Vision enlarges and colors our world; lack or loss of it can seem to close us off from the world. Perception is colored by all other incoming sensation and prior conditioning. How we perceive the world is most heavily affected by our minds’ interpretation of any and all of these stimuli. The world without external vision is a loss superficial and deep to us. Vision requires more than perception of light, shape and color. It requires the filter of the mind to interpret what surrounds us, and that filter is greatly influenced by our emotions and prior experience. Emotions and spirituality, difficult to measure in tangible ways, are inherent to how we “see” and deal with life as it passes by us. By allowing the self to emerge as separate from the emotions, we can more clearly perceive any experience. Through yoga, the self is encouraged to experience the physical sensation of poses and develop awareness of emotions. This in turn develops a “vision” deeper than the external - a fullness and spaciousness that connects us to the total life experience. Yoga means “to yoke” or “to join”. Therefore by doing yoga, we do not withdraw from the world but open ourselves up to engage and live more joyfully. We drop barriers and preconceived notions of how the world "is" or “should” be, and discover new opportunities and strengths.
Yoga is about balance, strength, flexibility and focus. Yoga moves the body toward homeostasis. The only real constant in our lives is change, and we need an anchor on which to steady ourselves. That anchor can be as simple as a prayer, a deep breath, a stretch of a tight muscle, feeling the ground beneath our feet, a long deep breath – all ways to connect to sources deeper than our external experience.
Asana refers to those poses we often think of in west as “yoga”. However, yoga is not “yoking”, creating a total experience, until we allow our attention to come to how the pose feels and how our minds and emotions respond to and release from the pose. Through this deeper awareness, we allow time for the present experience, dropping future and past. Asana (poses) can be like a moving meditation. Poses engage movement within a small space, maintain and develop postural awareness, create mental focus through sustained movement and breath awareness, break through negative thought patterns, anxiety, and fear. Yoga teaches us to feel the spaciousness of the body, mind, and spirit - countering the feeling of confinement and entrapment that vision loss can evoke.
Yoga develops balance, spacial awareness, and calm. Poses that will develop spacial awareness are those that move your body through various planes such as mountain pose, back bend in mountain pose, forward folds, side angle pose, side or lateral stretches, inversions, and twists. Poses that will improve balance and groundedness might include various standing poses such as warrior variations, triangle, squats, tree pose with support if needed, and dancer pose. Poses that will release tension and develop strength to open the upper body might include down dog, sitting twists, gentle supported and active backbends. A rounded practice will develop confidence and a happy balance between protective reflexes and joyful movement as you head out into the world.
Cautions with eye disorders: If you have glaucoma, retina disease, or experience loss of vision, check with your physician before doing poses that require your head to be below your heart or yoga practice in general. Avoid inversions such as headstand, shoulder stand, handstand, wheel, or full down dog unless your physician tells you it is safe. Inversions increase pressure to the head and in the eyes. Arm balances will have the same effect, so avoid unless your doctor tells you it is safe. Avoid holding your breath, and seek poses in which the breath is easy and unstrained.
