Yogis are hunters, I’m a huge follower of that. Regardless of where we may be with our practice — 2 classes or 2 years in — it’s the searcher in us that veryfirst draws us into the space, and onto our mats. My factor for attempting yoga years back was a hope to work through a solitude buried deep below my positive and bubbly outside. Over the years, I’ve seen trainees come to yoga looking for all sorts of things — higher movement, tension relief, a spiritual understanding, the list goes on.
Independent from what brings us to yoga, much of its charm lies within its richness and the methods in which we can continue to lookfor and grow through the practice. Most of us are familiar with deepening the practice by uplevelling our physical knowledge. We hold onto an concept that mastering more sophisticated asanas (postures) is the primary objective — the finest indicator of how “good” we are at yoga. In truth, there are more methods to make advance, consistingof svadhyaya, a term which equates to “self-study”, discovered in the Pantanjali’s Yoga Sutras.
The Yoga Sutras is a text typically utilized as a roadmap as to how we practise yoga in the West. Within the 2nd Sutra there are 5 niyamas, and each is a standard as to how we can inwardly devote to a course of liberty and existence. Svadhyaya is the 4th niyama, with Sutra 2.44 — svadhyaya ishta samprayogah — advising us to take part in self-study to link with our greater awareness or, for some, linking to our own distinct understanding of God. While doing a yoga class and sitting down to practicemeditation is a fantastic beginning point for self-awareness, by taking the principle of self-study off the mat, we can deepen our understanding and experience of yoga.
In my work, I frequently refer to svadhyaya as inner work — a three-part procedure where we dig deep to reveal our reality and greatest capacity. We start with self-observation to appearance at how our ideas, practices and beliefs may be developing resistance in our life. This is the work of self-enquiry to comprehend where we may be duplicating patterns that hold us back from chances and, eventually, love. The 2nd element of inner work brings in the work of recovery and might consistof reflective work and journalling to bring a sense of forgiveness and softness to our unfavorable patterns, to gethere in the 3rd part of inner work: self-acceptance and love.
So how can svadhyaya aid us to deepen our yoga practice? There’s no one method to do the work. Instead, it’s a procedure of exploring with what finest brings us to non-judgmental self-enquiry. Taking the inner work off the mat can notify our practice, guide us to our reality and aid us cultivate an open heart.
Informing our practice
In Sutra 2.46, “sthira sukham asanam”, Pantajali recommends that the function of yoga is to develop steadiness (sthira) and ease (sukham). The physical practice was created to prepare the body for meditation, rather than an workout alternative, which is how numerous of us use yoga today. An energising and reasonably challenging practice can feel terrific — who doesn’t desire to construct strength and feel lithe and limber? But our practice can endupbeing distorted when we endedupbeing connected to physical objectives, triggering us to push ourselves to a point of over-exertion and overlook our real requirements.
Many of us appearance to yoga for external outcomes. Even when directing yoga instructors through the inner work, the veryfirst thing that typically requires recovery is a propensity towards imposter syndrome. The instructions that yoga hasactually taken suggests instructors feel huge pressure to ideal presents and constantly advance in asana strategy. By working internally and challenging these fears, instructors can recall the real function of the practice and feel positive in altering how they practise and how they teach. This mi