Effort and Effortlessness - Pt 3

Relaxing effort does not necessarily mean “become a rag doll,” whether it be in your yoga poses or in your life, even though for some, it may take an image that extreme to induce any relaxation at all, and believe me, even though they may feel like a rag doll, most people I see don’t look anything like said doll.

Relaxing effort might be in the form of not trying so hard, not worrying about getting the pose “right,” or trying to impress oneself, classmates, or teacher with how hard you are working, lest we should walk by and “catch” them daydreaming at their desk. Oh yeah, that was school. But don’t many of us have those same fears and habits as adults?

Patanjali tells us to relax effort. While doing a pose, there is usually one side that is working – contracting – while the other side is relaxing – stretching.  Let’s look at Parsvakonasana – side angle pose:

    The Mind of the Second Side

In side angle, pose, we are stretching on of the sides of the body. We are instructed to breathe into that side,  to open the ribs, lengthen the waist, rotate the chest to the ceiling. That would be the side of focus, the “working” side. But what about the other side? What if instead of fighting our way into increasing the twist and stretch from the top, we softened the bottom half of the back to may room for the top side to float into it’s place. What if instead of stabilizing by trying to keep the second side just as long as the first, we soften that side, creating a space for the top side to go without having to push something out of the way?

By focusing on the second side, we can increase a feeling of effortlessness by releasing tension on the second side, allowing the action of the first side to be more effortless, instead of adding unnecessary muscular tone/tension/activity to the second side, thus creating the need for more force by the first side in order to go deeper in the pose.

What gets me is that there is so much talk about bringing tone, and in my opinion unnecessary tension, to the “relaxing” side. Do we really need more tension on one side in order to relax on the other side? In some schools, they say yes, in fact you do. That if one side is contracting, the other must be stretching. While this may be in fact what is happening, I'm not sure that information is being used effectively in most cases. 

Is it fruitful to pull the body forward in a forward bend? On one hand, we are supposedly getting more stretch on the hamstrings. But what is happening in the neck, shoulders, back? In order to get more hamstring stretch, do we need to create upper body tension? Can't we have stretched hamstrings with a relaxed upper body as well? And if every time we do a forward bend with a tense upper body, aren't we in fact telling our body that in order to have bendy hamstrings we need  to work the upper body?

And the big question is, is having bendier hamstrings worth the extra cost in tighter shoulders? Hmmm.

The idea is to get these sides to be balanced in their effort, to be the same, so there is no difference between working and relaxing.  It is in gradually bring these 2 sides together in a balanced manner that YS 2:48 comes into play. When we achieve effortlessness on both sides and there is no longer the pull of the duality between working and stretching sides, “pairs of opposites cease to have impact” and from where I sit, in that Infinite non-dual moment, the pairs of opposites cease to exist. In that moment, we feel like we could stay there forever – it is that steady, comfortable, effortless, infinite, Whole. Yummy. It feels good to have it all. To be it all.

Next topic: Attachment to Effort

Effort and Effortlessness - Pt 2

So how do we practice Sthiram Sukham Asanam?

YS 2:47 and the Mind of the Second Side

Thanks to Patanjali, he tells us in Yoga Sutra 2:47 – “Through relaxation of effort and meditation on the infinite.” Now that’s what I’m talking about, and what inspired me to do a few part series on Effort and Effortlessness.

“Relaxation in the midst of effort is a means, but it is also an end, that of dissolving all tensions.” 

---From Yoga: The First Steps, translated by Dr. Albert Franklin (my first yoga teacher. Thank you Bert, for this book and for teaching me what yoga asana practice is all about.)

So we get steady and comfortable by relaxing effort. How do we do that, “relax effort” and still do a physical practice, or even get the bills paid for that  matter?  We begin by approaching our practice consciously and eliminating extraneous effort and tension. In other words “work smarter, not harder.” Professional athletes use the least amount of effort possible to get the job done. That doesn’t mean they aren’t getting the job done. It means that they have refined their technique, focused their mind and cut out what doesn’t support the job at hand. Their choices are such that they do what it takes to get around the obstacle without taking a few extraneous laps around the field.

In yoga asana class, how many “laps around the field” are we taking in each pose? Just yesterday, I was breaking down bhujangasana (cobra pose) for the class. “Pull the chest forward, activate the triceps…” I said “if you’re not feeling you’re triceps (upper arm muscles) that’s not what we’re doing right now.” Some said that they were feeling it in the forearm. I thought to myself, “interesting.” I asked them to relax their hands. Voila! Triceps in, forearms out. And the hands were just fine during the finished product. The students had been instructed so many time to “activate the hands” that their hands were over-activated, aka tense. They had fixated on an instruction that had at one point been useful to them, and that same instruction, once mastered, was now an obstruction since now when they activated their already active hands, they were adding tension to an area that no longer needed extra a-tension (attention).

This is what I would call a mild case of “habitual efforting” in that by running the “activate the hands” instruction, they were subconsciously looking for the same feeling they had the first time they got that “aha” moment with active hands. Over time, the instruction was assimilated, and now the hands are naturally active, alive, aware. Looking for that same feeling adds tension. We see the same thing in downward facing dog. Over time the poses ceases to be a hamstring stretch and becomes a spinal extension. I see students try to get that deep hamstring opening satisfaction from a pose that will no longer give it to them without adding tension or other distortions. I say let yourself master the pose, have a moment of physical effortlessness and apply the “effort” to watching your mind during the duration of the pose.

But if I relax my effort, how will I get anything done?

Stay tuned…