Earth in the Dynamic Yoga Method
EARTH: THE ELEMENT OF STABILITY
Earth is the fundamental secondary element. Its qualities are form, stability, firmness, cohesion, maintaining, grounding and doing. Its fundamental expression is form, or structure, and it is embodied in the technique of asana. The arena of earth is the spine, its source is the foundation, its medium the muscles, and its key the bones. It is cultivated and expressed by establishing stability (shtiram) and comfort (sukham) in the body. The essence of structural stability, and therefore comfort, is opposition. All forces, movements or actions must be provided with resistance by opposing forces, movements or actions.
The superficial application of earth is to approach the body in a linear manner, suffocating in the detail. The subtle application is based on the feeling intelligence of awareness: sensitivity. Establishing earth requires the utilisation of pressure, the sign of its presence is the opposite, emptiness. Without some means to establish structural stability we will not be able to challenge and release tension and weakness. The specific shapes of yoga postures systematically challenge tensions and weakenesses that inhibit every muscle and muscular relationship in the body. This challenge, if applied with sensitivity, honesty, openness, presence and generosity (yama), frees both body and mind. Then the body is no longer experienced as a finite, structural capsule, but as a rhythmic dynamic of awareness (ananta samapatti).
The context of yoga posture practice is gravity pulling the body towards the earth which in turn supports it. The process of yoga posture is to engage this as effectively as possible, with the minimum necessary effort (prayatna sithilya). This depends first on a grounding action that allows the body to become as stable (sthiram) and relaxed (sukham) as possible within action. No matter what posture we are in stability, and therefore comfort, depends entriely on the relationship we have to the floor: the foundation. In every posture the foundation must be actively engaged. This then originates, supports and predetermines all the other muscular actions in the body.
There is no need for the living power of the human body to be reduced to a mechanical structure by applying inorganic geometrical principles to its articulation in space. The human body is perfectly capable of establishing integrity within its own functioning if it is allowed to. Every joint, every bone, every tissue and every cell are not only calling out for integrity at all times through the pain-pleasure mechanism, but are also endowed, by that same mechanism, with the capacity to establish it. This they do , individually and collectively, by seeking the greatest possible comfort, on the basis of the greates possible stability produced by the least possible effort in the whole body (sarvangabandha).
