What is Intelligence in the Body?
Lessons from Tadasana
In my early days as a yoga student, one of my first teachers said something that has always stuck with me. He said that as beginners, we generally come to yoga with legs and arms. Then, as we progress in our practice we no longer have just legs and arms, but we have an upper leg, a lower leg, an upper arm, and a lower arm. Then, as we progress further, we have an upper-outer leg, an upper-inner leg, an upper-back leg, an upper-front leg, and so on.
As I have ventured on my yoga journey, I have found the above to be to be an apt description. I am so often amazed by both the lack of awareness in certain areas of my body and the sudden awakening of awareness in others.
Take the feet, for example. Having stood on my feet for pretty much my whole life, one would think that my understanding of how my feet touch the floor would be, at the very least, well informed. But before Iyengar Yoga, I’d say the closest I had come to experiencing intelligence in my feet would be the very unpleasant feedback I’d get from accidentally stubbing my toe!
As I began to develop an Iyengar Yoga practice, I became increasingly aware of subtleties I never knew existed. Tadasana is a fundamental asana and introduced even in beginner classes. So this most common position – standing upright was, all of a sudden, ripe with nuance.
Do I stand more on one leg than the other?
Do I stand with more weight on the front of my foot than the back?
Do my arches drop?
Can I feel all 5 toe mounds? Why are some easier to feel than others?
Does my inner heel press the floor?
Is the nail bed centred on the toe?
Does the outer edge of my foot drape down and cut the floor?
What happens when I walk?
Why do the outer heel side of my shoes always wear out first?
Are my toes gripping?
So what does all of this mean?
For me, developing an intelligent body meant:
I could no longer realize the perks of ‘ignorance is bliss’. The light bulb had been turned on and I felt compelled to adjust myself in a centred and balanced way.
I found myself standing in line at the grocery store equalizing the weight between both legs. Waiting for the subway, I’d look at the alignment of my feet and ensure that my toes turned just slightly in and immediately I’d feel breadth (and release) across my sacrum. I could not believe how powerful such subtle adjustments could be!
Looking for areas of dullness or sharpness, comparing my right side with my left – these inquiries allowed me to find depth in my yoga practice. Sometimes, when the chatter in my head was too loud, this pragmatic exploration of how I was responding to the shape of the asana was exactly what I needed to withdraw from outside stresses.
As I further progressed, I could begin to apply a similar mode of inquiry to my breath, and this was a gateway to the beautifully rich practice of Pranayama. Without first ‘training’ myself to direct consciousness to different areas of my physical body, I doubt I would have had either the discipline or the sensitivity to begin (the lifelong journey of) penetrating the various kosas.
Kosas refer to layers or sheaths of the body. In Light on Pranayama, BKS Iyengar describes the 5 kosas as follows:
The annamaya kosa is the anatomical sheath of nourishment.
The pranamaya kosa is the physiological sheath. It includes respiratory and other systems of the body.
The manomaya kosa is the mental sheath and it affects awareness, feeling, and motivation.
The vijnanamaya kosa is the intellectual sheath and it affects the process of reasoning and judgment.
The anandamaya kosa is ethereal. It’s a universal sheath, a spiritual sheath of joy.
In Light on Life, BKS Iyengar likens the kosas to layers of an onion, or nesting Russian dolls. This has always resonated with me. I think inherently, I have always known that there is a mind-body connection, but the concept of kosas allows me to explore that connection at my own pace, in a safe yet directed way. It has led me, in BKS Iyengar’s words, from the periphery of my being toward its core.
Emphasizing alignment is often a cornerstone in Iyengar Yoga teaching. Sometimes though, it gets misrepresented. My practice and my teaching changed markedly when I distinguished between alignment for the sake of alignment, and alignment for the sake of awareness. Alignment is a means, not an end. It’s a tool to move you towards developing awareness, intelligence, and consciousness of the body (& beyond).
There is no set path or schedule when it comes to developing awareness. For some, yoga will target body awareness, for others body awareness and physiological awareness. For others, perhaps body awareness and mental awareness, and for others, maybe, spiritual awareness will play a role. The path is different for everyone. The ability for the same practice to simultaneously serve in different ways is, in my opinion, one of yoga’s most special powers ✨.
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NOTE: This article was originally published in January of 2015 on the Studio Po Iyengar Yoga Blog
If you enjoyed this article and would like to pursue your own exploration of Tadasana, please check out this related practice from my YouTube channel.
You'll learn how to engage the muscles in your thighs, find the ideal spacing between your legs, distribute your weight evenly, and activate your arches —all while simultaneously enhancing your inner alertness and sensitivity.
I’d love to hear about your exploration of Tadasana. Please feel free to share any interesting insights you come across in the comments 🙏.
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