniting an object, concentrating the scattered strands of your attention focuses the immense power of your mind and allows you to bring it to bear on whatever task or object you choose.
When the teacher instructs you to move a particular part of your body in a certain way, s/he is not only guiding you toward a more effective and safe technique for performing a pose, but s/he is also helping you to pay attention, to harness your mental energy and aim it precisely and intentionally.
In class, I have found that simply telling students or even shouting at them to "Pay attention!" doesn’t really do it. Besides, it feels a little heavy-handed and can foster resistance and even less attentiveness. So, to encourage students to pay attention, I tell them that we are going play a game. The game is Simon Says. Now, as it turns out, Simon Says is a totally cosmic game about paying attention and being in the moment. When played as a competitive game, if you are still thinking about what just happened a moment ago, anticipating what you think is coming up, or simply daydreaming, you are going to lose and be out of the game. Of course, in class we are not being competitive, there are no losers, and the only way to be out of the game is to take yourself out of the game. (And even then you are not out of the game!) Still, it is a light-hearted way of insisting that the students pay full attention to what is happening at the moment. The context of a game allows there to be an element of fun and play in the whole process. Then when students are caught in a moment of inattention, they are less likely to feel judged or demeaned or punished, which is certainly not the intention of the teacher.
Simon Says is a slightly indirect but quite effective way of introducing the sixth limb of classical Raja Yoga: dharana, or concentration. And the more experienced you and the teacher become, the more you can, together, refine this process, until it becomes exquisitely subtle and powerful.
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Yet as powerful as this is, something lies beyond it.
Paying attention is, in the end, a narrowing, confining, restrictive act. Concentration has tremendous energy, but it is limited and limiting. Paying attention, concentrating, and limits all have their place in the practice of yoga and in our lives, but with yoga, we have the possibility of moving beyond concentration and limits to the limitless. To do this, however, requires making the transition from paying attention to being attentive.
Paying attention is something you do. You concentrate on an object (in yoga it is called a bija, or seed), and each time your mind wanders [ ] from that seed, you bring it back. Paying attention is willful. You will probably need to learn to do it in order to learn to be attentive, but being attentive is another level of consciousness altogether.
Being attentive is something that happens. Attentiveness is essentially passive and receptive. One doesn’t focus in and pay attention to something. To be attentive one quiets down and becomes receptive, open to information and sensation that arises in the moment. It is seedless. Let’s try to understand the distinction this way.
When you are first learning Utthita Trikonasana (Triangle Pose), you need to remember to lift your kneecaps, to rotate your thighs, to move your hips, to expand your chest, etc. Either the teacher in class or you at home direct your attention to these various aspects of Utthita Trikonasana. You pull up on your thigh muscles, then you stretch your arms, but while you are stretching your arms, you’ve lost track of your thighs. After some time (we’re talking about years here for most folks), you are able to assume the form of Trikonasana, and instead of experiencing the pose as pieces that you are trying to put together, you are Trikonasana. As Trikonasana, you are aware of the totality of the pose, and because you are not concentrating on one part of the pose, you are able to receive information and sensation from the entire body. Your adjustments become less a matter of trying to conform to ideas about Trikonasana and more about being in and responding to the moment, which is Trikonasana. Then the practice is fresh, spontaneous, and tremendously energizing.
Gathering, coalescing, and focusing your attention creates an intensity of physiopsychospiritual energy that quiets the mind and uncovers the underlying capacity for awareness. To be aware is to be awake, and to be awake in this way is to be alive in the fullest sense of the word. This is the goal of yoga. It is what the teacher guides you toward. And for most of you, because you haven’t learned to do that for yourself, your home practice doesn’t feel quite as good as your class. Yet.
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