The word pose is a misnomer. The “pose,” or the holding-still part, is only the middle third of an asana; entering and exiting the stillness is just as much part of a full yoga practice. Every pose is in and of itself a sequence, a vinyasa, a flowing from this arrangement of limbs to that and back again. And within the Bikram series are sets of synergistic poses — the warm-up, balancing, and spine-strengthening series, and of course camel-rabbit. Bikram practice is, then set within set of vinyasas, from the ten-second pose to the ninety-minute “moving meditation,” as Bikram says. Movement is at its heart.

The most important flow is that of the blood. The series is primarily designed to move blood — tantamount to energy — throughout the body so as to swish through all its tissues — cells, muscles, organs, bones, and scars. The circulatory systems performs biomedical vinyasa. And then there is the first breathing exercise, air flowing in and out with the lungs’ slow bellows. When I breathe properly in that exercise, I feel like a pendulum swinging, both corporeal and weightless.

So the practice is a matter of many parallel and simultaneous flowings of different sizes and shapes. It reminds me too of swimming in the ocean. I used to swim out far out and loiter there, on the tumultuous edge between air and water. My swim was a set of flows: the repetitive strokings, and the journey away from shore and life, the being alone in such a wilderness, and the return home — very much the same as entering, holding, and reversing poses. And the ocean is full of flows: the small surface ripples, the waves tied to the tides, the back and forth cycling of water and air. Movement is the heart of the ocean too.

Namaste,
Yoga Lily