sthirasukhamasanam
asana must have the dual qualities of alertness and relaxation
–Yoga Sutra 2.46
I would bet that pretty much any of you who go to a regular yoga class focus on asana, the physical movement of yoga, about 90% of the time. I know from my own teaching that this is true. It’s not that I don’t want to teach the other 7 limbs of yoga, it’s just that this is the primary focus of yoga in the west. The other limbs seem so esoteric, so hard to grasp and on the whole people come to my classes to move, to stretch and to learn to live within their own bodies.
Don’t get me wrong, I do slip the other limbs in there when they are least expecting it, but at the end of the day, most general yoga classes focus on asana.
I’m not here to say whether this is right or wrong. In many ways I think it is conducive to our sedentary western lifestyles. There is no way that the average office worker (and believe me, I’ve been the average office worker), wants to leave the office to sit on a mat mediatating for 90 minutes. We have so much to learn about our bodies before we can sit in a manner conducive to health.
But what we do need is some time to move the body with mindfulness, to learn to breath, to learn to be.
Asana translates as “seat”. It’s all about preparing the body to sit in meditation (which in turn leads us to the higher limbs of yoga). For some of us (and yes, I include myself here) that preparation alone might be a lifelong process. The ancient texts don’t give us lists of different postures to practice and this is where a very important point comes in, and bear in mind that this is solely my opinion….
.… it doesn’t matter one iota what specific asana(s) we are practicing. It doesn’t matter if our legs don’t go behind our heads. It doesn’t matter if we cannot sit in lotus posture. It doesn’t even matter if raising our arms in Warrior 1 hurts our lower back and we prefer to do this with our hands in prayer position….
Controversial, maybe but none of this matters for one very important reason. Twisting ourselves into a pretzel isn’t going to automatically enlighten us. Nobody got kicked out of heaven because they couldn’t sit in lotus. Of this I am sure.
What does matter is how we practice those postures that we do. I’m not saying stay in our comfort zones. We all need to achieve something new and push our bodies a little bit. But we don’t need to force ourselves into something that may be detrimental to our bodies or our health. Instead we must do what we can (however much or little) with mindfulness, whilst listening to the rhythm of the breath, engaging both body and mind. Because without the union of movement and breath, body and mind, there is no yoga. There is only gymnastics.
On the other hand, dear readers, if you can do beautiful pretzelly postures go right ahead, because they are gorgeous aren’t they?! 
Asana has become synonymous with yoga in general in the west. And that’s OK. Because what we do on the mat eventually begins to reflect in what we do off the mat. As we become strong in our postures so we become strong in our convictions and strong in the face of our fears.
And that is when the other limbs of yoga begin to kick in and that is living your yoga.
Yoga [is] a movement from one point to another, higher one that was previously beyond our reach. It doesn’t matter whether this shift comes about through practicing asanas, through study and reading, or through meditation – it is still yoga.
– TKV Desikachar (The Heart of Yoga p. 17)
