Striking a balance between effort and ease in your practice

At the end of a class recently, everyone seemed a bit weary. I commented that it can be easy to try too hard in a yoga class, because we want to get the physical benefits, because we are trained to be ‘good’ students, and to follow instructions as best as we can, or maybe we are just used to always pushing to our limits. 

But in a class where I might offer time to try around eight reps of a movement for example, you don’t need to do all eight! More is not better. Some people will want and need that, but for many, four repetitions will be plenty, or even one, because….

We need time for our body and nervous system to gradually acclimatise to new things. You are not lazy, ‘bad at’ yoga, lesser than anyone else in the class, or showing yourself up if you do less or do it more gently. Yoga is not a place where you need to keep up, or to do it all.

Yet, even though I say things like, “see how much feels about right and then rest”,  people still overdo. I call this the ‘too much’ zone. 

Practising Discernment (viveka)

In yoga we are trying to develop the skills of discernment - which can look like asking, ‘What is most helpful for me today?’, ‘what is enough?’

I find thinking in terms of Zones of Practice is helpful to work out this personal, ever-changing balance. 

Cultivating a Comfort Zone

A vital foundation for a long term yoga practice is cultivating the COMFORT ZONE - a positive, ‘feel good’ relationship with your body, which is often an ongoing job. This includes having movements which feel good and pleasant to do, which become familiar, which you can reliably and easily come back to anytime, coming home in your body.

Cultivating the Stretch Zone

In addition, yoga is a fantastic tool for exploring a ’STRETCH ZONE’ - exploring more unfamiliar sensations, trying new patterns of movement that might feel intense and difficult at first and need repetition to integrate. This is the learning zone, the place where we create helpful change and see the possibilities for change in ourselves. It’s where we  progressively and gradually expand physical skills and capacity - so good for our health and our life! 

The comfort and ease from practice might be the most important part for you right now. Some of us need to build a reliable comfort zone first, to provide the nurturing we need for ourselves to be able to handle the intensity and unfamiliarity of harder things.

Because the body and mind are not separate, the stretch zone expands the ‘window of tolerance’ of the nervous system and all of our capacity for life, even beyond movement skills - our capacity to feel ok in a challenging situation, or to stay with more intense sensations/feelings, for instance.

Balancing effort and ease in your practice

The skill of a yoga practice lies in BALANCING THE TWO ZONES, which then feeds your motivation and joy in your practice. Enough ‘feel good’, as well as enough creating change via challenge.  

That balance is different for every person on any given day.

Only you can work out that balance, and what is enough in your practice. We need to fully take on that the practice is our own.

Sticking with mainly comfort can be a way to ‘zone out’, avoiding that truthful reckoning with your own body and possibilities.

But too much intensity and discomfort is counterproductive and your nervous system will activate more tension and resistance anyway.  

We need enough of a stretch zone for change and progress and to stimulate the benefits of nervous system, physiological and neurological challenge, while also being aware of any habitual tendencies to overdo and overpush. Often if we have habits of overwork and over pushing ourselves we bring these to our yoga practice.But our yoga is meant to be a place where we develop our awareness of our tendencies and enquire into  them, how they impact us.

In our culture, work and achievement are so priorities, whatever the downside, like long term exhaustion or a lack of tuning in and perspective or time for feeling and processing that slowing down and deep relaxation can offer.

In your yoga you can and should have full autonomy over how much you feel is enough for you on any given day. Only YOU know your body, how you’ve slept, how new or hard  a movement is, etc. Only you can truly feel and take care of yourself. The teacher’s job is to facilitate and support you in relationship with yourself. 

As someone who grew up doing sport competitively, this is what I loved about yoga straight away.

No more crap of feeling judged on winning or losing, or struggling  through horribly hard training. 

The skill is in making your practice enjoyable and responsive - kind and helpful for your own individual needs and life in the moment, striking some kind of balance.  Making it YOUR practice. 

What do you feel about this? Do you recognize different ways you might be approaching your yoga practice? Sometimes overtrying? Sometimes finding the ease and nourishing you need? Or sometimes ‘zoning out’? 

Does it feel helpful to think that you can vary what you seek in your practice? I’d love to hear about your experience.