Cikitsa - Repair and Recover

This is the final post about why we practice what we practice at various stages in our lives. The information shared here comes from my understanding of what I have been taught from Sri Krishmacharya/TKV Desikachar via Chase Bossart, Guta Hedewig and Dolphi Wertenbaker, and how yoga is presented at KYM, the Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandarim in Chennai, India. If you find this information helpful, all gratitude goes to these excellent teachers. If you end up more confused than ever, then that is on me.

If you prefer, you can listen to this post as part of the Atha Yoga podcast, Yoga Happens Now.

In the previous posts, we offered an overview of this life stage framework for understanding how to practice. Then we looked at two particular ways of practicing - śikśana and rakšana. These are Sanskrit words that refer to a practice that is centred around discovery and learning (śikśana) or maintenance (rakšana). In each of these posts, we also referred to another way of practicing that isn’t connected to a particular stage of life - cikitsa (chi-kit-sa). If you were to look cikitsa up in a Sanskrit dictionary, it would be defined as “medical attendance” but, in this context, we might translate it as “therapy.” A cikitsa practice could be needed at any time of life if we fall ill or get injured and need to bring ourselves back to health with guidance from a teacher.

I especially want to linger on that last point. An important feature of a cikitsa practice is that it is given and followed closely by an experienced teacher. Sometimes the teacher initiates that close guidance and sometimes the student will. This is a nuance that is quite interesting.

When a client arrives with an injury or illness, then part of my work as a yoga therapist is to follow up and reach out if the client doesn’t take the initiative. Often people who are in pain do not have the capacity to do all the things needed to ensure that they receive the best care. They may need some help to remember to make regular appointments or even to do their practice. Of course some people never need this kind of check-in but, for me, one of the ways that a cikitsa practice differs from rakšana or śikśana is this additional level of, well, attendance on the student or client. In taking some extra steps to follow up, I am acknowledging and meeting the student’s need for extra guidance in this moment. And who doesn’t want a little extra care when we feel sick or injured? It’s a beautiful thing!

In my previous posts, I also alluded to the way that cikitsa also can be an attitude, not just a physical or mental state in need of extra care. I gave the example of when I did Ashtanga Vinyasa and really looked for and needed my teacher’s approval and attention. Although my āsana practice was very advanced, my attitude was that of needing a lot of reassurance. This is not uncommon and, I would venture to say, not wrong either. Pushing the boundaries of a physical practice creates its own tension, discomfort and uncertainty.

A śikśana physical practice is intended to create disruption to the patterns of prāna and thus the body and mind are unsettled by design. It is part of what makes that learning and discovery possible in śikśana. When a student ventures into the unknown with their physical practice and requires some extra attention along the way from the teacher, we could say that it creates a kind of parallel cikitsa moment between the student and teacher. In ancient* India, many serious students lived with their teachers and interacted with them in their daily life. It is very likely that this parallel cikitsa aspect that works along side a śikśana practice was built into the system. In 2022, when it is very rare that a student would go live with their teacher, I think it makes sense to be aware that there may be differing needs between the phsyical practice and the student attitude.

• Not necessarily that ancient - Sri Krishnamachaya (supposedly) lived with his teacher back in 1919 and stayed for seven and a half years.

Ok, back to cikitsa as recovery and repair!

Another key aspect of cikitsa is that it is intended as a short-term practice. If it is working as intended, it will not be something that the student does steadily for years on end. In fact, if that is the case, the teacher should look more closely at the practice, the student and their relationship. The purpose of a cikitsa practice is to guide the student back to rakšana - back to the capacity to do a daily maintenance practice that aligns with their lifestyle and goals. In this way, citiksa isn’t an end point - it is always a transitional practice.

You may notice that I have not written anything about any specific postures or ways of breathing that are officially “cikitsa.” The fact of the matter is that the true answer to what a cikitsa practice looks like is: it depends. A hallmark of Viniyoga is that we work 1:1 with the student to create practices that are individualised to the person in front of us. Many of us enter into this process in need of some level of healing, pacification, rest and repair. That might look like gentle, incremental movement, modified postures and breathing patterns that focus on long exhales. Or it might not! I have certainly given many practices that fit that description. I also have given practices that do not have any āsana (postures). Likewise, I have created cikitsa practices that are vigorous and physically challenging. Like any other aspect of Yoga, citiksa doesn’t look like one thing.

To close out this blog series, I want to quote one of my teachers. She frequently says, if someone has the capacity, then they should use it! In this way, we can hold these guidelines lightly. Some people in their early 20s need cikitsa or gentle rakšana. Some people in their 70s are full-on śikśana. I realise this contradicts a lot of what was just shared but Viniyoga, by definition, meets the student where they are, rather than remaining bound by categories, forms, shapes, ratios, etc..

From one perspective, we - the teacher - ultimately are always guiding our students towards that śikśana attitude even if the physical practice requires a lot of modifications. Having been witness to people having great discoveries while literally on their death beds, I wholeheartedly agree that we need to be wary of labelling our students and locking them into fixed categories based on age or anything else. Frameworks such as these are upaya - tools designed to skilfully help us. If their utility is no longer needed, then we can set them aside.

For me, this is one of the truly beautiful aspects of Yoga. It offers us so many tools - frameworks, movements, postures, ways of breathing, ways of directing our minds - all in service in liberating our seeing. Our skill as a student, teacher, therapist, is to know which ones to pick up and which ones to put down.