If More is Better, When is Enough Enough?

Jul 31, 2013 | Wisdom, Yoga practices, Yoga teaching  | 0 comments

virasana
Do you subscribe to the notion that more is better?
I didn’t think I did, but when I visited my new dentist yesterday, I found out I was over brushing my teeth. Eek! I was just trying to do a good job. I had some decay in one of the teeth in my jaw’s upper left quadrant, and I thought I should be getting in there to give it a good scrub. Come to find out that brushing too hard causes abrasion to enamel and exposes the dentine beneath.
It’s taken a long time for me too learn not to push my body so hard in any pursuit that the wheels start to fall off.  these days when I practice yoga, I try to do it with more finesse than force. And, when I’m teaching, I emphasise that poses need to be done while still being able to breath freely and with minimum physical and mental tension. I say, ‘Imagine having your fingers on a dial that regulates effort and you can ratchet up or turn down any amount that you choose.’
I had to rethink a fixed but erroneous notion of what constitutes diligent tooth brushing. Yoga students will often push their bodies beyond sensible limits because they think they will get more benefits that way. What makes yoga practice yogic is when we work sensitively. That requires dropping fixed ideas or mental pictures of perfect poses or exhorting our bodies to do more than our breath and anatomy will allow.
Do any of us know how to do this? Perhaps the exalted masters do, but for us mere mortals, what is needed is moment-by-moment fine-tuning of the energetic dial… looking, and listening and seeing. Then, we will know when enough is enough.

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