Gripping

...and letting go: devloping courage, getting bliss

Practice class

Monday evening in the studio in a heatwave. The lovely, loyal women come for the weekly practice class.

Loyal, I mean they vote with their feet. They are too pulled too many ways with work, family and tiredness to come unless the session really does indeed make a difference.

I always value their turning up.

Toes

I notice the feet as they bend and flex their way through sun salutation. The toes are gripping.

Now, I know this from my own experience: holding on unconsciously for stability and safety. One could wobble and fall over. Thing is, they have the core strength to lift the upper body with stretched up arms from a folded over position. And back down too. With ease. This gripping self-protection is not needed.

Bless them - who needs a class with challenge after a long heatwave day? - the women have a go. Yes, relaxed and strong toes coming along.

Head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes

When the toes relax, other gripping falls away, gripping you were unaware of. In this instance, toe gripping included a mental tightness, fear of falling.

And so beyond performing technique, the real yoga is the incremental courage to not grip the body, but to let go. More flow and grace result.

Awareness of gripping in the body leads to awareness about gripping mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, even. Increased trust and courage.

Hold tight

Gripping is a muscular response to fear. Fear is about survival, sensing danger, and is an emotion deeply, deeply hardwired. As you know, the stress response involves a tightening in the shoulders, neck and scalp. A girded upper body is ready to fight or run away fast, to freeze or to offer a tight, fake, appeasing smile. Hold tight is our body readying for danger.

And, as you know, our physiology often wants to protect us when there is no real danger. So, first comes awareness of gripping (more than half the task), then the techniques to release.

Let go

It takes quite a lot to know how to properly let go and relax. In yoga you learn by experience. A teacher can tell you about it, and encourage you to notice, but more importantly a teacher holds the space for you to experience it yourself.

You learn a yoga posture, and its nuances, and that is the beginning. Breath by breath, week by week, you observe. Am I gripping somewhere? Actually, do I need to hold on? What would it take to let go here?

Even if you did not know the mechanism, at some point you understand from learned experience how yoga supports de-stressing and letting go. Your nervous system learns to identify where there is no real need for fear.

Women coming for class for years now know this inside out. The toes are a tweak and a continuing encouragement to awareness of gripping. Gripping in yoga postures, gripping in life.

From the toes to the head. From the head to the toes.

Accumulated tightness

The effects of chronic stress - headaches, shoulder pain, shallow breath, high cortisol and more - can be ironed out by yoga. Reducing stress and making the nervous system more resilient: these are fundamental yoga benefits.

Here’s a post on the unique benefits of yoga exercise.

Beyond the fundamental benefits

As you may know, yoga exercise was/is intended as a (small) part of Self realisation, a spiritual path. In one classic model, Raja Yoga, yoga asana is step three of eight on the path to Samadhi, the bliss state or union with the divine. The self awareness and the tending to the nervous system in yoga mat practice is the start.

The letting go while literally putting yourself in a difficult position is training for getting beyond the hardwiring and the small, fearful self.

Weekly bliss state

After a while of coming, there is often the wry question, can we go straight to blissful savasana final relaxation? Wry, because they know it is not possible without the physical, mental and emotional energy letting go re-set that comes from sun salutation, asanas and pranayama. The practice makes all the difference.

As I said, the women vote with their feet: they understand the secret power of yoga.