TADASANA: The Magic of the Mountain
We often begin our yoga practice standing in Mountain Pose or Tadasana. To those on the outside of yoga looking in at this pose, it appears as though we are simply standing around, waiting to exercise. Tadasana’s magic gives us many gifts. Perhaps the most precious is its approachable stillness and the opportunity we have there to remind ourselves to create separation in time and space before we start moving our bodies. In Tadasana, we can begin the process of ‘drawing in.’
Time separation occurs when we withdraw from lingering thoughts about the history of our day or week. We momentarily dismiss from our mind, the experiences of our life and of prior yoga practices and place our mind in the uniqueness of the moment in which we are standing. Tadasana is a time where we can remind ourselves to let go of the mental habits of reviewing and planning. Yoga gives us a place to practice detaching from the baggage of our expectations. We have accumulated these expectations from our life experiences and how we perceive these experiences. In Tadasana, there is no past or future. We are just here in this practice hour. Then we draw in and are able to hold our mind in this minute and eventually perhaps in just this breath.
Space separation occurs as we watch the mind being drawn to sounds or experiences outside the room in which we stand. We notice these distractions, and then we invite the mind let go of those thoughts and to place itself squarely within the four walls of our practice area. In a group setting, it is also possible to find ourselves watching others or comparing our practice to the practices of those around us. Here, the drawing in occurs as we learn to direct our attention to the confines of our own mat. Sometimes that might happen as we busy the mind with the details of correct alignment in each pose. But, as the inward journey deepens, our watching might move from the mat, to being acutely aware of our body sensations and then to watching or experiencing our breath. Eventually we may notice that our mind is able to watch the way energy rides through our bodies upon the vehicle that is each breath.
This letting go of time and space is joyful and freeing. Like waking up on New Year’s Day, we are filled with the optimism of an infinite array of possibilities. But this feeling exists in each moment, not just once per year. That recurring newness is as awesome as dawn or spring. We remind ourselves in Tadasana that we can travel through our practice with the wonderment of an infant who is holding a spoon or toy for the very first time.
Tadasana is available to us at any time during our yoga practice. We can begin to see all poses, simply as variations of this basic pose. Four-legged staff pose can be a horizontal Tadasana; handstand becomes inverted Tadasana, and tree pose becomes one-legged Tadasana. But the real gift of this pose is the wisdom we acquire by practicing Tadasana that applies to our daily lives. We learn that as we travel through the challenges of our day, we can choose, in any moment to let go of what is drawing us away. We need only to pause for a mental reset, experience fully our next breath, and then simply begin anew.
© Lee Fowler Schwimmer, 2006 All Rights Reserved
Time separation occurs when we withdraw from lingering thoughts about the history of our day or week. We momentarily dismiss from our mind, the experiences of our life and of prior yoga practices and place our mind in the uniqueness of the moment in which we are standing. Tadasana is a time where we can remind ourselves to let go of the mental habits of reviewing and planning. Yoga gives us a place to practice detaching from the baggage of our expectations. We have accumulated these expectations from our life experiences and how we perceive these experiences. In Tadasana, there is no past or future. We are just here in this practice hour. Then we draw in and are able to hold our mind in this minute and eventually perhaps in just this breath.
Space separation occurs as we watch the mind being drawn to sounds or experiences outside the room in which we stand. We notice these distractions, and then we invite the mind let go of those thoughts and to place itself squarely within the four walls of our practice area. In a group setting, it is also possible to find ourselves watching others or comparing our practice to the practices of those around us. Here, the drawing in occurs as we learn to direct our attention to the confines of our own mat. Sometimes that might happen as we busy the mind with the details of correct alignment in each pose. But, as the inward journey deepens, our watching might move from the mat, to being acutely aware of our body sensations and then to watching or experiencing our breath. Eventually we may notice that our mind is able to watch the way energy rides through our bodies upon the vehicle that is each breath.
This letting go of time and space is joyful and freeing. Like waking up on New Year’s Day, we are filled with the optimism of an infinite array of possibilities. But this feeling exists in each moment, not just once per year. That recurring newness is as awesome as dawn or spring. We remind ourselves in Tadasana that we can travel through our practice with the wonderment of an infant who is holding a spoon or toy for the very first time.
Tadasana is available to us at any time during our yoga practice. We can begin to see all poses, simply as variations of this basic pose. Four-legged staff pose can be a horizontal Tadasana; handstand becomes inverted Tadasana, and tree pose becomes one-legged Tadasana. But the real gift of this pose is the wisdom we acquire by practicing Tadasana that applies to our daily lives. We learn that as we travel through the challenges of our day, we can choose, in any moment to let go of what is drawing us away. We need only to pause for a mental reset, experience fully our next breath, and then simply begin anew.
© Lee Fowler Schwimmer, 2006 All Rights Reserved
posted by YogaMama at
6:11 PM
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