Opening, affecting and connecting the body´s materiality to the otherness

By stressing the dynamic connections established between mind and body in Iyengar yoga practice, I have presented some of the ways in which the multiple body (somatically felt, sentient and feeling) is constituted and experienced. Now, I will focus on the ways in which the body (and its experience) is done through practice, drawing particular attention to the body´s capacity to be open to being affected by the other. In order to do this I will foreground the practice -in the way it is done within the perspective of Actor Network Theory [ANT] (cf. Akrich and Pasveer 2004, Mol and Law 2004)- to show how it works to create the particular experience of the embodied self which was presented. As it was explained in the introduction, this approach is of great value, since it complements the phenomenological perspective of the lived body by displaying all the body´s potential for relationality. While the first approach allowed to exhibit the ways in which Iyengar yoga defies the mind-body split, this part will show how the practice challenges the assumption of a singular, fixed and bounded body and its correlative conception of a self-contained subject.

Latour´s (2004) article ‘How to Talk About the Body?’ is a good illustration of conceptualizing the body as always multiple in the sense that it is open to different kinds of assemblage with techniques, artefacts and practices, by which it is constituted. By using the example of the odour kit he shows how the body´s capacity for developing a good nose is not isolated from the material, social and cultural context, but rather it is the result from the articulations by which the body learnt to be affected –in this case by the odour kit.

Starting from Latour´s approach and this specific example, it is possible to expand our understanding of the body´s transformation as a result of its connection with the mind, complementing it with the idea of a body which can learn to be open not only to the subject´s reflexivity and intentionality, but also to the material conditions that surround it. From here, I will explore how the use of props in the practice of Iyengar yoga offers a particular form of articulation which is central for the enactment of the lived body I have described.

Something that is learned through Iyengar practice is that props cannot be understood as pre-existing and pre-defined objects, which are separate and ready to be used by the practitioner. Actually, props are defined not so much by their material characteristics (form, texture, weight, etc.), but rather by the way in which they are used. Therefore, what might be seen as a singular and fixed chair can be transformed, when used as prop, into a multiple artefact with many possible and different uses. Despite their multiple functions, props are defined ultimately by their articulation with the practitioner´s body, an articulation which implies a dynamic entanglement rather than a mere interaction between two separate entities, i.e. object and subject. This articulation simultaneously demands and promotes in the practitioner the embodied learning to be affected, i.e. the possibility to be open to that process of interpenetration with the material other. Here, to be open means something very concrete as it is through the skin that prop and body are entangled. In the body/prop conjoining, the limit of the skin is transformed into a permeable interface allowing the interchange between the inside and the outside.

We might think about this by drawing on Howes’ (2005 in Blackman 2008) notion of ‘skin knowledge’, which refers to the skin as more than physical surface, considering it as “a form of intelligent bodily knowing” (2008: 86) which is characterised as not simply cognitive but also tactile. Using this notion, it is possible to understand the importance of the skin in Iyengar yoga practice, for it is the site by which the embodied self is connected with the other (human and non-human), but also as it is the place where the bodily awareness can be developed.

Supta Virasana

In order to have a more embodied approach to the assemblages between body and prop, and particularly to the role played by the skin in them, let us resort to some examples. In the photograph we can see the performing of Supta Virasana (Reclining Hero pose) with four props (one blanket, one belt and two blocks). From an external point of view it might be judged as an easy posture, since it appears as a mere action of lying. However, there can also be a lot of action and movement happening in the sentient and felt body and this is directly dependent on the way the body is open to be affected by the props.

