Ever feel like you are fighting yourself in a yoga pose? I have heard many students say that they will not attend yoga classes that include poses with long holds. They tell me the long holds are too difficult even if the pose itself is not.  But what is so difficult about holding a pose for an extended time?  I too have said the same thing many times and have noticed that I avoid those poses that are uncomfortable for me.

Last week, for example I was checking out a video of a yoga session that was targeted toward using yoga as a transformative tool.  The yoga instructions started slowly with warm ups and gradually moved into more complex movements.  All went well until the teacher instructed me to move into utkatasana (chair pose) and then pause there and breathe.  I don’t usually hold this pose in my own practice so I made the  decision to closely watch my reaction.  I became agitated, I started to sweat, my heart beat went up and my inner dialogue was telling me how I hated this pose and I was beginning to not like the teacher very much either. I was wondering how long she intended to keep us in this pose and if I would be able to last.  Then with relief it was over and the teacher cued a transition through table pose to adho mukha svanasana (down dog) and into vasisthasana (side plank).  Okay, I thought, I can handle this.  But here it was again, the same struggle as I had in chair pose. Only this time the resistance got the better of me and I dropped to the floor to settle into child pose several times. Basically I came in and out of vasisthasana several times to release the tension.  Coming in and out of a pose that causes too much agitation is the right thing to do but the ego sometimes gets in the way.

I have practiced utkatasana and vasisthasana over and over again through the years but I struggle each time I am asked to stay for any length of time in these poses.  I can’t seem to find the ease the teacher talks about and the mental chatter is not about kindness and compassion either for me or the teacher while I am struggling in these poses.  No wonder I have always liked a fast paced vinyasa style of yoga practice.  But as I get older the fast paced sweaty yoga does not do much for me either.

And so tai chi enters.  I now practice tai chi seriously and teach it.  It slowed my yoga down.  I began to appreciate the awareness that comes when I slow down. But initially when I transferred the slowness of tai chi to a slow yoga class my mind and body began to rebel.

So what is there about those long asana holds.  For me it was holding utkatasana  (plank pose) for an extended time (especially after having done many other heated poses before).  I think it strains the mind-body connection to a point of resistance where physically the pose is tiring and the mind tries to resist. Placing the physical body into a pose for an extended time can begin to unleash memories and emotions that have sat entrenched in the bones and muscles for a long time.  So I had to learn to find ease in these poses and allow whatever wants to come to the surface to come there.  This is not easy but this is exactly the point at which transformation begins.  To transform or change I needed to use my resistance as a tool.  So I learn to evaluate what is happening inside when I find myself in these poses that activate my mind, body and emotions.  I find that holding a pose that is uncomfortable for an extended length of time can be used as a learning experience.  There are some techniques I have learned along the way that help me when I find myself resisting a pose.  There are a number of questions I ask myself that help me dive into what is happening physically, mentally and emotionally.  Then there is the fine tuning of my alignment.  Sometimes I employ props to help me find more ease in the pose.   I’ll talk about some of these techniques in future posts but for now here are some of the questions I may ask myself while holding the pose.  It’s a great starting point.

• What is the function of the pose I am holding?
• What do I want out of the pose? Is it just to get through the pose and move on or is there some muscle I am trying to stretch or joint I am nudging to release.
• Why it is uncomfortable?
• What emotions is this pose bringing up?

And one last question:

• How can I bring some ease into this pose? What can I do or change in the pose to make it more bearable?

I will take this last inquiry and explore some of the ways to do this in my next post.