The Right Attitude for Yoga Exercise
The Basic Premise and Purpose of Hatha Yoga Is Often Ignored
Mar 22, 2009
If you look at Yoga magazines, you may get the impression that the visual aspect of any posture is paramount. While it may be important to duplicate the postures correctly, there is another aspect that is even more important. It is what you are feeling and how you feel.
A Teacher's Viewpoint
An instructor in an acting school in New York based his movement class on some Hatha Yoga postures or asanas. Although the room where he had his class was wall to wall with mirrors, he strictly forbade using them as a guide. He wanted students to focus on feeling the stretch, feeling the movement, and becoming more aware of the body.
Nothing in that class was ever rushed. No one was urged to push beyond comfort levels. And it all led to the most important part of Hatha Yoga. That is the corpse pose.
The Corpse Pose
Let's assume you have taken your time with your postures or asanas. You didn't hurt yourself trying to assume a posture that was beyond your body's ability. And you felt the body parts being stretched comfortably. In other words, you allowed those body parts to stretch with awareness. You did not force the pose.
Then the session is concluded with the corpse pose. This is done by lying flat on your back on a surface that you wouldn't normally nap or snooze on. The acting school instructor had students doing the corpse pose on the bare hardwood floor without mats. This way, tense muscles could not be ignored.
That may be too much for most, especially older people. But the point is the corpse pose is not nap time. It's not break time. It is get in tune with the body and the body's subtle energy time. This is where a union of body, mind, and spirit can take place.
The Right Positioning and Attitude
While on your back, facing up toward the ceiling with eyes shut, your arms comfortably placed on the floor alongside your body. There should be some space between your arms and body to avoid tension. Same for the legs. Not together; not wide apart.
The hands should be relaxed and open, palms up. The palms up placement has been noted by yoga teachers to induce alertness and avoid drowsiness. Being calm but very aware is important for this process. It is recommended that you start with either your feet or your head. What you need to do is consciously relax each part of the body from where you start and move to the next. All the while you are maintaining and increasing relaxation gradually throughout the body, until your body, every muscle, is completely relaxed.
This subtle practice takes time to master. It cannot be rushed or forced. You will know you are doing it correctly if you are wide awake, alert, but calm and without tension. If done correctly, you will have no impulse to get up or move. Unfortunately, most yoga classes tend to rush the students through the corpse pose.
The Rewards
This is a precursor to meditation. You may go deeper into meditation. You may have an awareness of bliss throughout the body. And you may even have a slight out of body experience.
Baba Muktananda said the purpose of the corpse pose was to align the subtle body, where the Chi energy is, with the physical. He added that all the postures would be virtually worthless if the corpse pose is ignored. Though difficult to master, it is the most important posture for your total well being.
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