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 all the yoga postures systematically challenge tensions and weakenesses that inhibit every possible 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. Its process is to resist this is effectively as possible, with the minimum necessary effort (prayatna sithilya). Which means to become as stable (sthiram) and relaxed (sukham) as possible within action. This depends on the judicious use of muscular contraction in only those muscles that need to be used being used only to the degree that they need to. 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 while simultaneously being made as large and supportive as possible. 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 inherently perfectly capable of establishing alignment within its own functioning if it is allowed to. Every joint, every bone, every tissue and every cell are not only calling out for alignment at all times through the pain-pleasure mechanism, but are also by that same mechanism endowed with the capacity to establish it. This they do by, individually and collectively, seeking the greatest possible comfort, on the basis of the greates possible stability produced by the least possible effort.
