Can you tell us more about your terms "practice to learn," "practice to consolidate and mature?"
You can perspire. You can use props and get more pulls, more pushes, more turnings. You can ask someone to pull you, ask someone to press you, ask someone to turn you, ask someone to stretch you. That is another aspect. When you are doing that you don't practice, you are learning. Practice must be divided in two parts. One is really the practice, where what is learnt is done and no more is done. You develop discretion, judiciousness that you can be stopping somewhere and you can be maintaining it, consolidating it.
The second aspect of practice is to do more and try to go to the next hierarchy, get graduated in Utthita Trikonasana, get graduated in Urdhva Dhanurasana, get graduated in Sirsasana. That is no practice; that is learning. You should also do that on your own, you don't have to always learn under a teacher. You can be learning under your own self. You know what the techniques are in the pose, what more can be done. The degree of Janu Sirsasana, you know that you can be going down the shin; if you are at the knee today, or middle of the shin, you can be going further down because you know there is a rounding of the back, it is not still flat and straight, so you know that you can go beyond and be working for that.
So practice has two aspects: learning and consolidation, both of which should be done. When you learn, you perspire. When you learn, you get exhausted. That is expected, because only that will give you progress, but then if you constantly want progress, you can't get upward graph. Because of various factors (e.g. you're ageing) you are going to go on a downward track. If you are progressing, you can be progressing in the twenties, thirties, forties and fifties. But sorry to say, that after fifty, you are going to start on that downward track. If not at fifty, at fifty-five, if not at fifty-five, at sixty, if not at sixty, at sixty-five or seventy, at seventy-five, eighty. Somewhere you are going to get on a downward track. Although you work hard, you will never have irreversible progress.
You are looking for progress and you think the graph of progress is pointing upwards. Again, you are wrong there. It is not necessary that the graph of progress is always pointing upwards. For example, between your twenties and your thirties, if there is a sharp angle of progress, then in your thirties and forties, the angle of progress will be less sharp. This can still be progress. In your fifties and sixties, if you are on a plateau, still it is progress. At sixty and seventy, if you are maintaining your practice at the same level, it is still progress. At eighty, if you maintain this, it is an incredible progress. So don't think progress is only an upward graph.
This habit of "maintaining" should be developed at every stage, otherwise you get frustrated. At every stage, you must have this so that you can assimilate. If it goes into your system, then your perceptions improve in the pose. Because if you are going upwards, you don't look around. Somewhere you have to stop and look around when you are climbing a hill ; because when you are climbing, you have to look down at your feet. Understand this aspect in progress: when you are actually progressing, you are looking down, and if you want to look around, you have to stop and look at the sky.
You can't be climbing looking at the sky. So, the progress is not totally a progress, because you don't get circumspection. When you are doing, practicing or learning, a stage must be there every time that you are on a plateau. You look around, look at the top, look on the sides, look at the bottom, and then you will learn so many things. Otherwise most of the Iyengar students, being very sincere are trekking all the time. They don't look around and that is why they miss the perceptions. Secondly, no stages are assimilated without the consolidation aspect. On account of helplessness, the intensities dwindle, for various reasons: ill health, lack of strength, ageing etc. The practitioner then has to stay there and end up frustrated.
You should understand, that even in the status quo, there is progress. If you are able to do in your seventies what you did at forty, it is great progress. Therefore consolidation is very important in practice, otherwise you will not get the intricacies of the pose, and you will not learn them. Because the thinking process does not occur when you are struggling.. You can't be thinking, you can't be thoughtful, you can't be reflective. And basically, you don't assimilate the pose. Morsel after morsel goes in, there is constant ingestion of the techniques. You want to see how many things you have in Trikonasana; if there are hundred and if somebody has three hundred, well I should reach three hundred and beyond. So you want to have the ingestion: "How many techniques can I have in Trikonasana? How many techniques can I have in Tadasana? How many techniques can I learn?" So that is why you often say "Oh, I've learnt many points in the lesson." Or your teacher says: "I give you several points," or you say, "I got several points." You are only concerned about getting more and more points, which is just ingesting. Where is the room and time for digesting?
Every time, in every stage, practice should be such that you are digesting. And even beyond that sometimes; I have said you should "hibernate." Why only digest? Because we can only digest; once it is digested, we do nothing, we can do nothing. But the cattle, after digestion, they hibernate: they bring it back, re-chew, re-bite and they can be again taking it inwards. We can't do this, yet still we have got to learn hibernation, not only digestion. In practice, see that you also develop this concept that there must be digestion of what you have learnt and don't constantly push things down the throat. You should not be gulping constantly. So don't be crazy for techniques: "How many more techniques can I get?" But instead, say, "Let me assimilate what is taught."
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