This may sound very “new-age”, another yoga-ism, but does this really have any real application when it comes to getting through a class?

The “mind-body connection” has become a term that is as over-used as “I’m fine and you?”. The meaning gets glossed over because we become desensitised to these terms and phrases. It is, however, a large part of what we are trying to engender and one of the main reasons for doing asana practice.

We have been moving our bodies our whole lives, and for those of us lucky enough to not have any major injuries, it’s pretty effortless. We walk while eating or typing messages into our phones, we drive while talking (hopefully only to other people in the car) and most of us can perform basic physical exercises without having to think about them too much.

In asana, we very much go back to the beginning in the sense that we take the same amount of care and thought to perform “basic” postures of the body as a child takes to walk or colour a picture. Through our intentional focus on the “basics” however, we begin to realize their depth and subtlety.

When we are instructed to extend the arm to the fingertips, we feel our attention moving there. For all intents and purposes we move our minds. Just think about that for a second (I can’t get away from these puns…). The faculty of attention, which is usually involuntarily activated by something new coming into our sensory radar, has now become activated and brought under control by conscious effort.

In other words, by using our body as an object of attention we can start to exercise control over the mind. Something that is usually just reactive, aimless and “roaming” (our attention) has now started to become a tool that we can choose to use how we see fit. It’s deceptively simple and like anything requires practice. Becoming aware that it’s a possibility is usually a great motivator though.

The real reward comes later: as we develop this habit in our 1.5 hour (or longer) practice, it starts to become an established way of being, and that bleeds out into the rest of our lives. What was once an aimless movement of the mind that provided endless distractions that had to be lived with, has now become a tool that enhances the way we live.

It’s one of the things that are possible when we work to bring the mind back into the body and re-establish the (drumroll…) mind-body connection!