The Practice of Savasana: Tias Little Interviewed by Leslie Howard, Part 2

Liminal Space by Melina Meza

Here is the second excerpt from the interview that Leslie Howard did in 2008 with yoga teacher Tias Little. In this excerpt he talks about his own practice of Savasana and describes the importance of our relationship to the ground. —Nina  

Leslie: Have you had any memorable experiences in Savasana? Do you remember ever having something out of the ordinary happen? 

Tias: No, um, “Cape Canaveral” blasting off into other orbits but certainly when there is fatigue even within several minutes the body can go to that liminal place between wakefulness and sleep. And that, of course, is a sacred time: Sandhya—between the dawn, between light and dark, between inhalation and exhalation. So between the conscious and the unconscious—the liminal. That threshold is a really valuable place to abide. I think for Savasana if the student is with it and is trained, they are actually in that liminal place. And place I felt in my own practice is where the healing, the really deep healing occurs.

I can’t think of any one or two powerful experiences I have had besides the profound recuperative powers of the pose. And certainly an image or images coming out of consciousness are healing, too. 

Leslie: Do you always do Savasana in your own practice?

Tias: No, no I don’t. There are a lot of times when I don’t do Savasana.

Leslie: Is that because of time constraints?  

Tias: Partly but I don’t push my nervous system so that I need a rest at the end. I am resting in my poses. Whereas I used to “push the pedal to the metal,” so I needed that time for recovery. Now I don’t push myself; I don’t push my nervous system. Something I wanted to share is that in Savasana, there are autonomic releases, discharges, called titration—just little bits of strain are dissipated out of the body. So that can show up as a sigh, it can show up as a flick of the wrist, it show up as eye movement, dream patterning, heat coming off of the body. All of that is discharging strain, which is really where healing occurs. 

I mean I have experimented with consciously trying to create autonomic movements. It looks something like this: when the body clock goes to that place of deep rest and then starts to fire, twitch, and discharge, that is where real healing occurs. So it is valuable if you can have the students long enough in the pose so that some of that release can happen. And you can’t make it happen; it has to happen in the place of a really deep rest. So I think that is why Savasana is so healing in that sense. It is partly those autonomic releases. The ability to let the skin fibers go. 

Leslie: When you do Savasana, do you have a preferred set up? 

Tias: I would say supporting the backs of the knees, supporting the back of the head. I don’t cover my eyes as I think it is too much pressure on the eyes. It makes my eyes blurry. 

Leslie: Is there anything else you would like to say about Savasana?

Tias: The relationship to ground is so important. Unfortunately many people don’t have a good relationship with the ground. The ground is not a safe place to be, either they have been thrown down, pinned down, for instance, a traumatic episode. So for that reason people may be prone—especially with a traumatic episode of Flight of Fight—people will spiral upward. That is why Kundalini yoga may sound attractive. “Oh good I can get out of where I am”. So people may not—as strange as it may sound—have good rapport with the ground.

So I think Savasana builds trust. When we did healing work, we had them feel their feet on the ground—basic. What does it feel to have the floor support you? So those are directives to bring the students back to presence, especially if they are reenacting something from there past. If there is disassociation, ground is so important. So on a healing level, when it comes to trauma, ground establishes trust. In nerves. In respiration. So in that sense it is really valuable for the student that they can let go.

You, I am sure, have had the student is unwilling to close their eyes. They are so caught in activation response. Even though, okay, everyone is lying flat and I am going to talk you through it sweetly—let go of this, let go of that. They can’t. They are stuck in the on position. How do you encourage that student to find and trust the ground, to fall in love with solid ground? Do you know the poem “The Opening of Eyes” by David Whyte, the Scottish poet?

"That day I saw beneath dark clouds the passing light over the water and I heard the voice of the world speak out. I knew then as I had before life is no passing memory of what has been nor the remaining pages of a great book waiting to be read. It is the opening of eyes long closed, it is the vision of far off things seen from a silence they hold. It is the heart after years of secret conversing speaking out loud in the clear air. It is Moses in the desert fallen to his knees before the lit bush. It is the man throwing away his shoes as if to enter heaven and finding him self astonished open at last fallen in love with solid ground."

I always feel if I can get my students to fall in love with solid ground it allows people to be here—for whatever reason people are not here—here with a capital “H”. 

Leslie Howard is an Oakland-based yoga teacher, specializing in all things pelvic. She leads workshops and trainings nationally and internationally, and is the director of the 200 hour Deep Yoga program at Piedmont Yoga. With a state certification in massage, she also practices cranial sacral therapy. To learn more about Leslie, visit: www.lesliehowardyoga.com.  

Tias Little lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico where he directs his school, Prajna Yoga, with his wife Surya. His third book, The Yoga of the Subtle Body, will be published by Shambhala Press in 2015. His first two books are titled The Thread of Breath and Meditations on a Dewdrop. In addition to leading yoga workshops and teacher trainings throughout the US and around the world, Tias currently offers on-line classes through Yoga Glo. See www.prajnayoga.net for more information about Tias.

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