In this case, each prop constitutes a particular conjoining with a specific part of the body, which means that they are being affected in different ways. The articulation blanket/gluteus, for example, is touching the gluteus´ skin in a way that gives to them a particular direction. But none of these articulations are intended to affect only the body´s surface, but rather to be incorporated through the skin as a more internal bodily awareness. In this case, the contact created between the blanket and the gluteus allows the development of a sensibility which penetrates from the skin to the gluteus and from there to the lower spine (coccyx). With the conjoining block/upper back is a little different, since what is incorporated is not a direction or movement through the skin, but rather the action of pushing. Here, to be open so as to be affected means not to resist the block, but rather to be able to let go the corporeal materiality in a way that the upper back is incorporated in the body´s flesh while the body is penetrating the block. The sensibility is transmitted from the back to the front, allowing the opening of the chest from the internal movement. Finally, in the articulation block/head, the block is providing a support for the head. Nevertheless, by letting the head to be heavy on the block´s surface, an internal movement can be felt: the front starts lying on the back with perceptible changes in facial muscles and skin, where tension starts to be released.   

This example illustrates how the sentient and felt body experienced in Iyengar practice is not the result from an entanglement between mind and body situated just within the individual. It is rather produced by specific forms of assemblage between the body and its context –here materialised by the props. The direct implication of this is that the body´s boundaries are disclosed as porous and therefore the inner/outer and self/other distinction is destabilised. Rather than a fixed and bounded body and self, through this analysis of Iyengar yoga is revealed an embodied self, opened through the body´s capacity to be affected, and which is always becoming different by being done and enacted through different forms of mediation.

Bibliography

Akrich, M. and Pasveer, B. (2004). Embodiment and Disembodiment in Childbirth Narratives. Body & Society 10(2-3):63-84.

Blackman, L. (2008) The Body: Key Concepts. Oxford: Berg.

Latour, B. (2004) ‘How to Talk About the Body? The Normative Dimension of Science Studies’. Body & Society 10(2-3): 205-229.

Mol, A. and Law, J. (2004) ‘Embodied action, Enacted Bodies: The example of Hypoglycaemia’. Body & Society 10(2-3): 43-62.

From the body as a physical object to the awareness of its existential condition

Even though Iyengar can appear as a mere physical practice for an external observer and even for a beginner, it is much more than that, since it has to do with what is done within and through the body in a way which necessarily implies the mind. In fact, it is expected that by connecting mind and body in the use of our corporeality, there will be effects along all dimensions of human existence, including the physical, psychological and spiritual realm. In Iyengar´s (2005 in IYI Maida Vale 2012) words: “Even in simple asanas, one is experiencing the three levels of quest: the external quest, which brings firmness of the body; the internal quest, which brings steadiness of intelligence; and the innermost quest, which brings benevolence of spirit”. In this respect, Iyengar practice can be considered as an embodied reflexive practice, for it demands both the development and cultivation of mental and physical capacities, particularly a state of embodied awareness which is the basis for moving forward with the practice. Although not exactly the same, we might think about Crossley’s (2004: 37) description of ‘reflexive body techniques’: “´The body’ is an object in practices of modification. It is reflectively thematized and worked upon. But it is equally a subject or agent in such practices”. Therefore, Iyengar yoga has been described as ‘meditation in action’ and it can be actually thought as similar to other spiritual practices such as Buddhist meditation which also originated in Eastern ancient philosophies and are characterised by a non-dualistic approach (cf. Pagis 2009).

In my experience with Iyengar yoga I have seen that it is this mind-body connection what appears as the most challenging aspect when it is first taken up. After all, what is at first realized when engaging with this practice is the everyday condition of one´s own body, which is for the most people normally characterised by its absence, in the sense that it remains out of reach of their consciousness. In Iyengar yoga, beginners are usually surprised when recognising that verbal instructions that appear to be easy are really challenging, since what is apparently understood by attending to the teacher´s demonstration (corporeal/visual and verbal) ends up being something infertile which does not necessarily lead to the performing of the posture. Thus, the beginner realizes the general disconnection between mind and body that is present in most people´s everyday life. 

