This book is by no means an exhaustive study of human anatomy or the vast science of yoga. No single book could be. Both fields contain a potentially infinite number of details, both macro- and microscopic, all of which are endlessly fascinating and potentially useful depending on your interests. Our intention is to present the details of anatomy that are of most value to people involved in yoga whether as students or as teachers.
THE TRUE SELF IS AN EMBODIED SELF
Yoga speaks of getting at something deep inside of us—the true self. The goal of this quest is often stated in mystical terms, implying that our true selves exist on some nonmaterial plane. This book takes the opposing stand that in order to go deeply inside ourselves, we must journey within our physical bodies. Once there, we will not only understand our anatomy but also directly experience the reality that gives rise to the core concepts of yoga. This is a truly embodied experience of spirituality. We make a clear distinction between mystical (the claim to the perception of a supernatural reality experienced by some extrasensory means) and spiritual (from the Latin spiritus, meaning breath, the animating, sensitive, or vital principle of the individual).
The reason for this mutually illuminating relationship between yoga and anatomy is simple: The deepest principles of yoga are based on a subtle and profound appreciation of how the human system is constructed. The subject of yoga is the self, and the self is an attribute of a physical body.
PRACTICE, DISCERNMENT, AND SURRENDER
The ancient teachings we’ve inherited were developed through the enlightened observation of life in all its forms and expressions. The skillful observation of humans gave rise to the possibility of yoga practice (kriya yoga) classically formulated by Patañjali and restated by Reinhold Niebuhr in his famous serenity prayer.1 Within this practice we orient our attitudes toward the discernment (swadhyaya) to distinguish the things we can change (tapah) from the things we cannot change (isvara pranidhana).
Isn’t this a prime motivation to study anatomy in the context of yoga? We want to know what’s inside of us so we can understand why some things are relatively easy to change and others seem so difficult. How much energy should we devote to working through our own resistance? When should we work on surrendering to something that’s not likely to change? Both require effort. Surrender is an act of will. These are never-ending questions with answers that seem to change every day—precisely why we must never stop posing them.
A little anatomical knowledge goes a long way in this pursuit, especially when we include the subject of breathing in our inquiry. What makes the breath such a potent teacher of yoga? Breathing has the dual nature of being both voluntary and autonomic, which is why the breath illuminates the eternal inquiry about what we can control or change and what we cannot. We all face this personal yet universal inquiry at some point if we desire to evolve.
WELCOME TO MY LABORATORY
The context that yoga provides for the study of anatomy is rooted in the exploration of how our life force expresses itself through the movements of the body, breath, and mind. The ancient metaphorical language of yoga has arisen from anatomical experimentations by millions of seekers over thousands of years. All these seekers shared a common laboratory—their human bodies. This book provides a guided tour of this lab, with descriptions on function of the equipment and the basic procedures that yield insights. Rather than offer a manual for the practice of a particular system of yoga, we offer a solid grounding in the principles of the physical practice of all systems of yoga.
Because yoga practice emphasizes the relationship of the breath and the spine, we pay particular attention to those systems. By viewing all other body structures in light of their relationship to the breath and spine, yoga becomes the integrating principle for the study of anatomy. Additionally, we honor the yogic perspective of dynamic interconnectedness by avoiding reductionist analysis of the poses and prescriptive listings of their benefits.
ALL WE NEED IS ALREADY PRESENT
The ancient yogis held the view that we actually have three bodies: physical, astral, and causal. From this perspective, yoga anatomy is the study of the subtle currents of energy that move through the layers, or sheaths, of those three bodies. The purpose of this work is to neither support nor refute this view. We simply offer the perspective that if you are reading this book, you have a mind and a body that are currently inhaling and exhaling in a gravitational field. Therefore, you can benefit immensely from a process that enables you to think more clearly, breathe more effortlessly, and move more efficiently. This is, in fact, our starting point and definition of yoga practice: the integration of mind, breath, and body.
Another ancient principle tells us that the main task of yoga practice is the removal of obstacles that impede the natural functioning of our systems. This sounds simple enough but runs counter to a common feeling that our problems are due to something that’s lacking, or missing. What yoga can teach us is that everything essential we need for our health and happiness is already present in our systems. We merely need to identify and resolve some of the obstacles that obstruct those natural forces from operating, “like a farmer who cuts a dam to allow water to flow into the field where it is needed.”2 This is great news for anyone regardless of age, infirmity, or inflexibility; if there is breath and mind, then there can be yoga.
FROM THE CRADLE TO GRAVITY
Rather than see the body’s musculature as a system of pulleys and fulcrums that needs to function as a counterforce to gravity, we see the body as a dynamically coupled series of spiraling tubes, channels, and chambers that support themselves from the inside.
Some of this support operates independently of the action of the musculature and its metabolic demands. We call this principle intrinsic equilibrium, and its workings are observable in the way the spine, rib cage, and pelvis are knit together under mechanical tension. The cavities contained by those structures exhibit a pressure differential that makes our organ systems gravitate upward toward the body’s region of lowest pressure in the rib cage.
Why does it take practice to learn how to tap into these deep sources of internal support? Habitual tension accumulates over a lifetime of operating our muscular pulleys and fulcrums against the constant pull of gravity, and the constant modulation of our breathing patterns is invoked as a way of regulating our internal emotional landscape. These postural and breath habits operate mostly unconsciously unless some intentional change (tapah) is introduced into the system by a practice like yoga. This is why we often refer to yoga as a controlled stress experience.
In this context, the practice of asana becomes a systematic exploration of unobstructing the deeper self-supporting forces of breath and posture. We offer suggestions for alignment, breathing, and awareness that can help in this exploration in the asana sections of this book.
Rather than view asana practice as a way of imposing order on the human system, we encourage you to use the poses as a way of uncovering the intrinsic order that nature put there. This doesn’t mean we ignore issues of alignment, placement, and sequencing. We simply maintain that achieving proper alignment is a means to a greater end, not an end in itself. We don’t live to do yoga; we do yoga so that we may live—more easily, joyously, and gracefully.
1 Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971), American theologian: “Grant to us the serenity of mind to accept that which cannot be changed, courage to change that which can be changed, and wisdom to know the one from the other.”
2 From Yoga Sutras by Patañjali, chapter 4, sutra 3, in The Heart of Yoga: Developing Personal Practice by T.K.V. Desikachar (Inner Traditions International, 1995).