YOGA

What makes Ashtanga therapeutic is its Tristhana methodology.

Tristhana is the term used to describe the unity of three aspects of the practice. First, the yoga posture, or asana, second, the mindful, regulated breath, or pranayama, and third, the focus point of vision, or drishti.

Asana, pranayama and drishti are also terms from Sanskrit. I’ve decided to use the original Sanskrit terminology because it’s a nuanced language and westernized translations of Vedic concepts often undermine all that these practices have to offer.

For example, the term breathwork was taken from pranayama, although it doesn’t accurately describe what pranayama truly is or what it can do for a person. Pranayama can elevate the practitioner’s consciousness in profound and scientifically proven ways. Intensive pranayama requires a lot of technical training and can be dangerous if done improperly but the basics needed for yoga are simple and easy to learn. And the results it produces are stunning.

Getting back to Tristhana, the first component is the asana or posture. Asana warms the body and purifies the blood. When the blood warms and flows faster through the body, it cleanses the organs of toxins.

Second, each posture is held for at least five long, slow, deep “ujjayi” breaths. “Ujjayi” is the specific form of pranayama used in Ashtanga yoga. It is performed by constricting the back of the throat, to create a sound like ocean waves. (Pranayama itself constitutes another limb of the eight-fold path. The limbs can also overlap.) Ujjayi is translated from Sanskrit as “the breath of victory.” This method of breathing stimulates the vagus nerve and puts the body into a parasympathetic state—autonomic processes known to create emotional wellness. The transitions between each posture are completed through one long, slow, and steady Ujjayi breath as well. In this way, the asana sequence progresses like a moving meditation.

Third, each posture is performed with a specific drishti or focus point of vision. (For example, hold trikonasana, or triangle pose, with the gaze fixed on the fingertips. There are eight drishti points in total, including the tip of the nose and the tips of the toes.) Drishti trains the practitioner to hone their skill of concentration, as the senses withdraw from the outside world to fix themselves on a singular point. In this way, drishti also helps with balance. Some drishti points even help to balance the hemispheres of the brain.

When Asana is performed with Pranayama and Drishti, it transforms from simple exercise into a means to elevate your consciousness. As the practitioner continues to hold the asana, the muscles become strained. It takes effort to maintain any posture for an extended period. As this is done with the ujjayi pranayama, which simulates the vagus nerve and puts the body into a calm, parasympathetic state, as well as the Drishti, or focus point of vision, the tristhana method creates exquisite transformation.

This unity of engaged muscles with regulated breath and focus of mind classically conditions the practitioner to associate stress with focus of mind and calmness of breath. This is why the traditional image of the yogi is associated with peace.

As you train yourself to better cope with stress, you develop a deeper relationship with yourself.

The first yogis were trained to practice with their eyes closed and to sit in asanas for hours. This is the ultimate way to withdraw: to train the mind to focus and the nervous system to regulate. The only way to evolve is to train your mind to be at peace with pain. All practices that bring about a higher level of consciousness do this.

A royal court official appointed Pattabhi Jois to teach Ashtanga yoga. The sequences were also created so that teenage boys could show off advanced yoga postures in public demonstrations and pique the interest of the masses. With Jois’ Ashtanga, the Drishti points were also popularized. A sequence with eyes open and postures held for a short time is more accessible, and more likely to be adopted as a daily practice by the mainstream. This was Krishnamacharya’s goal, to make yoga popular again. This was how yoga was first transformed from an hours-long meditation practice with eyes closed in remote mountains, practiced only by a few mystics and yogis in isolation—to what it is today. In the 1970s, K. Pattabhi Jois began to teach his Primary Series of Ashtanga practice to Westerners, and the rest is history.

That Ashtanga was initially designed for teenage boys probably also lends itself well to trauma release because trauma will often leave a person with the restless mind of a teenager! In any event, Jois became famous, and he spread Ashtanga all over the world. Every vinyasa class taught today derives from the Ashtanga Series of Mysore, India. His grandson, Sharath Jois, still teaches classes in Mysore and worldwide.

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To heal, you need awareness of why you do what you do.

Yoga facilitates this state of awareness.

It creates stillness in the mind and space for conscious contemplation. Every aspect of the practice encourages the elevation of consciousness. For example, many of the postures in the Ashtanga primary series appear extremely difficult. A daily practice that leads your body to do what once seemed impossible opens doors to a more empowered relationship with yourself. You begin to wonder what other unfathomable successes might await with a bit of daily, centered practice.

Some of the postures are incredible to witness.

In the US, my own dog would look at me with a tilted head and near-cross-eyed confusion as if he was thinking, why would humans do this?

 Then, whenever I’d have an extra-strenuous practice, he’d get all huffy and storm off, aware of the dampened quality of our later jog, like, I can’t even look at this. You traitor.

Another time, long before the RV voyage, on a camping trip, I did the practice while a guy friend of mine was around. I asked if he’d like to join me.

 “I don’t know. Is there a posture where you kick yourself in your balls?”

 “Ya,” I replied. “It’s called Janu Sirsasana B.”

Janu B stimulates the Muladhara, or root chakra, as you sit with one leg stretched forward and the other bent at the knee from the hip at an eighty-five-degree angle. You then adjust yourself to sit with the heel thrust into the perineum. It’s not really a kick in the balls.

Getting away from that… Tristhana is the most important aspect of yoga, and in the West, it’s hardly ever taught. But you can incorporate these techniques into your practice on your own, and reap the profound rewards that this ancient, sacred tradition was originally designed to offer.