Muscular and Organic Energy are a pair of yoga alignment principles designed to work in tandem to bring us into balance. I find such paired alignment principles powerful teaching tools, because they inherently stress the importance of balancing opposites. By balancing opposites like Muscular and Organic Energies, we can increase not only our joy in our practice, but its safety, especially for our joints.

Some people naturally have a surplus of Muscular Energy, while others have more Organic Energy. Neither Muscular not Organic energy are inherently good or desirable. But we have a natural tendency to want what we are good at, and to ignore what we need, and herein lies the problem. Overemphasizing either Muscular or Organic Energy is not really good for us. Instead, creating a balance between them keeps us safe and supports greater wellbeing. But to create a true balance between them, we have to emphasize more strongly the one we lack, which means the one we are not naturally good at. 

Meet Muscular and Organic Energies

Muscular Energy has an inward direction and a stabilizing, integrating, consolidating quality. Organic Energy, on the other hand, flows outward from the center, and balances Muscular Energy with an expanding, softening, connecting quality. We always engage Muscular Energy first, providing the integration and stability that is necessary to come into each pose. But without its counterpart, Muscular Energy’s contracting quality can restrict the energy flows in the body. We always benefit from balancing Muscular Energy with the softening, opening quality of Organic Energy. Emphasizing Organic Energy allows us to experience the freedom, the exhilaration, and the sense of connection that transforms our practice from mere physical exercise into a profound mind-body experience.

Too much is not better than the right amount

However, too much Organic Energy is destabilizing. While it can help you connect to the world around you, too much Organic Energy can disconnect you from you body in general, and from your core in particular. Being very flexible can be described as a surplus of Organic Energy. The temptation for naturally flexible yogis is to emphasize Organic Energy. This is the case because extreme flexibility seems desirable as it is necessary to perform many advanced yoga poses. If you have a goal-oriented practice and you are very flexible, becoming ever more flexible is tempting because so many other yogis will compliment you for it. However, excessively expanding your range of motion can seriously damage your joints, as evidenced by yoga teacher Jill Miller’s complete hip replacement, at age 45.

Now before you decide to stop practicing yoga completely because it’s too dangerous, it is important to stress a few things. Jill Miller started out very flexible and strongly emphasized flexibility in her daily two-hour practice. She practiced like that for the better part of three decades before she was diagnosed with a seriously degenerated hip joint. In other words, it takes a fairly extreme and prolonged yoga practice, with an emphasis on what you want, rather than what you need, to do that kind of damage. To read the story of Jill’s hip replacement and how she got there, click here.

Too little ain’t better, either

If you now (for once!) count your lucky stars for being near the tight end of the flexibility spectrum, hold on. The unfortunate reality is that joints that are too tight are also at higher risk of being damaged by osteoarthritis. Once again, the Goldilocks principle of yoga applies. Neither too little nor too much is as good as just the right amount. If you are very flexible, creating the right balance means emphasizing Muscular Energy. But if you have limited range of motion in your joints, then emphasizing Organic Energy is just the ticket to take you to a place of greater balance, and thus greater wellbeing.

Try it now

Do a few rounds of Cat/Cow to warm up your spine and core. Then take a few breaths in Uttanasana or Downward Dog to wake up your hamstrings. Finally come into a favorite asymmetrical standing pose (Triangle or one of the Warriors are good for this experiment). In your chosen pose draw energy from your foundation up into your core. This is probably the easiest way to experience what Muscular Energy is about.

You may feel an increased connection between your legs and your trunk, and a deeper sense of integration in the corresponding joints. Also draw energy from your arms into the core for a similar integration of arm and shoulder joints. Gradually increase this Muscular Energy and start to feel how the pose hardens into a rigid shape that starts to cut off the free circulation of energy in your body. Notice how your sense of freedom or spaciousness becomes limited.

Balancing Muscular and Organic Energies

Then begin to send energy back out from the core into all the limbs of your body, and out through the crown of your head. Notice how your experience of the pose is changing. Notice how a sense of well-being and sheer aliveness seeps back into the pose. Keep increasing Organic Energy until it overwhelms Muscular Energy and notice how the pose begins to lose integrity. Notice how you become unstable as your joint capsules pull apart past their optimal alignment. Yoga teacher Maria Kirsten describes this feeling as “taking a holiday in your joints”. If that describes how you feel in standing poses, try dialing up Muscular Energy again until you feel like you are lifting out of your joints. This will bring integrity to your joints and keep them safer.

What a balanced experience of each pose needs is a balance of Muscular and Organic Energy. If you naturally have a surplus of one, you need to learn to emphasize the other. How do you remember to activate both? Use the breath. Notice your inhales emphasizing one of the energies, and accentuate that energy every time you breathe in. Emphasize the other energy on each exhale. Try switching the emphasis to the opposite breath pattern, and notice if this works just as well, or perhaps not. If you know which energy is naturally dominant in you, make a point of emphasizing the opposite energy more strongly. If there is a strong imbalance, you may even emphasize the lacking energy on both inhales AND exhales.

Find your own way

There are no hard and fast rules here. What breath more naturally supports which energy will depend in part on the pose. Another variable is whether your focus is more on the inner or on the outer body. In general, the inhale is more supportive of Muscular Energy in the outer form. In the inner body, it is more supportive of Organic Energy. The opposite is true for the exhale.

The most important thing is that you learn to observe what is actually going on in your body. Then fine-tune what you are doing to move towards a place of greater balance. As your experience of the opposing energy flows becomes more acute, make the pulsation between them more subtle. Find your way gradually towards a state where both energies are balanced at any given moment in time. To do this, you have to let go of the misguided idea that making your practice more extreme is healthy. It simply is not, and the evidence is starting to trickle in.