4 Phases of a Still-Shape Practice

For your consideration: 4 phases of a still-shape practice.

Phase 1: the shape matters.

> You use some amount of will to get into a particular shape and stay there.

(Language: muscle, fascia.)


Phase 2: the route you take to get into the shape matters.

> Each asana begins the moment you begin moving in its direction. There are 10,000 ways to get into forward fold, and each will yield a different forward fold.

(Language: fluids.)


Phase 3: the options you have along the way, and the options you have within the shape itself, matter.

> You have options, can move this way or that along the way to, and once in, a shape, adapting to a moment-by-moment reality changing in front of and within you.

(Language: nervous system.)


Phase 4: who you are, and the way you are being that, matters.

You’re aware that you are not just a person on a mat making a shape and breathing some way. You affect and are affected by any and everything else.

(Language: heart / electrical (this one I’m least sure of, but there's some really wonderful evidence describing the body’s electromagnetic field, of which the heart is a kind of centerpiece, creating and receiving these impulses)).