Deliberate Yoga: A New Approach to Your Practice

“I am the perfect Yogi.” Well, I tend to daydream I am. In my mind’s eye, I practice everyday, I am balanced and fluid in all my actions, and I am generous and willing to serve. However, once the daydream dissolves into reality, I am reminded how difficult it is to be a Yogi in today’s nitro-fueled, frantically paced, do more or fall behind mentality. I believe that we have the ability to transcend the herd, simply by being deliberate in how we practice.

I have a divine love for words. I love the energy and history that created them. The word deliberate, has a few meanings, but in the context of practicing Yoga, I like this definition: carefully weighed or considered; studied; intentional. When applied to a practice, a sequence, an asana, or even how you align your body and breath within an asana, being deliberate can sever the bonds of depression and anxiety. Once free from the past and the future, the present is there for the taking. Assigning a purpose to an action, be it macro or micro, allows that action to be an experience, rather than a routine task. During your practice, being deliberate will yield you a bigger present. Your present, meaning The Present of course!

Let’s say you are on your mat, in your favorite class, with your favorite water bottle. The instructor is closing the doors as their sequence soundtrack begins. At that point, ask yourself; what is my intention for this class? I keep it simple and say, “I want to link every movement with its corresponding breath. I will go no faster than my breath will allow.” I am deliberately making each movement mean something, which keeps me in the present moment. Without an intention, I leap forward in thought, creating anxiety, or slip back into the past, spawning feelings of depression.

I can assign an intention for the whole sequence as stated above, but I can also assign an intention for each asana, or a particular part of an asana. Let’s take a simple asana like Tadasana, mountain pose. Standing at the top of my mat, I’ll firmly root my feet into the mat, with the outer edges of my feet, parallel to the edges of the mat. I’m evenly distributing my weight to all four corners of my feet, while lifting up the inner and outer arches. My intention here could be to exchange any negative energy stored in my body, for the positive energy flowing from the ground. This intention keeps me from thinking about a project that I’m working on, or the list of tasks waiting for me once I finish the class. Instead, I can focus on the sensation of recycling old energy for new energy, and discover the medicine within the asana.

Intentions can range from recycling energy, to letting go of old thought processes, to surrendering to a new chapter in your life. Regardless of the intention, being deliberate in all your actions will reveal a deep connection between you and everything on the planet; a connection often hidden in the folds of daily stress and anxiety. So be deliberate, and make every second of your life count.

-Namaste, Michael K. Star

Let’s take this concept and use it in practical terms. I’ve prepared a sequence using this mantra. Demonstrating this Deliberate Yoga sequence is Zuri on her bedroom balcony.

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