Is This an Advanced Pose?

At some point in your yoga practice the question arises "what does an advanced practice look like?" When you are in your first years of practice there are tons of new and exciting poses to be explored. I remember the miraculous feeling I got when my teacher explained the secrets of Ardha Chandrasana or crow. I still think headstand is something of a miracle. But the flow of new poses slowed down as my vocabulary grew. My carving for new poses did not. I used to flip to the back of my Yoga Journal to find the section about how to get into all kinds of crazy pretzels. For a while I just stared admiringly, but then one month I thought "I wonder if I could get into that one?" It took a month or so of practice, but eventually I did get my leg behind my shoulder and managed to balance on one hand. Sometimes I wish I had a mirror so I could see if I'm really in it, and other times I think the pose probably looks better in my mind than in real life.

There are still many poses I just can't do. They say most folks are either good at forward folds or backbends but not both. That's true in my case- my backbend is not going anywhere fast. I will never be able to do any of the poses that involve touching your head with the souls of your feet. I'm pushing 40, and I think even the most consistent dedicated practice is only going to get my feet another inch or so closer to my head at best.

So I've got a couple of goal poses at the moment (I've been plugging away at peacock for quite some time. It teaches me humility and patience if nothing else.) But if you are practicing 3-4 times a week (or more as many long-time folks do) it just can't be about doing exciting new poses all the time. It mostly seems to be about climbing back into Dog again and again and again, and trying to find something new, something more subtle each time. It seems to be about cultivating beginner's mind, about a subtle noticing of how today's Dog is different than yesterday's Dog. Sometimes you flip past the pretzel section of the Yoga Journal to the anatomy section to see what more there is to know about the psoas.

I once read a description of an advanced practice by teacher Martin Hunke who said, to paraphrase, that an advance practitioner was one who knew what the body needed on a given day, and could let that wisdom lead their practice. I had a teacher for a while that would say things like "using a block here is advanced" to goad or dare us to use the props we needed. It's true today that a lot of the students whose practice I admire know where their weaknesses and injuries are, and modify poses to keep themselves safe.

Or I think about BKS Iyengar's explanation in LIght on Life that the goal of asana practice is to put your consciousness into the whole body in every pose. Could it be possible that any pose you bring your full attention and consciousness to is an advanced pose?