I can tell you, from personal experience, how not to have a graceful yoga practice: grunt, send dirty looks to the teacher, sigh dramatically, jerk in and out of postures, and slam the door behind you as you leave class (yes… I did this on more than one occasion).
I’ve learned through years of showing up and doing the hard work how to dissolve my temper and blend a dash of grace to my yoga. So aside from not acting like a jack-ass, why is grace important to cultivate in your yoga practice? It helps add a calm, steady and beautiful energy to your practice. And as we know, what happens inside the yoga room, happens outside. Wouldn’t it be nice to handle conflict at work or in your relationships with grace? Or know how to have a hard conversation with your neighbor without getting worked up?
By cultivating grace in your practice, you can add grace to your daily life. And for me, that is freedom.
Photo credit: Deposit Photos
Use your breath
It’s hard to find a sense of grace when you’re struggling. By focusing on a steady and slow breath, you can create the space needed to express grace in your yoga practice. Expressing grace is a sign that you’re in control of your heart rate and mind and you can do this through focused breath work. If you’re practicing Bikram’s hatha yoga series, be sure to breathe in and our of your nose during the postures and use the time between postures to manage and regulate your breathing. If you’re just starting your yoga journey, this is the best way to be graceful in your practice, all the other tips will come with time.
Add (a little) drama when you enter and exit postures
Add a little “regal drama” when coming in and out of your postures; this will help show your body and mind what grace looks like in one’s yoga practice. For example, when you exit Hands to Feet pose in the first Half-Moon series of the Bikram yoga class, take a moment, place your hands together, straighten your spine, pull in your stomach and inhale all the way up. Add a sense of calm confidence when you come out of the posture, keeping your chin up and back flat. Or in Standing Bow, take a big breath, slightly lift your chin in a regal way and then start the posture. I would avoid adding extra movements, extraneous “flare” or adapting the postures when you enter or exit, but use your breath + your body + confidence to add some beauty and grace.
Find a “detach but connected” mental space
Whether it’s in the yoga room or outside, grace comes from letting go. If a teacher is driving me bonkers, or a student next to me is fidgeting between postures, it’s hard for me to express grace in my practice. Learn to let go of what’s happening around you. We often think of being detached as a bad thing, but in your yoga practice you need to find the balance between detaching yourself from judgment (of the teacher, your neighbors, or yourself) and staying connected to the people around you. This takes time to figure out, but once you can detach yourself from judging the people around you, you can simply find yourself connecting to the good parts of them. Is the person next to you chugging water (who cares!), perhaps they will help motivate you in Standing Bow to stay in the posture. Remove judgement and find your grace. This will serve you in infinite ways outside the yoga classroom.
End unnecessary movements
I used to be a twitchy mess, I can only imagine what it was like to practice next to me. By eliminating all extraneous movements I have exponentially harnessed more grace in my practice. As I write this article I realize how intimately linked discipline and grace are in one’s yoga practice. I encourage you to take a moment to read this article I wrote about how to cultivate discipline in your yoga practice.
As with many things related to yoga, much of this comes with time and a consistent yoga practice. The more you practice, the easier it becomes. And like many aspects of yoga, simply showing up isn’t enough. You have to exercise the muscle of your mind to experience the mental focus, discipline and peace of mind that accompany the physical benefits. Get your grace on and let me know how it goes!
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I’ve been out of my yoga practice for awhile now yet know I’ll return. As you said, what happens on the mat occurs off of it too..this post about grace is a wonderful reminder of bringing it to all things.
Started yoga a few months ago. I will have to remember not to be that fidgeting person! I am just trying to keep my balance.
You must be like a swan in yoga.
A swan?! I wish!
I do yoga a couple times a week and these are wonderful ideas. It is not only a practice for me, but a way of expressing myself. Not a good dancer, but I feel like yoga is my dance… Wish I would remember to breathe outside of yoga!
I feel like it’s a wonderful way of expressing myself too Lynn :)