In this sense, from the very beginning of Iyengar practice it is central to learn how to bring the mind into the body, being able to transfer a verbal instruction into a material, fleshy action. For beginners this might be necessary even for rough actions, such as extending legs and arms to their full potentiality. This capacity for connecting the mind and body is not something that is achieved by intellectual thinking or just by will; actually it cannot be transmitted just by the teacher´s bodily demonstrations and verbal instructions. It is something that depends especially on the individual´s ability for developing the body´s capacity for sensing, thinking and doing. The cultivation of this embodied capacity is like an open-ended journey from the coarsest layers to the subtlest ones discovering a whole new universe of sensations and perceptions. It is a journey from the external, visible, known and speakable to the internal, invisible, unknown and to some extent unspeakable. In this sense, it is said in Iyengar that the real work in the posture only begins with the actions (internal and invisible) that are carried out after movement (external and visible). This exploration from the outer to the inner (unlimited) body is made possible by the dynamic interpenetration of mind and body which allows to penetrate with self-awareness increasingly more space of one´s own embodied being. 

Starting from a cognitive understanding of the posture (through visual and verbal information), the first step is to recognise and ‘inhabit’ the external body by paying attention to it in a way that it can be sensed. It is true that at the beginning, while mind and body are strongly disconnected, the practitioner has often no sensibility of her/his own body at all, and has to look at its parts to know if they are responding or not to the mental instruction. However, the capacity for sensing the body is something that starts to come quickly with practice. Nevertheless, the challenge from here is to transform what is initially a general sense of the body with only thick distinctions of its main and evident parts (trunk, arms, legs, hands, feet, neck and head), into a finer and subtler sensibility for exploring not only more specific parts of the body (such as shoulders, upper and lower arm, heels, toes, etc.) but also the materiality of the skin and from there to the inside of muscles, tissues and organs. In my own case, I can remember when I moved from an external and plain sense of the skin to more profound internal sensibility, through which unexpected actions and feelings were opened. Some of them are speakable, such as opening my chest by expanding the space around the sternum and expanding the thoracic cage through the activation of my pectoral and intercostal muscles; others are only partially grasped by language, such as sensations of emptiness, ecstasy and electricity.

In this sense, the practice of yoga is experienced as an ongoing process of transformation of one´s body; an opening of a ‘sentient body’ (Blackman, 2008) where the capacity of thinking is progressively detached from the visual sense to be located in the skin and the more internal and visceral senses. The visual sense is particularly challenged from the beginning when the practitioner is encouraged to feel its back and all the body´s parts which are out of the visual range in order to correct any ‘de-alignment’ which would be unsafe and more difficult to adjust in more advance poses. By doing different kinds of postures the embodied awareness is distributed to every part of the body´s surface and inside by using the sensibility from propioception and interoception. For example, while standing poses such as Ardha Chandrasana (Half Moon pose; see left photograph), develop the capacity to sense our feet with its toes, sole, heel, arch, etc., inversions like Sirsasana (Headstand pose; see right photograph) defy our spatial references and demand a flowing sensibility responsible for maintaining the dynamic balance needed for being some minutes in the posture.

In this way, the sentient body discovered and created through the practice involves a complex and dynamic system of sensible connections between the smallest and most specific parts of the external and internal body. Thus, the capacity for performing a pose in its visible and invisible dimension depends on this embodied awareness, which can be thought, following Blackman´s (2008) words, as the psychological distributed throughout the body. Or, to draw a parallel with Sheets-Johnstone´s (2011) notion of thinking in movement, as the body’s capacity for thinking which in the case of Iyengar practice is created not so much through the kinaesthesia but through sensing the internal movements which are created within and through the body. In relation to this, and to be more precise, one would have to say that the body constituted by Iyengar practice may be described not only as a sentient body, but also a ‘feeling body’ and a ‘somatically felt body’ (Blackman 2008). Feeling body, because of its capacity for thought (2008: 57), and somatically felt body due to its “aliveness or vitality that is literally felt or sensed but cannot necessarily be articulated, reduced to physiological processes or to the effect of social structures” (2008: 30).

