Yoga poses have three distinct stages, just as every story has a beginning, middle and end, and every day has a morning, afternoon and night. The three stages of a yoga pose are: moving into, sustaining and releasing.
3 Distinct Stages
The 3 different stages of movement and thought that we engage with in our asana practice is similar to the age-old adage of taking time to smell the roses. Moving too quickly through your yoga poses, like rushing through life, can leave you feeling strained, stressed and even feeling a little empty, like you’ve missed out on something along the way.
Break It Down
The key to truly experiencing a yoga pose, like life, is to slow down and enjoy each part. Breaking down every yoga pose you do into three distinct stages helps you heighten your physical and mental awareness of move, feel, release as you work each asana.
Moving Into
The first stage is the transient moment when you enter the yoga pose. Slowing down your process of moving into a yoga pose will help you avoid injury by keeping you aware of your alignment. Slowing down will also increase your sensitivity to how deeply your body can go at each moment.
As you move into a yoga pose, focus on your breathing and alignment, even if it’s a challenging asana. Slow movement can allow your yoga pose to feel like an adventure and discovery in its own right.
The final moment of this first stage is when you find your edge; meaning, that any more effort or stretch would be too much, and any less would not be enough.
Now you are ready to move to the second stage: sustaining your yoga pose.
Sustaining
Not to be confused with ‘holding,’ sustaining your yoga pose implies a certain amount of movement as you let your body naturally adjust and expand to find your perfect expression of the pose.
Breathe, feel, watch and allow thoughts and sensations that arise as you sustain your yoga pose. Working with your edge, you might begin to feel a subtle evolution of the pose as you relax and let go, inviting your body to explore the pose.
Remember to stay in contact with the sensation(s) you feel at your edge. It is at this stage that we can access and watch as our fears, doubts and even aggression begin to surface.
This is the signal that it is time to release our tensions through breath and softness.
Release
Finally, slowly, come out of your yoga pose in the exact reverse of how you went into it. Again, moving slowly will help you avoid injury while maintaining any release in your body that you have created in opening and supported poses.
Once you have fully released your yoga pose, take at least 10 seconds to close your eyes and feel the effects of the pose. Are you tired or energized, cool or warm, calm or agitated?
Feel the flow of prana (energy) moving freely through your body and enjoy this feeling of release — that little treat which comes as a reward for every pose!