Patanjali’s eight limbs of yoga: ASana

The body is basically a material memory bank, storing all our choices we’ve made in the past. From what we have done, what we have been thinking about and what we have been consuming in regards to both food and mental content.

Emotional and physiological stress is collected by the body and shows up as tightness, tension and resistance in our Asana practice. During times of greater mental ease and clarity like when we are in love or feeling really successful for our body responds by opening right up and our Asana practice becomes more accessible and easeful.

Asana practice primarily transforms our body's response to past experiences, it helps to liberate superficial nadi (energy channels) and give us access to the deeper layers. Asana becomes supremely effective when you understand how different spinal orientations (pose categories) effect the mind and the body's subtle and gross energetic systems. 

Not knowing this information leaves our yoga practice being a guessing game and will lack precision and dependable outcomes, sometimes feeling good and sometimes not. This is why Vinyasa Krama (wise progress) is really important and less poses and longer holds is the more supreme practice energetically. Otherwise we are just creating an energetic soup.