Asana and pranayama are the second two elements laid on the moral foundation of the yamas and niyamas. It is these two elements that we focus on the most during our daily classes.

Asana - postures

The practice of asanas puts pressure on different glands in the body which stimulate them to provoke glandular secretions which in turn have an influence on the body's nervous system. Our nervous system depends on a healthy spine as its channel. The regular practice of Asana keeps the body healthy and gives us a sense of wellbeing.

Meng Foong demonstrates paschimotthanasan

Asana practice is about taking time for ourselves and grounding ourselves in the present moment, bringing our focus to our immediate actions and their consequences in the here and now in the framework of the body.

By practicing asanas we might think at first that we are working merely with the physical body, but soon we see that in fact we are training the mind through the body. The mind decides whether our body is capable of doing an asana and the body complies. The body is also our teacher. The mind sometimes resists certain postures. It is through our practice that we learn more about the fickle nature of the mind. We can start to understand the underlying causes of this resistance and to overcome them. Through attentive asana practice we can observe how the body influences the mind. Each asana has a different physical shape which in turn induces a corresponding mental shape.

Once we become familiar with the different postures we can more clearly observe the mental state produced by the asana. Are we comfortable or uncomfortable in the posture? We can observe how the breath is affected by the position and how the mind is in turn affected by that combination of posture and breath. In some postures the physical balance is challenging and we can again look at how the mind deals with those challenges.

By training the mind to remain stable when there is a physical imbalance or discomfort, we train the mind to deal with uncomfortable or difficult situations we may encounter in our everyday lives. Yoga is about controlling the mind, gaining mastery over our thoughts and habits and changing some of our deeply ingrained mental patterns.

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Sthira-sukham asanam - An asana is a comfortable steady pose.

- Patanjali