Asana Is a Question – Shifting from Performance to Presence in Yoga (Free Video with Judith Hanson Lasater)

Discovering the True Purpose of Your Yoga Practice

Here’s a question for you: When you move into a yoga pose, like a forward bend, where are you trying to go?

If you’re like most of us, you’re likely aiming for some ideal of what you should look like in the pose.

Maybe where you think you “should” be able to go based on what other students look like in the pose—or based on visuals you have seen of—God forbid—some young and bendy Instagram influencer.

If this sounds like you, you’re not alone. This is the way most of us tend to practice.

But in reality, we’re practicing from our head, not our body, thinking we should be doing yoga in a certain way and be able to do certain things—like touching our toes in a forward bend.

Shifting from Performance to Presence

But as renowned yoga teacher Judith Hanson Lasater famously says: “Yoga is not about touching your toes, it’s about what you learn on the way down.”

What if we approached our practice differently?

The asana is a question. You allow yourself to be with the resistance in the body.

“Simply start to move forward in the forward bend until you feel only the first shimmer of resistance in the body,” Judith notes.

And then you wait there. You don’t try to fight against limitations to the pose. You simply stay with the difficulty.

And you listen…

A Conversation with Your Body

“It’s like asking the body a question and we wait for the answer,” Judith explains. “The asana poses the question. And then we wait until the body responds.”

The body may respond by spontaneously allowing you to sink more deeply into the pose. But it happened without willing or forcing the change.

Can you feel the difference?

You’re not imposing your will on your body. You’re in conversation with it. You use the resistance as a gateway to go more deeply into the pose.

“This is incredibly deepening,” Judith says. “It draws you into yourself so much more deeply than just bending forward like you know you can do every time.”

This makes yoga a practice about presence, not about performance.

The Difficulty Is the Teacher

“When we begin to shift our consciousness,” Judith teaches, “we need the reminder, often of a little difficulty, to stay present in the moment. The difficulty isn’t something to fight with or overcome. It’s the teacher.”

What does your body tell you?

This is the question at the heart of a truly transformative yoga practice—one that invites us not just to perform techniques, but to live yoga in every moment of our lives.

When we learn to listen to the wisdom of our bodies, we unlock something profound: an inner sanctuary where healing, presence, and true transformation become possible.