Yoga Beyond Belief: Insights to Awaken and Deepen Your Practice

and dynamic tensions of muscles and joints in different ways for different effects. Differentamounts of energy can be moved through the muscles to get different openings and effects. Learning to listen in the postures, while experimenting with different combinations of activity and passivity, will greatly expand your ability to tune poses to desired needs and effects. It is better to learn to use this insight in your own body rather than to be given specific applications in certain postures. There is no one way to hold a pose and many shades of grey exist between active and passive.

Long Holding
    Some beneficial effects in poses are only obtained by holding a posture for a long period of time. The amount of time that defines a long hold is relative and subjective, depending on the difficulty of the posture and the ability of the practitioner. A long hold can be from thirty seconds or a minute to several minutes. Holding asanas for longer periods of time can allow deeper openings, releases of deeply held stress or tension, and release of holding patterns in the musculature that lead to better alignment of muscles, bones, and nerves.
    Long holding allows you to penetrate into deeper and subtler areas of the body, to tune into more subtle levels of the dynamic of the pose, and to learn to use torque, leverage, energy flows, and openings that occur. How long to hold is directed by tuning into the effect and the release you are receiving as well as to the qualities of energy and other messages from the body that will guide the movements needed to strengthen, heal, or balance a given structure or complex of structures. If you only practice with constant movement and short holding, you cannot take advantage of the unique benefits of long holds. Many principles in other chapters and particularly in the chapter on pain and injury offer guidance in the application of long holding.

Odd-Day Practice
    Most people have a favored side in sports or habitual movements; that side is stronger, more flexible, and more focused. It is easy to develop the habit of practicing on the better side first and holding poses on that side for longer periods. This is because we gravitate toward the things we excel at. A good trick to counterbalance this tendency is to practice on the weaker or tighter side first.
    You might find, for instance, that a forward bending, twisting, or balancing pose is much better on your right side than on your left. If you do your strong side first, you have an unconscious tendency to try forcing the weak side to the same level and may overly push yourself. You might get frustrated when doing your weak or tight side after the strong, flexible side and tend to spend less time with it. If you do the weaker side first, however, it is easier to devote more energy to it. Moreover, if you do the weak side first, you can always do it again after doing the strong side, to give the weak side extra attention to help bring it into balance sooner. A tool many yogis have found useful is to focus on their difficult side, their
odd
side, on odd-numbered days of the week.

Car Yoga
    A wonderful attribute of yoga is that many elements of the practice can be applied in many unexpected places. Friends may think us foolish or fanatical when we do yoga poses in a car, but some postures can be very beneficial, especially on long drives. In the early seventies I toured the USA to give yoga lectures and demonstrations. A friend and I drove thousands of miles in a station wagon and I adapted a fairly complete practice that could be done in the back of the car while he drove. I am sure many other yogis have done similar things. I also created some movements to use while driving myself that keep my spine from cramping and tightening.
    You can do the same. One of the most useful movements while driving is a snaking practice. Use your grip on the steering wheel along with a gentle press of the heels for support and snake your spine around by rocking your pelvis forward and backward, side to side, and in clockwise and counterclockwise circles. As you do this, let these motions translate up and down the entire spine. A few minutes of this practice lubricates and hydrates the spinal disks and releases compression and tension. Similarly, twist your pelvis from side to side a few times and then roll your shoulders in circles. These movements can transform a road trip from a body-stressing event of spinal compression, to a body-balancing yoga session.