From the aforementioned, we can see that the embodied experience created by practicing yoga is constituted by a continuous interchangeable doing from mind to body and from body to mind, understanding mind not as separate but as embodied consciousness. This means that both are in an intimate relationship where there is never a mind working over the body as pure object, inert and passive, but rather an entangled and bidirectional dialogue between the material and the mental, the physiological and the psychological. Because of this complex interplay between a mindful materiality and an embodied self Iyengar yoga can be considered as a practice that challenges the Cartesian mind-body dualism by highlighting the body as the grounding for our existential condition (Csordas 1990, 1999). 

References
Blackman, L. (2008) The Body: Key Concepts. Oxford: Berg.

Crossley, N. (2004) ‘The Circuit Trainer´s Habitus: Reflexive Body Techniques and the Sociality of the Workout’. Body & Society 10(1): 37-69.

Csordas, T. (1990) ‘Embodiment as a Paradigm for Anthropology’. Ethos 18(1): 5-47.

Csordas, T. (1999) ‘Embodiment and Cultural Phenomenology’ in Perspectives on Embodiment. The Intersections of Nature and Culture, Gail Weiss and Honi Fern Haber, (eds) pp.143-162. London: Routledge.

Iyengar Yoga Institute Maida Vale (2012). ‘Why Iyengar Yoga?’. Consulted March 2012 from: http://www.iyi.org.uk/iyengar-yoga-london/why/

Pagis, M. (2009) ‘Embodied self-reflexivity’. Social Psychology Quarterly 72(3): 265-283.

Sheets-Johnstone, M. (2011) The Primacy of Movement (2nd edition) Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. 

Cuerpo Extraño o Extraño Mi Cuerpo

El cuerpo es en la vida del ser humano un elemento siempre presente, es de hecho la condición existencial esencial. Sin embargo, se trata de una presencia que permanece en gran medida ausente en la cotidianeidad. Mientras el cuerpo 'funciona' dentro de los parámetros de normalidad cultural es resignado a un trasfondo de silencio. Así, el cuerpo no habla ni es oído mientras permanece dentro de la comodidad de una normalidad fuertemente marcada por el saber médico moderno, saber al que el imaginario social le concede la primera y última palabra sobre la realidad corporal. Considerando que se trata de un discurso que construye saber (y poder) sobre la condición de patología, sobre la enfermedad y el desperfecto del cuerpo-máquina, no llama la atención que el cuerpo sea atendido sobre todo en los momentos en que los parámetros de normalidad y de homeostasis se arriesgan o ven amenazados. De tal modo, la vida del cuerpo común y corriente se le aparece al sujeto cuando presenta alteraciones cotidianas y esperables -por ejemplo cuando se toma conciencia del cuerpo hambriento o acalorado-, o bien anómalas y posiblemente significativas en tanto dan cuenta de problemas en el operar mismo de la máquina -el caso del cuerpo sintomático, adolorido y 'cortado' característico de un resfrío. Fuera de estas apariciones, mientras más ausente el cuerpo más alabado por ser saludable, es decir, por no presentarse como un problema.

Es esta mirada mecánica y objetivante de la medicina la que, en mayor o menor medida, opera como medio a través del cual nos constituimos como cuerpos. Su lenguaje, su lógica y sus énfasis son los que marcan nuestra relación con el cuerpo, abriendo múltiples posibilidades, pero también poniendo inmensos límites. Sobre las posibilidades, es cosa de mirar el avance y los logros que se derivan del conocimiento biomédico y sobre todo de su alianza con la tecnología moderna. En cuanto a los límites, son los que menos se explicitan y comentan a la luz de la opinión pública. Sin embargo, el movimiento de difusión y masificación de las 'terapias alternativas' pareciera dar cuenta que progresivamente son más los sujetos que perciben los efectos de dichos límites. La aproximación dualista que objetiva al cuerpo y consecuentemente lo disloca respecto del sujeto, deja a quien sufre en condición de paciente: absolutamente pasivo frente a lo que (le) sucede. ¿Qué sustenta la creciente demanda por el enfoque holístico al que se adscriben los enfoques alternativos? Responder que el ser humano se ha vuelto más consciente de la necesidad de una medicina integral y holística me parece que sería caer en una generalización sin mayor fundamento. Creo que la pregunta es interesante y amerita mayor investigación. Lo que si me parece pertinente exponer aquí es la pregunta sobre los efectos de esa construcción médica y mecánica del cuerpo en la subjetividad particular de los individuos; en este caso, desde mi propia experiencia.

