The other day when I did a yoga-routine inspired by Ashtanga and called Poweryoga, it dawned upon me that the child's pose when hands are faced up laying parallel to legs, is how we lay as babies when we are born. As a baby, when I laid like that, I was called "little frog" by my Dad. A natural resting pose. Likewise, the end pose on our back, is called "dead man's pose", indeed ending our practice.
The body has an intelligence of its own. If you think about it, it tells you when it's hungry, tired or needs to use the bathroom. And you understand it directly.
As a dancer, I learned about the muscle-memory which is how our muscles can learn to react a certain way, or simply fast assume the same type of posture or pose, by repetition. When abuse has been done, it can be better released and healed through consciously moving our bodies into new posture and poses. It's also how we can remember a choreography better to music.
Likewise, yoga asanas follow on each other in a specific way, to ease the inner massage of organs that each asana enables. To not follow this order cam both harm the body physically and constrict the flow, which some yoga instructors seem to be doing, uncomfortable with feeling their bodies' muscles work, eventhough doing so is how we increase our mindful presence! All to rather look good for a photo instead?
To support our bodies, we need to respect the teachers before us who has had more experience and developed a practice, maybe because of mistakes that had to be corrected to not harm, after comparing trial and results, or simply improve natural ways to stretch and strengthen ourselves.
With yoga, we practice the life cycle in prayer with our bodies, when done right!
My yogamat is organic and made of jute and rubber.