On Shavasana.

 Saturday. Moving day at the Masters proved the perfect format for a nap on Daddy. 

 Julia and I snuggle down watching Bubba win on Sunday afternoon. I will never, ever be able to watch a champion come down the 18th fairway without crying. Throw in a baby and a wife and a man openly crying? Dead. 

 Luke, telling me savasana is easy. This was after he did a donkey kick handstand (with help) a headstand,  dolphin ~ he said it was "easy"……so I had him touch his chin to the ground in front of his hands and press up three times…still "easy", so I had him do a one legged swimming dolphin and …well, he got down but crumpled cracking up on the way up. BEGGING me "what other hard poses are there Mom??? What ELSE?" So we went through a few more before I forced him into bed. Anyway, he continues to ask me what poses were hard and I told him that savasana was the hardest pose of all. He started cracking up. I said, do it. He laid on my bed. Cracked up. Asked why laying down was hard. I told him that it was hard to lay down, not fall asleep, let your body relax, and let your mind be free of thoughts. He cracked up. I said, "go ahead, do it"…….

He closed his eyes, I made one tiny tiny snort sound……….and he was toast :)

It is so cute to me how children just want to know "what else is hard?!? What else can I do" How can I perform?!?!?". Yoga is not about performing. Yoga is not about being able to act like a poodle and show off ~ I think that this is why I still have not sent an "action photo! OMG!" to the crossfit studio. It just isn't my yoga. Its also the reason that I don't want to work at the same place where I work out and practice yoga. I want to be able to practice…….and I want to do it as a student….and I want to teach, and do it as a teacher. Whenever I take Sues level I or 2 classes I have become the person taking the easier modifications ~ everyone in those classes knows that I am a teacher as I have taught them. I don't need to be a proud peacock trotting out my super special practice like I am so proud and blah blah….I used to call those people "yoga winners" with a giggle.  Its actually been a blessing to learn how much the "modification" is not a lesser pose, its simply a different pose. Its amazing. I have been enjoying my shavasana's in deeper ways lately. I don't know why ~ perhaps in this busy season my body is deeply aware of  how much I need them? My mind is able to be free for those 5 minutes? I always make sure my students get a long enough shavasana. I have a lot of fun coming up with songs to end their practice with and I especially enjoy finding quotes to tie into the theme of that days practice.

Savasana is often called the most important pose in yoga.  All of yoga practice, in every form from Iyengar to Kundalini, intelligently informs the body of neuromuscular changes.  That is to say, the practice of yoga fundamentally changes the structure of who we are.  Savasana, allows the body to rest in order to integrate and accept these changes prior to entering the fray of normal life.  This is especially important for the nervous system.  In Kundalini yoga in particular, enormous stress is placed on the nervous system in a controlled way in order to strengthen it.  Just like lifting weights at a gym to grow your biceps, placing controlled stress on the nervous system allows your body to develop a strength and endurance that allows you to cope with normal life.  However, if you do not rest and give the nervous system time to integrate these changes, but instead jump straight into normal life activity, at worst you run the risk of a "over-training", where essentially your nervous system and your neuromuscular system become too tightly wound and at best you simply don't derive maximum benefit from your practice.  In particular, Yogi Bhajan included savasana with Sat Kriya, saying that it was important to rest for an equal amount of time to your active practice in order to integrate the benefits.

So if savasana is so important, why do most western yoga classes speed race through it?  Traditionally savasana lasts for up to half an hour.  In many classes, that is cut to 1 or 2 minutes and dropped altogether from personal practices.  Why?  The answer may lie in contemporary culture, which values speed, efficiency and things that look hard.  There is an assumption that Bound Lotus or an arm balance or wheel pose must be more beneficial than Savasana because its harder.  It's not the case.  Benefit and exertion to not have a direct correlation.  In fact, savasana is considered to be the most difficult of all yoga poses to master, because complete relaxation of body and mind is incredibly difficult to achieve.

Savasana also serves the point of ritual.  It gives teachers the opportunity to guide students in relaxation, self-blessing, prayer, affirmation, gong or simple, extraordinary peace.  It allows the individual practitioner to give ceremony and sacredness to theiryoga practice and to feel "the sweet spot" that so often results from our efforts in yoga.

I love the bolded part of this quote. Early on in my practice I thought like Luke. What ELSE? How cool! Can I do that?? And believe me, I still enjoy learning new things and finding new ways to grow my practice and experience yoga. But more than that, the best practices I have are the ones which end with a deep, tranquil, long, and blissful shavasana. This is the part of my practice that I am most grateful for, and am most determined to grow. I love the enthusiasm of children, and I love learning from the wisdom of good teachers. If we all stayed in yoga with simply the mind of a child, the eagerness to show off or to just focus on what is "hard!" versus what benefits us, yoga would not be working for us.