6
CHAPTER
STANDING POSES
W
hen you stand, you bear weight on the only structures in the body that have specifi -
cally evolved to hold you up in the uniquely human stance—the feet. The architecture
of the feet, along with their musculature, shows nature’s unmatched ability to reconcile
and neutralize opposing forces.
These amazing structures are massively over-engineered for the way most people use
them in the civilized world. Stiff shoes and paved surfaces teach our feet to be passive and
inarticulate. Fortunately, yoga exercises are usually done barefoot, with much attention
given to restoring the strength and fl exibility of the foot and lower leg.
In a yoga practice, early lessons frequently center on the simple act of standing upright—
something humans do from the time they are about a year old. If you can feel your weight
releasing into the three points of contact between the foot and the earth, you may be able
to feel the support that the earth gives back to you through the action of the arches of the
foot and the muscles that control them.
Release and support, giving and receiving, and inhaling and exhaling—these are all
ways of translating sthira sukham asanam, Patañjali’s fundamental description of asana
in chapter 2 of the Yoga Sutras. T.K.V. Desikachar’s translation sums it up well when he
defi nes sthira as “alertness without tension” and sukha as “relaxation without dullness”
(The Heart of Yoga, II.46). The fundamental lessons you learn from standing postures can
illuminate the practice of other asanas.
Standing positions have the highest center of gravity of all the starting points, and the
effort of stabilizing that center makes standing poses by defi nition brhmana (see chapter
1, page 20).