When encountering a student wanting to explore how to engage with Yoga practice, what could be the starting points for examining what might work for them in terms of determining appropriate short term and longer term steps towards establishing stages in how to proceed?

Here it could be helpful to look at what sits behind their intentions to practice, as well as what appears in front of us in terms of the person and their overt requests around the role of Yoga in their life.

This means we need to investigate what is the process that sits behind and stimulates, or even exacerbates their urge towards a Yoga practice, before considering what is the actual content that we will offer for the first steps into the arena of cultivating and maintaining a personalised practice.

So, what do we mean by investigating what is the process that sits behind their wish to practice?

In this situation, it could be helpful to employ as strategies the considerations offered in Patañjali within his Yoga Sūtra Chapter One, verses 30 and 31.

Here he is concerned with two areas, firstly in verse 30 with what might arise as an Antarāya, as in that which can get in between what I want to be or do and actually being able to do it, as in it being an obstacle in spite of my intentions or wish.

Secondly in verse 31, what are the symptoms that accompany these obstacles and how might I identify their presence as an indicator of something deeper or hidden in terms of unhelpful tendencies or urges?

Continuing posts will explore these verses in more depth from the perspective of the above context.

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– Paul’s Short & Longer Yoga Practice Theory Articles – Collected & Collated