The Goldilocks Principle in Yoga
What’s the right amount of effort to put into a pose? It’s a simple question to ask, but not a simple one to answer. Like many things in life, it’s a “Goldilocks principle”, where the correct approach requires landing in the sweet spot: not too hot, not too cold; not too little, not too much.
We navigate so many of these Goldilocks challenges in our day-to-day life that they have fallen away as a problem for the conscious mind. We know that we can’t leave the pasta bubbling away for hours, and we also know if we take it out too early it will be distasteful and too hard to chew. There are even more primal expressions of this issue: we know that we need water to stay hydrated, but too much water and we drown!
I mentioned in a previous article a general observation of beginner vs intermediate students, namely a tendency that beginners underdo asana, and intermediates overdo asana.
To expand on the basic idea, beginners tend to underdo things because they are overwhelmed by detail, and only just getting familiar with the fundamentals. The names of the poses, the shapes of the poses, the actions required: when you are a beginner, all this information can be overwhelming and confronting. For a non-yoga example, think of all the ski instructors across the world yelling “bend the knees!” to legions of novice skiers who already think they have them bent as they snow-plough down the slopes.
Intermediates have more conceptual understanding and experience. By this stage, you’re on the path, and you can navigate the language and environment. You’ve also experienced some progression: there were things that you couldn’t do when you started that are now starting to come. Perhaps as a result of your work in gaining more mobility in the hips, you can now bend the front leg to 90 degrees in Virabhadrasana 2.
Where intermediates get stuck is when the attention becomes fixed. It’s easy to overdo poses when you only think of parts in isolation, and not consider how they integrate into the whole. It’s here that teachers start to ask more of students to develop their awareness of integration: Can you bend the front leg to 90 degrees in Virabhadrasana 2 whilst keeping the outer edge of the back foot down? Within this instruction are implicit considerations: how does this set up the “frame” of the pose, and what effects carry through to the rest of the body? What are the subtle actions required within the gross action, and vice versa?
There is also the intermediate trap of getting fixed to your strengths. I often see this in students who have become fixed to the idea of trying hard, and meet every challenge as simply one of will-power. You can see students with strong standing asanas who look irritated in restorative poses. If you asked them, they’d probably say that they find these poses boring. What they’ve missed is the chance for introspection and an examination of subtlety. They’re putting too much of themselves and their desires into the practise, rather than letting the practise teach them (I also suspect getting fixed on trying hard is what leads to yoga burnout).
Eventually in your progression, there comes a point where some unlearning is required to arrive at understanding. It’s not that you only need to try harder: if you want to taste the deeper riches of yoga asana, you need to develop your discernment and channelling of effort. You don’t improve your golf swing just by swinging harder!
The more you cultivate this sense for energy, the more you will experience the different natures of effort required across, and within asanas. A further note: pranayama (the next limb of yoga after asana), doesn’t actually mean “breath control”, it’s the control of prana - energy.
To illustrate two poses with different energetic profiles, let’s compare Handstand (Adho Mukha Vrksasana) and Supta Virasana:
Handstand requires effort, and hence the cultivation of energy: we place our hands on the floor, we tone the arms to the bone, we firm the shoulder blades and back-body, and this toning provides a supporting structure that ripples up through the body until we eventually kick the legs up.
If we lose this chain of energy at any node (eg. our shoulder blades pop out and we lose that structural support) then our pose will be wobbly or uneven, and the quality of the pose is diminished. The energetic profile of the pose is one of building a steady fortification of energy from the floor, before a smooth flourish to kick the legs up, and then a pull of the body’s centre-line to the plumb-line to maintain balance.
Supta Virasana has a different energetic profile. Instead of the energy going up, the energy needs to drop down and within. Supta Virasana is difficult for a lot of people, even where accommodations are made with props, but there needs to be an understanding that we are trying to cultivate a spirit of surrender, and that how we finish the pose will not be the same as how we start it. We need to let the deep muscles of the hip flexors release, let the thighs soothe and drop. Let the back fall and spread itself across the support, and contain the ribs so they sit naturally into the body rather than flaring out. The body, the energy, and sensation withdraws, like pulling a thick, heavy blanket to smother the body.
Understanding the movement of energy within a pose requires careful attention and examination. After my certification, an assessor gave me feedback that has stayed with me: be aware of the direction and flow of energy in every pose. Whilst, as illustrated above, there are different energetic profiles to poses, each pose is actually a “cocktail” of different qualities of energy, or effort, being channelled through the system.
Take shoulder-stand (salamba sarvangasana) as an example. A discerning practitioner is aware of the different needs of various areas to build a high-quality pose. There is consideration for what parts need to be fortified, what parts need to be extended, and what parts need to be allowed to be placid. The supporting base needs to be fortified - shoulders and full length of the upper arms firmly standing to the support. The legs need to be toned and lifted to the ceiling, in doing so, pulling a sinking spine up from the floor. And the head needs to be placid - back of the skull spreading to the floor, energy of the face coming down into the skull, as a box-like chest expands to the chin for the Jalandhara Bandha chin-lock.
A more nuanced understanding of energy doesn’t just treat it as a dial to be turned up or turned down. A nuanced understanding of energy appreciates and discerns it as a quality to be managed within a system.
Whilst time and effort are essential ingredients to progression and evolution within yoga, it’s not just the rote act of practise that leads to progression, it’s important to be learning from the practise as you continue on.
Enjoy the journey of yoga, we’re all on it together. Try your best, but remember to let your understanding of what “best” means evolve: the kettle doesn’t boil faster if we stare at it more intently.