We are so dependent on structure, which is our stability. If you think about what structure is, it’s the geometry of how we make ourselves stable, capacious, and free in the imagination. When you do your physical practice [of yoga], what you’re focusing on are forms.
Forms are the physicality of the practice. And forms have to be formulated with formula so it can inform you about how to transform you.
Forms can deform. Forms can inform. Forms can reform. And forms can transform.
And what you really want to do is use your forms to be formidable.
Abbie Galvin, Teacher and Owner of The Studio in NYC
My Love/Hate Relationship with Structure
I have a love/hate relationship with structure. When I don’t have enough of it, I crave it. Once I get some structure, by imposing it on myself or putting myself in situations where I agree to be governed by it, I resist it.
Yoga: Origami For the Body
The physical practice of yoga is about forms. Nevine Michaan, the founder of Katonah Yoga, describes physical yoga practice as “origami for the body.”
Origami is the Japanese art of folding paper into shapes. Through the repeated act of folding, the 2-dimensional paper becomes a 3-dimensional object, capable of holding something.
A cup that can hold water. A cube that can hold air. A boat that can hold its own on a pool of water.
In the same way, in the physical practice of yoga — known as “asana” in Sanskrit — we fold bodies into shapes. Despite common perception on Instagram, the purpose of creating these shapes is not to contort the body into weird configurations.
Rather, one purpose of the forms is to create a container in which breath can flow, increasing our capacity to breathe, helping us fill up with oxygen, and in the process, fulfill our potential.
As Nevine and my teacher Abbie Galvin, who owns The Studio in NYC often say, if you’re not breathing, it’s just contortion.
Another purpose of the yoga forms is to provide information, reformation, and transformation.
How Forms Inform, Reform, and Transform
How we enter and exit a pose, and how we hold ourselves in a pose, reveals information about our subconscious patterns — our habits. A pose can inform us about how we are moving off the mat.
Do you rush into a pose, doing your best version of what you think it should look like? Do you compensate, for example, by using your upper body to support your lower body? Do you shift and wiggle around?
What happens when it gets challenging to maintain the form? Do you push harder to hold yourself up with muscle? Do you push through to get to the next pose? Do you take an exit into a different pose to rest?
When we have support — through props and human assistance — to get into a pose in the correct form and stay in that pose for a while, we can have an insight into how we have been stuck in our habitual ways. By reforming the pose, we can come out of our habits and find greater consciousness and intention in how we move — on the mat and in life.
With support, we can finally be in the pose instead of working so hard to find it. Once in the pose, we can find our center, gain awareness of our habits, and have a new experience that leads to transformation.
The Liberating Potential of Functional Forms
Although I still have moments when I resist the formality of structure, my studies of Katonah Yoga have given me new appreciation of form, on and off the mat.
When form is functional, it can be liberating. A functional form allows me to work within the structure of a container, without having to think so much or work so hard. This frees up the imagination for greater creativity and deeper presence.
Venus, the planet of beauty and art, is in Capricorn for the next few weeks (Jan 23-Feb 16, 2024), Capricorn is the sign of long-term planning and persistence. It loves a structure.
Astrologer April Elliott Kent explains that Venus in Capricorn loves the bare bones of things, the elegance of functional forms.
Evaluate the Forms in Your Life
This is a perfect time to think about the forms and structure in your life.
- What information are you receiving from your forms and structure?
- How might you need to refine your forms to provide better information or reform your habits?
- What support do you need to create more functional forms?
- How might these functional forms liberate you to expand your capacity and fulfill your potential?
How can you use structure in your life to become formidable?
[…] Functional forms are liberating. […]