Sthiti is translated as stillness in Sankrit. It turns out there's numerous definitions.
I'm sure many of you will agree that finding stillness is probably one of the most challenging things we can do as our minds are constantly whirling.
I've been looking at Urbhya Padangusthasana this week which in it's entry requires that moment to find balance and ultimately stillness. It's made me really appreciate all the transitional moments within the practice where it's intended we find that moment of stillness, before moving into another pose.
However, as with all things in yoga there's more to it than that. We practice physical yoga (Asana) to prepare the body for stillness and meditate.
It's no coincidence that meditation is the penultimate limb on an eight fold path of yoga.
Diving into meditation isn't easy or necessarily the right path. Some would say that we only start to really appreciate mediation in our latter years. There's a real link why we move though each stage. For example, I only really understood breath (Pranayama) have practised poses (Asana) for quite a long time. The same goes for sense withdrawal (Pratyahara) and concentration (Dharana).
I love this very honest piece by Meesha Sharma on Healthline, about the 8 limbs of yoga. She says, meditation is more a state that overcomes us, rather than something that we do. I totally agree with this. Here's the piece if you you want to read more.
Also, is it no coincidence that Samasthiti, also known as Tadasana (mountain pose) and Sthiti is repeated in Astanga Yoga, again and again and again. As we come back, rebalance and be still before moving into the next pose.
Here's a link from Kino MacGregor https://omstars.com/blog/pose-tutorials/how-to-do-samasthiti/
Stillness has been a big thing for me this week.
As some of you know, I've been doing dog training with the brilliant team at Alphadogs in Finsbury Park. Yesterday my little dog Mr.Brown and I entered the Kennel Club Bronze award test.
After several weeks (probably months), of consistent work I was prepared to give it a go. But dogs being dogs in a different environment with 11 other handlers in a fairly busy Finsbury Park, with another training class going on at the same time, felt like a challenge. The test itself lasted nearly 2 hours.
The thing I was most concerned about for our Jack Russell cross was the 'stay'. The handler has to be 5 steps away, dropping the lead and the dog must not move for 60 seconds. Interestingly, like mediation this was kept towards the end of the test as its recognised as one of the most difficult things to do.
Mr. Brown was starting to get quite restless but thankfully I got him to stay for the required time under strict observation - and we passed!
I hope you too can find a moment, maybe even a minute, to enjoy being still this weekend.
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