Where's Your Belly At?

This is not an attempt to explain the bandhas, or to offer a definitive technique. These are just concepts until they can be directly transmitted by a teacher. One cannot learn the bandhas by reading about them. Bandhas are to be learned directly from a teacher who understands, through personal experience, the obstacles, pitfalls and signs of correct progress.  It is possible to gain glimpses of what they might be, but only a proper introduction and skilled guidance can ensure correct understanding and application. 

It’s always interesting working with students who have an established practice. The easiest part about working with them is that the general sequence of their Ashtanga practice tends to be memorized. The initial process involves observing their practice and seeing how they interface with the practice on a daily basis before attempting to ‘teach’ or alter much about their practice. From there, priority tends to shift toward clarifying the internal connections between each asana and set of asanas so that the sequence and series being practiced is more clearly understood. Next is the clearing of extraneous flashy elements that are not part of the system and bringing awareness to areas in the practice where energy is being wasted and/or not channeled at all.  

Inevitably, an element that receives a lot of attention is the proper placement, position and organization of the belly during practice. Most students have static perspectives of how to incorporate the use of the abdomen. A static perspective does not allow a flexibility of shape, size and proportion; the belly is not allowed to shift in relation to context of practice. Maintaining a static perspective of the abdomen while the general shape of the body is changing during practice, hinders a clear understanding of the importance of the abdomen’s shape and its influence on the control of the limbs. The physical bandha must come and go according to the need. The mental aspect of the bandha must always be present for this to occur.

Consider engaging the Ashtanga method as a belly practice more so than what one can do with the limbs. Contemplate the difference in shape, direction, and internal texture of the abdomen in every vinyasa into and out of a posture, and also while in the posture. The focus on the belly allows the asana to only go as far as one is able to understand, organize and shape the abdomen. It’s a safety mechanism that is built into the practice if one knows where to look.  It takes time to get to the point where one can clearly understand what the shape transmits throughout the body. Especially since the practice is initially about stretching and developing strength during the beginning stages of building a practice. 

Speaking of stretching, it’s not always necessary to go for the stretch. It’s not always necessary to go for the limit of expression. Sometimes the asana requires self-containment in mind, body, breath and edge. This is a topic for another post but it has come up recently.