Yoga Beyond Belief: Insights to Awaken and Deepen Your Practice

your Intuitive Flow. In terms of yoga practice, structural integrity implies a movement or posture of the body that has strengthening, healing, and balancing effects and does not exceed the body’s limits of stress or torque.
    As you learn to read the subtle signals from muscles, joints, ligaments, and nerves, you become more conversant with the information systems in your body. Learning to use these inner information systemsis part of becoming guided from within in your movements. It will give feedback and warning signals, so you will usually know before overexerting, overstretching, or overtorquing. I used the word
usually
to point out that no system is 100 percent reliable.
    As our art and science of asana practice grow, develop, and are refined, the practice moves from an imitation of the classical poses from the past, or learned from others, into the fresh movement of discovery of
structural archetypes
in our body. A structural archetype is a naturally occurring, beneficial movement or position in the architecture of the body. These movements and positions are dynamically therapeutic and beneficial when properly executed.
    Attunement to structural integrity and structural archetypes has probably been the genesis of most asanas in practice today. You can discover these movements in your own practice by attuning and listening within. You can grow and refine your ability to feel and follow the energies of healing and well-being in your own body. Then begin to adjust your poses by tuning in to the structural integrity of the posture or movement you are using. When experimenting with this integrity of action in your body, you will naturally come upon many beneficial asanas and movements. Generally, it is better to first learn what structural integrity and balance feel like in the body from proper instruction and practice before experimenting and improvising.

Active and Passive Holding
    Dynamic holding of asanas is an important mode of practice. This mode can be used in most postures and provides many unique benefits in a short period of time; thus, it is an important mode of practice in which to become proficient. Dynamic holding implies executing the asana actively in a way that, simultaneously and harmoniously, activates and sends energy through as many nerve circuits and muscle sets as possible while keeping attention expansive, all-inclusive, and intouch with all of these areas. Practiced in this manner, even simple poses like the Tree or Standing Forward Fold can become extraordinarily useful and effective. A simple pose can become more healing, energizing, toning, and enlivening while bringing many other benefits to the psychophysical organism. For example,
Paschimottanasana
, the Seated Forward Fold (sitting on the floor, legs extended, and folding forward over your legs), can be done passively or actively. To hold this pose actively, depending on your abilities, you might extend energy through the legs, pull the toes back, press the backs of the knees to the floor, lift the chest, drop the shoulders, extend the neck, and try to activate as many muscle sets as possible while holding the pose.
    Passive holding, on the other hand, uses the minimum amount of energy and intention necessary to maintain an effective position or variation of a posture. 3 Passive holding implies allowing the body’s natural internal spring tensions, circulatory energies, and kinesiological structures of the asana, to create the effects of the pose. For example, in the Seated Forward Fold, you would sit and bend forward, folding your torso in half at the hips. In a passive variation you might relax your legs, possibly letting the knees bend while letting gravity and the structure of the pose do the work and give the benefits. Holding postures passively gives unique, beneficial effects, and results not obtainable with other manners of practice. Even the Shoulderstand and Headstand have dynamic and passive variations with differing effects.
    Rather than simply being opposite ways of holding poses, active and passive holding can be applied in a range of possible combinations at different levels. You can hold some muscle sets in a given pose actively while holding others passively. In our example of the Seated Forward Fold, you could dynamically work your arms and legs, pressing the knees down and lifting your chest while relaxing your lumbar in order to create space between the lumbar vertebrae.
    You can learn to use passive relaxation