समं कायशिरोग्रीवं धारयन्नचलं स्थिरः।संप्रेक्ष्य नासिकाग्रं स्वं दिशश्चानवलोकयन्॥
samaṃ kāya-śiro-grīvaṃ dhārayann acalaṃ sthiraḥsamprekṣya nāsikāgraṃ svaṃ diśaś cānavalokayan
Word by word
The verse says
Holding body, head and neck even and unmoving, steady, looking at the tip of his own nose and not around him —
In plain words
Posture, in one line.
Three parts in a straight line. Still. Eyes with somewhere to rest.
Diśaḥ ca anavalokayan — not looking about in every direction.
Where you've felt this · in sport
The archer's eyes stop moving before her hands do. The stillness starts at the top and works its way down. Watch her head, not the bow.
Going deeper
The body is being given a shape so that it stops making suggestions.
An upright spine, a level head, a gaze with one resting place. None of it is mystical. Each item removes a source of small, continuous input that would otherwise have to be managed.
The nose-tip instruction is the one most often misread as a strain. Commentators generally take it as a softened gaze in that direction rather than a stare, and the practical reason is the same either way: eyes that are free to roam will roam, and the mind follows them.
Anavalokayan — not looking around. It is the most human line in the chapter. The eye is built to check the room, and checking the room is the oldest interruption there is.
And this is where the chapter's argument about bodies pays off. You cannot instruct the mind directly. You can instruct the neck, and the mind is downstream of it more often than anyone expects.