Finding your starting point within Āsana to set a direction and route towards a goal…
“In order to know where we are going to,
we must first know where we are coming from.”
Often in the Āsana aspect of Yoga practice, whether within our personal practice or a teaching environment, the student is directed towards a goal.
This may be to do with a physical or structural foci such as the:
- Basic Performance of the Āsana
- Continuing Improvement of the Āsana
- Specific Intensification of the Āsana
- Introducing Stay into the Āsana
However, the common factor within all of these options is that they are goal-based.
This is fine as a general principle however as in any area of our lives, setting off towards any goal requires that we also have a clear idea of our starting point. For example, if I am wanting to travel to London I need to know whether I am starting from Birmingham or Brighton in order to set a direction and distance to navigate from. So it is with Āsana.
This notion of establishing the starting point in terms of setting goals and establishing the number of steps, as in Vinyāsa Krama, was one of the fundamental principles within any aspect of practice taught to me by Desikachar. It is also an inherent factor within the notion of the Viniyoga or application of Āsana, in that how can we make and apply an intelligent arrangement without knowing both where the student is starting from as well as going towards.