Day #11 - Sustaining & Surrendering
/In today’s class, Prashant had two yoga practitioners on the stage to demonstrate a point and that is what I want to share with you today.
He had one practitioner over a back bender bench in a supported Dwi Pada Viparita Dandasana and the other practitioner in an active Dwi Pada Viparita Dandasana.
IMAGE: LIGHT ON YOGA
What he pointed out in the supported pose was how the practitioner was not laboring. How the laboring was outsourced and because of this he could surrender in the posture and as a result, understand what the breath was doing and comprehend the intricacies of the asana.
He pointed out how the practitioner in the active pose was sustaining the posture with his will power. How he was sustaining the post with his arms and legs and back. How he was laboring in the posture and how this is not the time to understand the breath in the asana because he is using all his faculty to just sustain.
As the class was about the breath and how the breath is different in each asana, he used this very visual demonstrate to educate us about the optimum time for this kind of learning about the breath and went on to say that Guruji used the props to practice in a way that the subtleties of the posture could be grasped so that when he was practicing the pose actively he could then incorporate these intricacies into the classical posture.
He also spoke about not just doing supported postures because you are tired but doing the supported postures with the intention to educate yourself about the subtleties of the posture.