The Fullest Expression of the Pose by Angie Hay

Joyce and Sara, partner-supported heart opening.

Yoga teachers love to tell you about “the fullest expression of the pose.” I first started hearing this little phrase a few years ago when some Vinyasa teachers I know began to experiment with bringing inclusive language into their classrooms. Everybody was getting clear on the fact that saying “the real pose” was going to have to be abandoned because of the division it created - here I am in the real pose, there you are in that fake shit. Folks were casting about for a more yogic way to describe pose levels, and suddenly the “fullest expression of the pose” arrived.

Like so many mistakes, it was quick to catch fire. Reach back and grasp the opposite foot to come into the fullest expression of the pose. Touch your forehead to the floor to come into the fullest expression of the pose. Lift the feet off the ground to come into the fullest expression of the pose.

This phrase tends to hang out with poses that contain some degree of impossibility. Despite its many lovely levels of complexity, I have yet to hear anyone talk about the fullest expression of downward facing dog. Or the fullest expression of criss-cross applesauce, also known as sukasana. It always describes something to be attained, a goal to be accomplished.

Just like circus performers, we yogis want our bodies to do amazing things. We want to measure our progress from who we once were to who we are now. We want our bodies to be our temples, our playgrounds, and our measures of worth. Remember when I couldn’t put my foot behind my head? Well, look at me now. How long a road I’ve travelled. How different I’ve become.

The problem with thinking of poses in terms of their fullest expression, the problem with this endgame asana, is what we allow it to infer about the rest of the practice, ours and everyone else’s.

The first time I kicked my feet over my head into forearm balance, I rested upside down against the wall for a few seconds, then laid down on my mat and cried with the sheer joy of living inside a miraculous vehicle. Was this the fullest expression of the pose, or would that arrive when I could balance in the middle of the room? After my friend’s knee surgery, she practiced a beautifully aligned tree pose laying on her back. Was this the fullest expression of the pose, or just a placeholder for a day when the real thing could show back up? I have seen many pictures of B.K.S. Iyengar draped over a solid wooden arch practicing a wheel pose. Would you suggest that this was not the fullest expression of the pose because of the prop? I triple dog dare you to say that to his face.

Outside of the laboratory of your own body, can you really say what the fullest expression of any pose is? What resource can give you this information? Light on Yoga? The nationally famous yogi you took a workshop with last weekend? Your Instagram feed? These are all likely to disagree in many ways.

Furthermore, supposing that such a thing as “the fullest expression” exists, what is its real value? From a therapeutic perspective, we know that we can see measurable results from the simplest and most relaxing forms of asana. From a spiritual perspective, we know that the yogi in class who can take every bind may not even be the nicest person in the room, let alone the most enlightened. From a physical perspective, we know that the ability to achieve extreme poses actually says very little about the health of the body creating them.

In truth, “the fullest expression of the pose” is just “the real pose” in disguise. Here I am in the fullest expression, there you are in that empty shit.  It's a way to separate the wheat from the chaff.  

But when I look at my students, wherever they show up in the vast spectrum of a pose, I don't see chaff.  I see wheat for days.  To be increasingly effective yoga teachers, we need to practice dissolving our biases in every way - around race, around class, around sexual orientation and expression, around gender, around size, around age, and definitely around ability. This is not a liberal PC imperative but the revealed truth of the philosophy that surrounds the practice we love, which tells us that we are all one, all Divine, in no way divided from or less than all that is. The language you choose in class will surely and steadfastly reveal the ways in which you remain trapped in the illusion that we are separate from, and therefore measurable against, each other, and this language will inform your students thinking about themselves and the practice.

Honestly, sometimes grabbing a toe is just grabbing a toe.  And the fullest expression of yoga asana is something that can never be captured in a photograph.