How long to hold each asana

Breathing is a very important part of yoga. In order to gain the full benefits of a pose and to build a strong practice, you need to know how to properly integrate the breath while practicing physical postures. The breath helps you in many different ways in your physical practice. Breathing helps you:. The goal is to use your breath strategically in order to keep it level throughout your practice. While practicing a routine : Use your inhales and exhales to transition from pose to pose.

While in a pose : Use your inhales and exhales to deepen into s pose and keep track of the time in a pose. No matter what style of yoga you are practicing, pranayama, or breath, is a very important part of your practice. There are styles of breath and different breathing exercises that can be practiced. This is one of the most common types of breathing exercises practiced.

Ujjayi Breath is important when holding a pose for a long time and is equally important when flowing from pose to pose in different sequences.

Generally when moving, an inhale indicates an upward movement and an exhale indicates a downward movement. While holding in a pose, this breath will calm your heart rate and slow down your breath, creating stability. This type of breathing is ideal to use before a vinyasa or power yoga class.

It helps you clear your mind and body, creating space and clearity. It helps to expand the lungs to create a balanced breath through both nostrils. You can practice alternate nostril breathing by using your right thumb to close your right nostril as you inhale deeply through the left then release your thumb and exhale through your right then switch sides.

Repeat this times. This breath works great if you are practicing outside on a hot summer day or if you are practicing any type of hot yoga.

You can practice this breath by rolling your tongue into a cylinder then close your mouth and hold your breath for five to Exhale slowly through your nose. Repeat for 15 to 20 times. Three Part Breath is great to practice with yin or restorative yoga. Start by inhaling through your nose. Fill your chest and lungs, then your upper abdomen and lastly fill your belly. When you exhale, release the breath from your belly, then your upper abdomen and finally your lungs and chest.

This type of breathing is mainly practiced during Bikram yoga and is used to warm up your muscles and to detoxify your body.

To practice Breath of Fire, sit up nice and tall, elongate your spine, and lift your head to the ceiling. Make your inhales and exhales the same in force, depth, and time. In short, the amount of time you hold a pose for depends on what your body is seeking and the type of yoga you are practicing. Some yoga requires a certain amount of breath in order to maximize the health benefits. For example, when you hold Warrior II, the muscles of your legs and arms have to work harder to maintain the pose.

When you hold a pose, you have time to actually feel, to adjust and to re-adjust. Watch out for allowing your mind to become completely occupied with this, though. Holding a pose for longer than you are used to can often give space for emotions to arise. Every one of us has been guilty at one time or another of immediately reacting when life becomes uncomfortable; we may try to control or change the situation, for example. Practising acceptance is a useful thing to do while holding your pose for a while.

Learning to stay with the breath and staying present to any emotion that arises will help. You can apply the same principles; staying with the breath and observing the feelings without attaching to them. As long as your body is comfortable, the asana can be held for minutes at a time.

In fact, for restorative purposes, it is recommended to hold the poses for intervals of 60 seconds, while deep breathing is practiced. Deep breathing helps open up the ribs and helps stretch the spine. Another way to determine how long to hold the position is to breathe in and out, up to five times during the process of holding an asana, but only if the position can be held without discomfort.

Remember, the main focus is to be able to accomplish the pose while maintaining a comfortable position. Understanding safety during physical Yoga practice is vital to accomplishing these asanas, without causing any damage to the body. It is crucial to understand that practicing Hatha Yoga poses is not a race, and taking the time to do the asana correctly is much more important than holding a pose for any amount of time. There are some Hatha Yoga poses that are not meant to be done for minutes at a time.

It is not always true that holding a pose for an extended amount of time is better. For example, the Peacock Pose Mayurasana , the Eagle Pose Garudasana , and the Crow Pose Kakasana , are asanas that might not be executed for very long time, due to their ability to cause internal or external strain. All of the meditative poses, however, can be held for longer periods of time, without any complications. For these types of postures, it is actually beneficial to retain the asana without needing to take a break.

Asanas are meant to strengthen the mind and spirit, while toning the body, in a safe progressive manner. There are many types of Hatha Yoga, which have many different objectives and purposes. Anyone may leave you, but your breath will not leave you until you die. And another thing is it will transport you to a place where you and your body are linked. Questioner: Yogic practices are often done in sets of three. Is there a reason why? Sadhguru: There are many ways to look at this.

