Staying Still or Moving Along ~ Downward Facing Dog & Life

There is nothing, i say nothing, as gorgeous as your first downdog of the day. I often delay that rush of energy. I'll start with very gentle neck stretches and spinal movements that are a little bit more fluid than downward dog - cat-cow being my (and everyone else's favourite). When I eventually make my way towards adho mukha svanasana, I have arrived. To my practice, on my mat and in my body. Now different teachers teach this specific instance of arriving into this asana differently. I've had teachers tell me, go ahead and move your body, do whatever it needs to feel ready for further practice. But i have also had teachers tell me to be calm and stay still and for once not to give into the vagaries of the body, of it's need to move - work on disciplining it, work on having the body follow the mind and not the other way around.

The thing about being on a journey of any sorts -yoga, life, love, relationships, career, parenting - is that you live and learn, you make mistakes and you stand up again . You start out with a set intention, on wanting to follow a certain path and being very fastidious about it. Then along the way, you spot something different, something catches your eye, someone teaches you something, some passerby gives you information on a new route and a new way of being, and you re-direct and re-calibrate. If that works for you then good, or else mid-way you might find yourself thinking - oh no, maybe the route i was originally on was the most authentic and it felt surer - this one is a bit too stale, or curvy for me. Whatever your reasoning, you might swerve back and try to get to the path you were on. This can go on and on and on. That is my yoga philosophy. Or maybe I should say it was more or less what I used to do, until i found a voice and I found what I need and i accepted that this going back and forth is actually not bad.

I have often been told in my life that I am too all over the place, I do not have that one goal that drives me or that one set path that I adhere to with blinders on, in the pursuit of that one goal. I'm too wild for that frankly. I can't imagine having blinders on - any animal, human or otherwise should not have blinders on if they are to live a life that is wild, a life that is informed by what's happening around us, a life that is authentic and a life that is built of small tiny bridges of learning and re-charting your course. That's me.

Coming back from my major digression - downward dog. What to do? Stay still or dance around just a little bit. Here's what i do - i listen to my body most times. I let it flow and let it discover for itself what it needs to feel more grounded and to move with ease in the upcoming practice i have planned for myself. Which is generally how I live my life too - I let it flow. So very rarely will you see me NOT walk my dog as they say in yoga parlance (which is to bend one knee at a time to stretch the other leg out in my downward facing dog). More often than not my body needs to feel that movement within and that kind movement, along with the spinal fluidity stuff I've worked on before, release whatever stiffness I have left over from the day before - in my mind and my thoughts. So I need the walking dog for more reasons than one. However, I am noticing, in my teaching practice, that I instruct my students to stay still in downward dog before I take them into the freedom of a walking dog movement.

One day, i told myself, that isn't right, shouldn't how I practice show up in how I teach as well - shouldn't I be telling my students - do what you need, or give them a little nudge in the direction of the movement? So i promised to say that in my morning class. Except that when the time came to instruct that, I just couldn't. I sincerely felt like the class needed stillness for a few breaths before I could lead them further. They groaned, they sighed out aloud, they started getting restless, I again reminded them to use the breath and it's wave like rhythm to stay here - just notice what comes up for them in that moment, in that shape.

And when I said that, it struck me, that i was leading from what I think was an authentic space, because I could sense that the class needed to stay - physically for the sake of their very tight hamstrings and back of the leg muscles as well as to get stronger in their arms, but psychologically I wanted them to learn to sit with their feelings in their mind and in their body. And this is not something I was doing for the first time. In my own practice too, if I have too many thoughts rushing on the highways of my brain, trying to get from one place to another, in the search for a resolution to whatever problem they are trying to solve, I stay still. What's the point of moving mindlessly and letting the noise of the mind dictate the flow of your body - that is not what mind leading the body means for sure.

Staying still is hard. As we are discovering in the wake of Covid-19, it is amazing, the sheer restlessness that exists in all of us. If the city is in total shut down, what shall we do - how do we live our lives, how do we occupy this immense vastness that 24 hours in a day offers us?  That, interestingly, is not a question my parents are asking themselves. My mother still tends to her garden and preps for her pickles and is now trying out a new thai recipe for dinner. My dad who is hooked onto Netflix, decided to take a break and read a bit more. If his back was feeling slightly better he would have taken his golf clubs and gone out into the lawn to strike a few shots (not sure if strike is the term golfers use!). Then why are we so un-used to having a slow life? The idea of stillness even though quite popular in millennial lingo with mindfulness and meditation being it's promoters, is somehow something that we "practice" for 5-10 mins and forget when the timer beeps. Post that brief interlude with what it feels like to stay within, we get up and rush to the next thing to do. We haven't given ourselves the time to sit and be or stand and stare. I do not think I can ever tire of saying be here now. It is an art. It is a lost art. But now, unfortunately in these trying circumstances, we have the chance to re-learn it.

This is not about staying at home trying to escape a virus. This is about our attitudes towards most things in life. The constant distraction, the ease with which the mind draws itself to the next shiny thing and how the body follows it. The need to use your phone when you're talking to your loved one, instead of giving them your full attention, the need to buy that shoe that your favourite celebrity wore, the ubiquity of the word and emotion of FOMO. This is all the lack of stillness.

When you're on your mat the next time, ask yourself - what do you need? What do you really need? in you mind and body - do you need inspiration and freedom and fluidity. Or do you need a moment to stay still and let the mind calm down and let that translate into the rest of your practice - on your mats and especially off your mats. So really ask yourself when you're in your first downward facing dog of the day - shall i move or shall i stay and then listen to what you really need. That inner voice will guide you and your practice - as it always does.