Yoga in the heart of the city

"The Art of Balance"

Stand, feet together and arms at your sides. Swing your weight forward over the toes and hold that position for several breaths. Feel the tension creep into the knees, thighs, lower back and beyond as the body struggles with the lack of balance. Then rock the weight back over your heels, breathe and again observe the growing discomfort. Now settle the weight evenly over your two feet, right and left, and between the heels and the balls of the feet. Tuck the tailbone under to correct the curvature of the spine, itself a structure of infinite balance. Pull in the lower abdominal muscles and position your shoulder girdle directly over your hips.

Let your head sit lightly at the top of the spine with the back of your neck long.
Feel the effortlessness of a balanced stance.
There are endless ways to make this art of physically balancing the body more demanding developing bigger and better reserves of tolerance, strength and awareness. For a start, raise one leg, bend the knee and place the sole of the foot somewhere along the inside of the supporting leg. Raise your arms. You are now performing the classic asana vrksasana, the “tree pose” in which you have to move the plumb line of the body from the centre to run down the supporting leg. Focussing the eyes on a set point in front of you becomes important in holding the balance now.
Notice the level of concentration required.
Allow your gaze or your mind to be distracted here and a wobble is guaranteed!
Balance is at the heart of yoga asana and not just in the practice of gravity-defying standing poses and inversions, such as the headstand. In all postures in the hatha yoga system a good student will be seeking balance between the right and left sides of the body, and not just for the purposes of alignment, the soothing of unnecessary tension and the discovery and release of unhelpful postural habits. When the body is in balance, whether standing, sitting or lying for savasana (the relaxing “corpse pose”) at the end of a practice, the subtle energies will flow correctly, bringing the full range of benefits that yoga offers. Asymmetry, a state of “unbalance” in the body, will always create a blockage of these energies, stress and eventually pain.
The term “hatha” in Hatha Yoga, the classification of any form of yoga that incorporates physical postures, directly refers to the balancing of the body’s subtle energies, which govern not only physical function but our emotional, psychological and spiritual wellbeing as well.
“Ha” refers to the left side of the body, described as the moon or female aspect, while “tha” is the sun or male side. New students are frequently astounded to discover how one side of their bodies is more flexible, open, strong and easy. There is often a correlation between these differences and a dominance of either the “sun” or the “moon.”
One of the best known pranayama, or breathing disciplines, is Nadi Sodhana, or “alternate nostril breathing,” in which gentle pressure just below the bony bridge of the nose, with the pads of the thumb and fingers of the right hand, is used to open and close alternate nostrils, controlling the flow of breath and balancing the two energies. Again it is interesting to note the openness or restriction of the nostrils in relation to mood and behaviour. The term “nadi” refers to the energy channels in the body, the same subtle organs named “meridians” in Chinese medicine.
The primary nadi is the susumna (pronounced “shu-shumna”) which runs through the centre of the spine, from the base to the crown of the head. To the left is the ida-nadi, while the pingala-nadi lies to the right. Ida and pingala finish just above their respective nostrils, between the eyebrows. Curving around and across the susumna and each other, forming a helical stairway, it is the junction points created by these two nadis and the susumna which create the six lower chakras. Balancing of the chakras is a yogic science – and a new age fascination – in itself. Patanjali, the father of classical yoga, makes no mention of chakras in his seminal text the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, and not a great deal more about the practice of yoga asana. Patanjali’s discourse is more concerned with the mind, and psychological and philosophical matters. But when he does mention asana, it is in respect of another aspect of balance, which is just as applicable off the yoga mat as on.
Sutra 2:46 states sthira sukha asanam: a seemingly simple instruction that an “asana is only correct if it is performed with the dual qualities of effort and relaxation,” literally with “sweetness.”
Which is something to remember next time you catch yourself struggling and striving to achieve, or simply going through the motions without much real conviction – on or off the yoga mat.

By Bernadette Rae.