This is a dialectical culture. A story will say one thing, but it means something else. It is intentionally structured that way to evolve our logic. Somewhere you have to touch the gray. If everything is black or white for you, no one can be with you. You think you are logically correct but no one can stand you because it is gross logic.

So we evolved another kind of logic. But this is more than fuzzy logic — this is dialectical culture. Most Asian countries and large parts of Africa are dialectical cultures, but here in India, we evolved this into a completely different process, particularly using it to describe anything spiritual. On the surface, it looks like a fantastic story. But if you dig deep enough, there is logic to it.

You know, yoga started with Adiyogi , and one of his names is Tripurantaka. I will cut the story short because with Indian stories, even a sub-story will last for days, and this is intentional, because the idea of the story is to take you logically into an illogical realm.

Otherwise, it is very difficult for a human being to rest your logic because that is the only thing that has seen you through life till now. If something does not fit into your logic, your mind will naturally reject it. So the story logically takes you to a place beyond your present level of logic.

I will not tell you the whole story because that would take a whole day. Conquering three dimensions There was a rakshasa king. Rakshasa is generally translated as demon, but they are not necessarily demons. They are a different kind of people who do not subscribe to the laws of society.

A rakshasa is one who is ruled by his own passions, his own lust, and his own needs. Conquest, rape, and grabbing things are normal for him. This rakshasa king became very powerful, so powerful he built three cities floating in the sky. He ruled these cities and whenever he wanted, he came to the earth and ravaged it.

There was no competition for him. He was such a warrior and his armies were so strong, no one could stop him. He terrorized all the others — human beings and gods. At that time, the god population in the country was more than the human population. We had million gods, even then, and not that many people!

That many gods and yet this man had no sanctity for anything. He just ravaged everything that he saw. No one could kill him; no one could conquer him.

They called all the devas. All the heroes went to fight against him, but he not only vanquished them, he disgraced them in every possible way. He made sure that he was the power. At that time, Shiva had his eyes closed. They went to him and pleaded for years, but he did not open his eyes — he was somewhere else.

Shiva saw that he could not shoot down these cities individually — he had to shoot down all three at once. So he shot a single arrow that went through all the three cities and they fell down. This can be expressed in many different ways. In terms of qualities, these three dimensions are called tamas , rajas , and sattva. In terms of physical manifestation, we call them pingala, sushumna, and ida. These three nadis are the manifestation of who you are. Then there are the three forces earth, moon , and sun.

Essentially, life is happening between these three. You can see it as past, present, and future. Or you can see it as ida, sushumna, and pingala. Or you can see it as earth, sun, and moon. If you try to conquer only one out of the three, you will be on an endless ride because the three are internally one. In yoga and in spiritual process, a lot of people are trying to take charge of only one thing, which is a desperate endeavor.

Victory requires conquering all three The message is: unless you shoot all three of them at once, you will never be victorious. It is a spiritual message given in an elaborate story. How he became a Tripurantaka is a whole book by itself. How he fought the Tripura, the many weapons he used, what all happened — all these things describe the struggles of a human being trying to conquer one aspect of his life. Someone wants to conquer his mind without conquering his energy — he can try as hard as he wants — it is not going to happen.

Someone tries to discipline the body without taking charge of the mind and energy — do what you want, it is not going to happen. Mind, body, energy; sun, moon, earth — all these are three. Unless they are shot with a single arrow, they will not fall. Questioner: Sadhguru, why should we keep our eyes closed in most of the asanas? Sadhguru: If you close your eyes, the world disappears — unless you have your own false world in your head.

Right now, I am looking at you. If I close my eyes, you are gone for me. Unless your imagination is running wild because you have no control over it, if you close your eyes, the world is gone for you. Disengage and internalize When you do an asana, you want to internalize everything. One basic step towards any internalization is to close your eyes. If you eat something very good, if something hurts, if something is nice, if you really want to experience something, you close your eyes.

This happens naturally when you want to internalize something, because out of the five senses, your vision is the most outwardly engaging process. If you lose your vision, your sense of hearing and your sense of smell will improve, but fundamentally, especially for a human being, vision is the most dominant sense.

By contrast, a dog for example perceives the world through its sense of smell. It knows who you are not by looking at you but by smelling you.