Asanas — Introduction
The importance of Asanas has already been explained in a previous chapter.
While practicing Asanas try to be free from the approach of competitiveness and achievement. In every posture, reach only the point where pain, effort or body resistance appears and stay at that point without moving. Do not loose that feeling of resistance, but also avoid its increase. Remain in that posture without moving for 10 to 7 deep breaths and focus your awareness in the source of resistance.
Remember that advancement in Yoga practice is not expressed in physical achievements, but in the ability to be aware of the occurrences on all the levels of your existence. Therefore, you must let go of expectations and goals, to observe the body and discover it, step after step.
You will discover that with time, and as you persist in your practice, your body will be more flexible and allow you to perform more complex postures. In any case, do not skip to any of the more advanced stages or postures before you have mastered the preliminary stages and basic postures.
The technical explanations of every Asana consist of stages that, in every one, must be regarded as a posture. As a matter of fact, every Asana is made of numerous parts of movement, each of which is considered an Asana. Because of the technical limitation of referring to hundreds of movement fragments, every technique describes only the major steps.
Even if you can not reach the final posture and remain there, you have to practice every step with full attention and remain in it for a few seconds. In the same manner the release from the posture is done, step by step in reverse order, unless stated otherwise.
Stay in the posture as long as you can, while cultivating a state of relaxation. Begin from the stated minimal time and every day or two increase the time a bit. Do not be tempted to remain too long in the easier postures while at the same time neglecting the more challenging ones. Instead, be consistent in the pace of your advancement in all the Asanas.