@delahrambles / delahrambles.tumblr.com
2016 continues to send me signs pushing towards big change. It is literally all around me… the closet purge of 2015 has spilled over into the entire house as things continue to fall apart and need replacing. It is quite scary yet exhilarating as I feel I have no choice but to go with the momentum of change.
Shameless selfie! Had to capture the joyous celebration that is the result of the best fall of my practice to date. Not the worst by far but the scariest and most necessary one of all for me:
I JUST FELL FROM FOREARM BALANCE AND I’M STILL ALIVE!
I’ve begun catching my off balance moments by dropping my legs into scorpion which is helping me to leave the wall bit by bit while giving me some play in my dream pose. Just now I kicked up too hard cause I’m tired and when I dropped my feet I came all the way over… slow enough to tuck my head and not hurt myself. I think it might have been a drop to wheel if I had been farther away from the wall. As it was I sorta slid halfway down and ended up in a ball laughing my ass off. And I’m still laughing!
The best part of it all was my ability to get back into it, catch air and hang out feeling stronger than ever. Wow. Yoga high.
Photos from this weekend with KB and sidekick extraordinaire TJH. Top photo is my progress in the best heart melting backbend I’ve ever been in. I’m still sparkling with pride over that and the other breakthroughs I was blessed with. Stepping into fear will always be my work but it gets a little easier each time. I like to take my group photo at the end of the workshops because you can see the results in our faces and stances. So much joy! I fucking love yoga!!!
An excellent article on the contraindications of headstand/inverting. So many young yogis are so concerned with getting upside down these days without being educated.
One of the points in this article that I feel is so often overlooked is fear. There is a lot of hype in yoga these days about “overcoming your fears”, and as a result, unsafe asana practices. There are many parts of yoga where this is appropriate ie. your meditation practice - for many of us it is scary just to sit with our own thoughts! Let that be the bravery in your yoga. There is very little room for error in a headstand, and it is not something you want to jump into to face your fears or “accomplish” a posture.
Another big one is weight. This is a hard one for me as a yoga instructor, as we want to be as inclusive as possible, but the dangers can not be overlooked. As hard as it may be to advise someone not to invert because of their weight, you may be saving their spine and brain a lot of damage.
Err on the side of caution when you are inverting! There is so much going on internally in a headstand (both mind and body) it is hard to detect when something may be wrong (ie your blood pressure rising too much).
*one thing I disagree with in this article… “Even though the forearms are on the ground, they are primarily used for support, and considerable weight is placed in the head”… I would advice in any supported headstand that it should be the opposite. Your forearms should be bearing most of the weight, and imagine you could slide a piece of paper between your head and the floor.
If any yogis have opinions on this I’d love to hear them….please comment! Happy and safe inverting!
Bolded the commentary on fear above because it really hit home. In my personal practice I am constantly having to break through my fear when I don't practice my inversions regularly. It took me years to even attempt a headstand because of my neck injuries. I spent time building my upper body strength so I could hold my inversion without fully putting weight on my head. After perfecting my alignment and building strength I still don't fully extend my legs. This has become a personal choice for me because it makes me feel safer. I have had to let go of the "perfect" headstand. I've learned to be thankful that I can take the pose at all. I chose to remove shoulderstand from my practice years ago when I realized it was contributing to my neck compression. I had to accept that just because I can get deeply into a pose does not make it therapeutic for my body. The amount of props required to get me safely into the pose is ridiculous so why bother when I can prop my legs up the wall? Most importantly I have to point out that I could never make these connections, experience these breakthroughs in my practice if I didn't spend time in meditation. The seated practice is what really sets us free from our fears and expectations so the true authentic self can shine on and off the mat.
have brought major improvements to my Pincha Mayurasana. I am so stoked about this I just had to share.
I've been struggling with Pincha for what seems like years. And really it has been years when I think about it because I started to work on the pose in my first teacher training. Fear kept me from even attempting the pose until teacher training. Fear is very tricky. Once I started to attempt the pose fear kept creeping back in and I would get so far but then not practice it for a while. Like I was actually afraid to achieve success in the pose.
Fast forward and I hurt my shoulder after finally committing to the pose, practicing too hard with bad shoulder alignment which did some serious damage and has set my entire practice back. It was a lesson I needed to learn. I'm just glad I've been able to recover from the injury. Well, I'm still recovering but I've definitely learned the lesson. I'm reminded of it often in my practice.
I've been having some negative reactions to seeing others in the pose. Especially in Vrischikasana which is my coveted pose, which I view as phase 2 of Pincha. This to me was a sign that I've got some deeper root issues attached to the pose. To the goal of achieving the pose. I always go back to my TT books when I am struggling on a pose or in meditation. For asana I love the Ashtanga Practice Manual by David Swenson. And here is the point of this really long story:
This morning I applied the guidance he gives for the hands to my Pincha and holy shit! I got up there and it was like I totally forgot about my legs. It was all about my hands and I've never held the pose so long. I was up there long enough to actually feel the pose. I was able to engage my feet and bring them together, to point my toes. OMG, it was so wonderful. To be there and feel free. I came down and went right back up. Again, success and freedom!
I felt so brave and my heart felt so open that I decided to tell fear to really go fuck itself and....
did a drop back Ustrasana! Away from the wall! Now what's funny about this is I've never tried to come back up away from the wall and um, that's not happening yet. So I did a very graceful (in my head at least) release back into supta virasana. Nice.
Also, on a side note, I meditated before my practive today and it really seemed to be better for me. I know that asana is supposed to quiet the mind for sitting but it seems like maybe that's not working for me right now. So I'm switching it up. My seated practice really is more important to me and has a very powerful effects.
Namaste' Y'all! Happy Friday! 2012 is almost gone so make these last few days count.
Fear: the dream killer.
