Tag Archives: asana

Falling On Your Asana

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It’s inevitable. If you do physical yoga, you are going to fall eventually. Probably more than once. You probably won’t hurt yourself seriously.  You probably won’t break a tooth. You probably will look a little ridiculous.  It’s ok.  It’s so ok.

When I first started yoga, I took it all so seriously.  I wouldn’t go to public classes for fear that I would look dumb because I couldn’t do the poses.  When I finally got up the nerve to take a class, I hid in the back, as far back as I could and tried hard not to make eye contact with anyone before, during, or after class.  Time passed and I got more comfortable with the idea of doing yoga with other people, but I was still afraid to screw up or fall.

It’s interesting, huh?  I mean, really, there are a lot of yoga poses that look kind of silly anyway if you think about them from the standpoint of typical body movements.   Seriously, tell me that halasana, kurmasana, and karnapidasana aren’t a little goofy looking.

Uh huh. I don’t think you can.  Try, if you will, to imagine anyone taking these body positions for anything besides a yoga class and what the reactions of observers would be.  Yoga asana is a little bit like sex in this way.  It’s beautiful to see because of what it represents, but from a body-only perspective sometimes it looks kind of (or much, depending) funny.

So, there I am in a yoga class and I’m contorting my body into these odd situations, but I’m worrying about falling over.  Hmm…  Over time, I just had to get over it.  I stopped trying to pretend like I didn’t just stumble or fall.  I stopped avoiding poses that I thought I might fall over in.  I embraced my inner Chevy Chase and got comfortable with the fall.  Now, when I fall over, sometimes quite spectacularly, I snort a little, reassure anyone who asks that I’m fine, and carry on.  This attitude lets me be a little bit less serious about my asana.  I try to have a little fun with it and enjoy the playtime.  Yes, it can be a time of meditation and it should be a time of mindfulness, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be a time of joy, trying new things, and falling/failing with a grin.

It’s not quite fall yet, but you are, in fact, welcome to fall!

Namaste,

Lorin

Free

Casual Yoga

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At the moment, I’m vacationing in Indiana to see family.  Over the course of the last few days, my 20-year-old has coined the phrase “casual yoga” to describe the stretches or folds that I tend to go into when I’m sitting on the floor or just standing around for a long time.  He uses it to tease me “oh, just doing a little casual yoga again, Mom?”  He’s a smarty pants.  I think he views it as odd or even overly yogi-like, but I really barely even know that I’m doing it unless someone calls my attention to it.

Yoga asana has become enough of a part of my life that it is how my muscles remember to behave.  When I sit on the floor, half lotus is a comfortable position.  If my back is a little stiff, I’ll fold into a forward fold (not at a meeting or anything, but just hanging around the house).  If I’m standing for a long period, one leg will occasionally creep up onto the other ankle and I’ll barely see that it has.  The really nice part about this is that it means I end up getting in a little stretching on days when life is making it hard to get to a class.  The disadvantage, I suppose, is that I apparently look a little odd.  But, that’s really never stopped me before!

Do you find yourself sliding into yoga poses without even noticing?  Are you a victim of “casual yoga?”

Curiasana

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Yep. I just made that up.  But, curious is a good descriptor for how I’ve been approaching my asana practice lately.  I’ve known, intellectually, that every practice was a unique experience, because the body and the mind are different from moment to moment and day to day.  But, even though I’ve “known” it, I’ve often not remembered it in practice.  Consequently, there was frustration when a pose that had been getting deeper stopped, or even retreated.  And I felt confused (and annoyed) when I suddenly found myself fearful of a pose that I had done with confidence the prior week.

Somehow (maybe all that Bhagavad Gita), I’ve recently taken much more of an attitude of curiosity and acceptance of where I am on a given day.  It’s actually quite interesting to see how things shake out, and it’s always a surprise.  Last night, for example, I found urdvha danurasana quite a challenge.  It’s been that way (a little unreachable) for the past few weeks.  I don’t know why, as it was accessible before.  Now, when I prep for the pose, I can feel some anxiety build in my  body, even when I don’t think it’s there in my head.  In this practice, I tried to just watch; I noticed that it seems to be related to something with my arms (specifically the wrists).  As soon as I put them into position, that feeling of discomfort begins there and radiates out.  If I go in very quickly, I can get into the pose before I fully feel it, but if I do the prep the way I should, then by the time it’s the moment to really push up, my body isn’t feeling happy.  So, last night, I watched it.  I went up once briefly and then just maintained the wheel arms with the setu bandhasana hips.

Also in this practice, we did L shaped handstand.  It’s been a while since this pose made me nervous.  In general, I like it.  Last night, it did make me nervous.  Curious.  What was different?  It could have been that my mat was long against the wall I was practicing against. It could have been my location in the room.  I don’t know, and I tried not to think about it much during the class, but it was interesting to watch that feeling unfold.  On the other hand (or foot), my joints were a rather loose today, and I saw that ardha padmasana was more available than usual.

All in all, I’m trying to approach my asana with more curiosity and less evaluation.  I think this applies to life as well as asana.  As Albert Einstein once said:

Curiosity has its own reason for existing.  One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality.