Eccentric exercise
I’ve been doing Iyengar yoga on and off since my teens, priding myself on nimbly springing from one pose into another. As I get older and stiffer, it occurs to me that the unclassified in-between movements, straining to get out of dog pose and into cobra for example need focus as well. As you get into a pose, each fibre aligns; ‘your skin has a thousand eyes’(Iyengar). As you move out of the pose, you feel the pull of gravity, and you droop,
But maybe these interim movements are also what yoga is about – not just the end result of being there but of getting there, the journey from dog into snake.