What Is An Asana?
An asana is a pose or posture used in the practice of yoga. It is estimated that there are thousands of asanas in the incredibly varied discipline of yoga, with around 100 in active use by yogis all over the world. Asanas range from simple, relaxing poses which can be held by people at all levels of ability to complex postures which push the limits of the practitioner’s body. Typically, a yoga session involves running through a series of asanas and holding them for varying periods of time. The word is derived from the Sanskrit asanam, “a sitting posture.” Originally, asanas were developed as positions to use for meditation. They could potentially be held for long periods of time to focus the mind and body, promoting health, stillness, and inward reflection. Asanas have since expanded to encompass a wide range of postures, some of which are quite physically challenging, and they continue to be used during meditative practice, although meditation is not required for yoga. In many cases,
Its most literal meaning is “seat,” a firm positioning of the body. Most of us are familiar with at least some of the shapes into which the yogi extends and twists his body. Our minimalist definition thus might easily be that asana means a specific positioning of the body performed for an intrinsic purpose (i.e. not just for show). This is a start, but more could be said –first about how the body is positioned, and second about what this purpose might be. To be more specific about how the body is worked, we could say that asana involves positioning and working the body in ways that stretch and strengthen not only the major muscle groups, but also the deeper postural muscles that maintain the health of the joints and spine. Asana also stimulates and encourages the proper functioning of all of the internal organs that govern our essential life functions. How to find a word that does justice to that? We have come up with some English equivalents, but they fall short of expressing how asa
The scriptures recognize three types of asanas: the meditative, relaxing and cultural postures. The meditative postures are ordinarily used for the practice of meditation and pranayama. Relaxation is paramount. The yogi aims at holding the meditative asana for long periods of time (up to several hours) to allow prolonged sessions of pranayama and meditation in perfect stillness and comfort. Eventually the yogi transcends the asana, not feeling his body, and focusing on the inner, subtle aspects of the practices. The cultural postures are practiced with more intensity. While doing asanas the hatha yogi is aware that there are three groups of muscles in the body. For each asana, some muscles are relaxing, some are stretching and some are contracting. The art consists in relaxing deeply the first two groups while contracting forcefully the last group. During the practice, the stretched muscles should be lengthened to the limit. The limit is the pain and one should stop the stretching just
