Asana Column: Supta Padangusthasana (Reclining Big Toe Pose with Variations)

Learning to move like a starfish can enliven all your asanas.

By Donna Farhi

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Although in the West we've come to use the word "pose" as a synonym for "asana," a yoga asana is not simply a pose. A pose is a static copy of something other than ourselves, but an asana is a movement that arises within us. While an asana may seem static to a casual observer, it is not a fixed position at all. Rather, the form of each asana acts as a container for subtle yet dynamic inner movement. For a dancer or athlete, internal impulses result in movement through space; for a yogi, these impulses move instead along internal lines of force, reverberating within and constantly renewing the container of the asana. When we witness a yoga practitioner skilled in this dynamic internal dance, we sense a body in continuous, subtle motion. Too often, students interpret and practice "asana" as "rigid stance," perhaps because our images of asanas come from photographs, or because some instructors teach asanas as static sculptures. But if we rely on such guides, we may strive to obtain the external appearance of an asana without ever gaining the true internal experience of it.

To experience the true fruits of hatha yoga practice, we can't simply copy old forms, mechanically mimicking traditional positions. The original yogis explored, experimented, and invented new ways to move and be in the body, and we must practice in their spirit—sensing, feeling, and acting from our own internal motivations—if we're to actively participate in the continuation and evolution of yoga.

In our modern world, we have many new tools to help us rediscover and extend the path of the original yogis. My own yoga explorations have been especially illuminated by the work of Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, director of the School for Body-Mind Centering in Amherst, Massachusetts. Her theories about the way in which human movement patterns arise, from conception through to adulthood, can provide modern day practitioners of yoga with a road map for reconnecting with the internal world that makes an asana an organic, living experience rather than just an imitative, static pose. (For more information about Body-Mind Centering and yoga, see articles in Sept/Oct 1993 and Nov/Dec 1998 Yoga Journal.)

One important movement pattern described by Bainbridge Cohen, navel radiation, begins in utero and continues to develop into early infancy. In our mother's womb, receiving nourishment and eliminating waste through the umbilical cord, we are like a starfish with its sensitive arms extending from and feeding back into its central mouth. Like a starfish, we initiate movement from our center, moving from our core out into our six limbs: two arms, two legs, head, and tail. These limbs become fluid projections of our core, their relationships to each other organized around the center of the body at the navel.

We may initiate activity from the navel toward the head, the tail, or both simultaneously. We may initiate movement from the navel to one hip, into a leg, or from one arm to the opposite leg, moving through our center in a diagonal line.

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