Recuerdo ese momento de la adolescencia en que por primera vez creí que iba a morir. Fue una sensación repentina y tremendamente intensa, de la nada una puntada filosa se clavó en mi pecho y rápidamente se expandió hasta que la sensación de quemazón y dolor fue cubriendo más extensión y colmando toda mi conciencia. Lo que comenzó como una sensación de dolor anormal -totalmente nueva- e inusualmente potente se transformó rápidamente en una preocupación de la mano de la interpretación del sentido común enraizado en el cuerpo médico. "¿Qué (me) sucede? ¿Qué es este dolor en el pecho, en el lado izquierdo del pecho, en donde se ubica el corazón? ¿Qué sucede que no se quita y en vez de eso aumenta, se intensifica y siento que ya no puedo respirar?" La puntada, inicialmente focal, es ahora todo un torso en llamas. Inevitablemente pienso en un ataque al corazón. El dolor/ardor se propaga a los brazos y todo el cuerpo parece estar en medio de una emergencia, de una grave urgencia. Pienso en que voy a morir de un ataque al corazón, en que estoy sin mis padres, en llamar a una ambulancia. 

Lo que no sostuvo el discurso médico en ese momento de desconcierto y total vulnerabilidad, lo hizo el discurso psicológico con su publicitado término 'angustia'. Gracias a internet supe unas horas después que lo sucedido tenía un nombre y podía ser articulado bajo el criterio diagnóstico de 'crisis de angustia'. Sin duda algo más tranquilizadora que mi interpretación silvestre de 'ataque cardíaco', la etiqueta diagnóstica no fue sin embargo ningún verdadero alivio para lo que vino después. Tal como el DSM auguraba lo peor venía después, al lidiar con el fantasma de esa muerte anunciada. En fin, fue un momento de mi vida en que el cuerpo irrumpió a gritos y patadas, y en donde la mirada objetivante no pudo hallar solución a este 'quiebre' vital. El ecocardiograma no encontró ninguna alteración significativa que pudiera dar respuesta científica a esta alteración. Y por mi lado yo era un sujeto desahuciado de subjetividad, absolutamente desorientado frente a un cuerpo errático, impredecible y que en su presencia me era radicalmente extraño. Un cuerpo propio y extraño a la vez, angustia que vivía gracias y a costa de mi, obturando mi garganta, comprimiendo mi pecho de un modo ensordecedor. Un verdadero cuerpo extraño alojado en lo más profundo de mi que me desorientaba de mi misma y sólo hacía eco de mi pregunta "¿por qué?".

La posibilidad de otorgarle un sentido a esa experiencia hasta cierto punto inefable solo se abrió cuando reconocí que ese cuerpo apretado, incómodo y en crisis no era un cuerpo, sino yo misma. De ser un cuerpo-objeto relevado en su condición de desperfecto pasó a ser la carne viva que constituye mi condición existencial. Eso fue el día en que dejé de luchar, de resistirme, de llorar y de angustiarme frente a la angustia. Fue el día en que reconocí que lo que fuera eso radical y aterradoramente nuevo, era parte de mi. De ahí en adelante no sólo desapareció lo que hacía extraño a mi cuerpo, sino que apareció toda una dimensión sensible y potencial ligada a éste. Desde entonces soy cuerpo despierto, presente en su multiplicidad, que exploro día a día sin tener que sufrir su cómoda ausencia.