Through my almost 30 years of practicing yoga, I have learned a few things. Among these lessons:
Use it or lose it. This applies to flexibility, strength, and balance, especially as you age. If you don’t practice regularly, you will lose the ability to do practice in the way that you did. This is not always a bad thing, but something to keep in mind. If you want to be 80 and still be able to touch your toes to put on your shoes, or get up unassisted from a toilet, you might want to start a daily practice now.
Things always change. Your body, your mind, and what is meaningful to you in your life. There are many poses that I practiced in my 20s that I no longer do. As a 52 year old I don’t see the benefit of putting my foot behind my head anymore, there are plenty of poses that offer my body so much more in terms of maintaining my strength, mobility, and balance. My goal is now maintaining what I have to stay active for as long as possible.
Every day is different. Sleep, diet, stress levels, and activity levels all affect how you feel, so each day you get on your mat will feel different from any other day. The beauty of yoga is you can always meet yourself where you are. You won’t have an “amazing practice” every time you’re on the mat, but that’s not the point. Learning to honor how you feel is what matters. Some days will be dynamic and strengthening, some days will be quiet and stretchy, and some days you will just be still. It’s all yoga.
Yoga is far more than just poses on a mat. What you learn on the mat you take with you off the mat and it affects your life. Asana (the poses) is just one of 8 limbs that make up the science of yoga. Other limbs include breathwork, meditation, and behaving in the world in a way that causes the least harm and opens the heart and mind.
Yoga is a multi-faceted practice that affects both the body and mind, moving you toward more ease and less suffering in your daily life. Even if you only practice poses on the mat, it won’t be long until you notice the effects off the mat. The physical, mental, and emotional benefits come along for the ride.
Balance is something many of us “older” adults take for granted. You don’t really think about it until you lose it and fall. Falls become more common as you age, especially if you are not actively practicing balance.
Falls and subsequent fractures, are a huge problem as you age, because healing from a fracture means you won’t be able to do your normal strength training activities and you will lose even more bone and muscle mass. It becomes harder and harder to put that back on, especially over 50 when hormone levels start to wane.
Tree pose (Vrksasana) is a yoga pose that helps you cultivate physical strength and balance, but when you practice physical balance, it teaches you mental and emotional balance as well.
Sthira and Sukha
There are two principles that encourage balance, and those are Sthira (Strength) and Sukha (Ease). These are equally important while practicing yoga, but also useful for life in general. By practicing on the mat, you can take the wisdom with you off the mat.
When practicing Tree pose, stand on one leg with the other leg bent, foot pressing against the straight leg (see photo below). Can you keep your mind calm while attempting to stay upright? Are the thoughts in your mind kind or critical? Can you feel your foot pressing against the floor as you grow taller?
Are you breathing out as well as in? Falling over is inevitable if you only breathe in, either because you explosively exhale or you pass out. I don’t recommend this practice… What happens in the mind and breath will affect the body’s ability to balance.
When you balance on one leg, you will feel small shifts of weight in the foot and ankle. If you are too rigid (all Sthira/Strength), you won’t be able to adapt to the shifts and you will fall over.
You need strength to create the stability to balance on one leg. However, if you only have strength, the rigidity can cause you to fall over because you lose adaptability. Think of a pushing over a chair; it doesn’t have the flexibility to resist the force of your hand.
Alternatively, if you only have ease (Sukha), gravity will pull you off your leg and you will fall down, as you lack the strength to stay up. If you remove your skeleton, you lack the structure to hold yourself up.
Combining strength and ease, Sthira and Sukha, you have the stability to hold yourself up, with the ease that creates adaptability. Stability + Adaptability = Balance.
Yoga off the Mat
Let’s apply this wisdom off the mat.
Let’s say you need to go grocery shopping and you just don’t feel like it. It requires a certain amount of strength to get yourself out of your house to the grocery store. During your trip, you could complain and gripe about having to go, or you could simply accept that you need to go and it’s happening. This is something that needs to get done, fighting it only makes your suffering greater. You are going either way, but finding ease in the task makes it less painful.
It requires strength to get yourself to the store. You need to physically get off the couch, and to the store. But it’s ease that will release your suffering. If you only had ease, you might never get off the couch. If you only had strength, you might be miserable and make the task 10x worse. It’s the balance of strength and ease that allows you to get what you need in a way that doesn’t cause you to suffer. Except maybe in your bank account. Groceries have gotten so expensive!
It comes down to balance
Yoga teaches balance for both the body and mind. When you practice Tree pose to cultivate your physical balance, you combine a mix of physical strength and physical ease, with mental strength and mental ease. You are breathing both in and out evenly and purposefully. You are being kind and compassionate toward yourself, whether you fall over or not.
You are working to stay on one leg for as long as you can, then resting when you need to rest. This is all creating the balance between strength and ease. The next time you face a challenge in your life, whether big or small, see if you can apply these principles. Can you meet your challenge with strength and ease, stability and adaptability?
What struggles do you have that if you applied a bit more strength or a bit more ease, would be easier to handle, thus creating less suffering?
Personally I don’t mind doing laundry, it’s getting the clothes out of the basket into the closet and drawers that gets me stuck. Getting out of my all or nothing attitude helps; if I can fold and put away clothes for 10 minutes at a time, it will get done (hopefully before the next load needs to go in). But if I believe it all has to get done now (strength) I will resist and have it hanging over my head. If I can be easy and gentle with myself (ease) and just do a little, it will relieve me of my suffering. Now to practice…