Traditional yoga practitioners, lovers of the traditional hot yoga series (bikram yoga, 26&2), love structure and organization. Change, not so much. We love to practice the series the same way, in the same environment. The Covid-19 quarantine has really put a wrench in our ability to practice.
This new reality forces practitioners to change. To either adapt the practice to a new environment or else give it up completely. We haven’t lost our practice, only the ability to practice in the way we have grown accustomed to practicing: in the perfect balance of 40 degree celsius heat and 40% humidity.
Our Mastery over the Heat
Many seasoned practitioners have reached a point in their practice, where they have mastered the hot room. In time, the human body adapts to the extreme conditions and starts to operate more efficiency. The practice has become easier in the hot room than outside of it. The conditions make muscular tissue more malleable and joints more mobile.
Additionally, there is a sense of accomplishment a person revisits each time they recall the intensity of the hot room. No longer being a slave to that intensity is extremely liberating. Seeing the new practitioner barely keeping it together in the hot room, only increases our confidence. This space is where we practice yoga, it’s hot and sweaty and it doesn’t kill me any more. We are badass.
But now it’s time to take your practice outside the yoga studio. What makes a student bad-ass, is not their ability to master anything done one way but rather to evolve and adapt. It’s the ability to pick oneself up, and get to it no matter what. That is bad-ass.
Our Comfort Zone
New practitioners are easier to teach. After months or even years in the hot room, a seasoned practitioner becomes more and more set in their ways and show a strong resistance to change. They may accept a correction one day, and the next day go back to business as usual. So often, corrections are often repeated time and time again, over weeks, months, even years. The correction remains unrealized. Nothing changes.
In the first 10 classes, a new practitioner has yet to establish any sense of comfort in the hot room. Consequently, they are willing to take any advice which will help them get to the end of class, alive. This is why the first 10 classes are so transformative. The new practitioner progresses in leaps and bounds because they have yet to discover ways to work around the difficult aspects of the postures. It all feels miserable: the heat, the postures and the experience. Within the discomfort, we foster change. We create new patterns. When we are in a state of comfort, things remain the same.
This is an important aspect of human nature to understand: we are always in the pursuit of comfort. We work hard to get through our difficult circumstances. Once we have realized a state of comfort, we hungrily accept it, guard and protect it at all costs. Why would we willingly make things difficult for ourselves?
Because when we are able to conquer difficulty, we glimpse our potential, which otherwise lays dormant while we stay comfortable.
The Power of Repetition
The traditional yoga practice is based in repetition. It’s brilliant. It works with the body to create patterns of behaviour. In order to develop the ability to do anything, we must practice. We do it over and over until it becomes second nature. When someone first enters the yoga room, they become acquainted with the reality of their physical condition. For most, the series requires the individual to move and position their body in direct opposition to how they live in their day to day life. Moving differently is difficult.
The repetition of the series has the potential to rebalance the body as new movements and positions become common and more accessible. However with repetition emerges the tendency to establish comfort. Once the action becomes familiar, it has the potential to become comfortable and the desire to move forward dissipates. This is the downside of repetition. Once an individual becomes comfortable, it’s difficult to venture forward into a space of discomfort. It’s feels as though you are moving backward.
Don’t loose the grip.
Traditional yoga asana is the practice of awareness. It is important to separate the body from the posture as a whole. Yoga is not the performance of a posture. Yoga is the understanding of the body in relation to the posture. In a traditional yoga class, the instructions are very simple and very precise. This is important. This is how you keep the practice from moving into and existing within your comfort zone. It is what you are being asked to do, and not doing.
Consider the grip. Interlock fingers release index fingers and cross your thumbs. Keep your hands palm together to the wrists. Only 1% of practitioners actually execute this grip with technical precision. Palms together, to the wrist. This grip is important. Deep down we know this, and yet as we bend laterally in Half moon pose we allow are palms to separate. We leave our progression for another day.
Master the Art of Change
Yoga is a lot of things and it is not defined by a specific environment. Change is an opportunity for yoga practitioners to take note of their behaviours and attachments (to a space or style of practice) and strive for liberation.
As much as the current state of the world is particularly unique and challenging, it is a beautiful opportunity to move beyond our comfort zone. You’re practicing from home? Awesome. Play music. Loudly. Any playlist you want. Have some fun with your practice! Feeling lazy. Perfect. Practice yin. Feeling experimental? Try a different style of practice.
If you’re missing the heat, invest in an infrared heater (affiliate link). I did! And I love, love, love it. It was worth every penny. My basement is cold. My heater warms my body up just enough that I get a bit of a sweat on during my Bikram practice and can relax into my yin practice in the evenings.
Once you’ve created a space for your practice, you can practice any time! Standing Head to Knee…. you want to get better? Do it more. Spend a few minutes, every second day practicing locking the knee. Lock your knee for 20, then 30 seconds, and work your way up to a minute. By the time you make it back into the hot room, you’ll be a master.