If you’ve been practicing yoga asanas for a while, you may find yourself questioning your progress. Are you on the right path? Should you still consider yourself a beginner, or is your practice advancing? These are natural thoughts as you evolve in your yoga journey.
Yoga, at its core, is an individual practice without rigid measurements or universal scales. However, certain indicators can help you gauge your growth and understand how far you’ve come.
Synchronizing Movement with Breath
The first phase of your asana practice begins with learning how to coordinate movement with breath. While it might not feel particularly profound in the beginning, every yoga class will guide you on when to inhale and exhale during different movements.
At first, this focus may seem monotonous. But over time, you’ll start to notice a shift. You’ll seek out classes where the teacher places special emphasis on breathwork, and you’ll come to understand why the breath is such a vital part of the practice.
Exploring Asanas with Alignment
The next stage of your practice involves refining your approach to alignment. This is when you learn how to practice asanas safely, preventing injury while exploring the subtle nuances of each posture.
Every asana comes with its own set of techniques that need to be understood. As you progress, the focus will shift to aligning your body properly, which requires both flexibility and strength. Mastering this balance takes time but is essential for a sustainable, injury-free practice.
Breath-Focused Asana Practice
Reaching a stage where your asana practice flows seamlessly with your breath marks significant progress. Here, movement becomes fluid, free from discomfort, and the breath remains steady throughout every transition—whether you’re moving into, holding, or exiting a pose.
By this point, your body has developed a memory of the poses, so there’s no longer a need to focus solely on alignment. Your mind stays fixed on the breath, and your breathing expands, tapping into the pranic layers of the body, nurturing your life force.
The Infinite Mind
The final phase of asana practice can be considered its most advanced. At this stage, the focus shifts from the breath to a state of infinite awareness. There’s no conscious effort to “practice” asana anymore; rather, each posture flows naturally, like a divine melody from a master musician.
Your asana practice becomes an expression of the mind’s journey into infinity. In this state, meditation happens spontaneously—it is not something you actively do but something that arises from your deep concentration on the breath (Dharana). This is encapsulated in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra: “Prayatnashaithilya-anantasamaapattibhyam”—effortlessness and the merging with the infinite.
At this level, every asana leads you into meditation. Every movement, both on and off the mat, becomes a practice of presence. Life itself becomes infused with the essence of yoga.
