On the (extra)ordinariness of belts and blocks. What can extended cognition tell us about the use of props in āsana practice?

In modern postural yoga, much has been made of the use of props—simple equipment, such as belts, blocks, or bolsters, used to make āsana practice more accessible.

B.K.S. Iyengar, the founder of Iyengar Yoga, is commonly credited with “inventing” props, and praised on this account as an ingenious reformer of yoga. Different findings contest the uniqueness of Iyengar's “invention”: from visual evidence of the use of “yoga straps” (yogapaṭṭa) by premodern yogis, through textual and ethnographic evidence of simple artefacts being used in āsana practice in early modernity and the intersections between early modern yoga and other movement practices employing various equipment.

A refreshing perspective on the significance of yogic props is offered by extended cognition—a group of theoretical positions in cognitive science treating elements of the external environment, including material artefacts, as constitutive to human cognition. Given the universal human propensity to extend cognition beyond their own bodies, prop use in yoga may be seen not as a unique invention, but as an inevitable consequence of how human cognitive activity unfolds. By treating yoga props as cognitive artefacts, the paper will reinterpret their role in facilitating and enhancing āsana practice, and their impact on how skill and expertise in āsana performance emerge.