Weighing Poses

I tend to give each pose far too much weight.

This morning, practice was solo once again because of snow. While the first sun salutation was like trying to bend steel, the body began to loosen with each one that followed. It's a beautiful process, really.

This morning, I let go of expectation about where this self-led practice would take me. That was a good start that eventually led to a soft finish. What I noticed on the path, however, was that I tend to give each asana too much weight. It's not always...I am softening. I can tell. But I am still holding on to the rightness of each pose. Of course, alignment is important. But my brain is speaking louder than my receptivity. And without receptivity, my alignment is stressed.

The other day in practice, I was doing my drop backs. Traditionally, this is how a drop would go for me:

Stand up from last lying-down Urdhva Danurasana. Move blanket out of the way. Fix hair, fix top, fix shorts, plant feet. Reposition feet, think about the backbend (What, specifically? Not sure.) Fix hair again. Fix top again. Raise arms, deep breath. Bend back slowly. Hands to the ground. Reposition feet. Stand up.

Repeat entire process 3-5 times.

My teacher walked up to me and said, "You drop back and come back up, drop back and come back up. 3 times." I smiled and said, "But, David. I have to think about each one before I do it." And he smiled and said, "Okay. You do it that way. But there is another way."

And, I'll be. Dropping back and standing up one after the other is easier. Softer. Less time to think about it, more time to receive it.

This morning, during my practice, I thought about the softness that is sacrificed when my brain is chattering away about rightness, lining up every pose like a checklist. My arms pull, my shoulders tighten, my back resists. The brain must fall into the heart... Softness is waiting. The bandhas help to give us the energy to move forward with ease, I think. But even bandhas can be over-thought (which is how we mistake them). They can be over-contracted, over-tightened. The breath, too, can be over-inhaled or over-exhaled. It's the trying too hard that puts a kind of armor over the body and inhibits a) the flow of energy, b) the opening of the joints, c) the extension of the muscles, and d) the quieting of the mind.

I reached Ustrasana in Second Series before moving to the Finishing asanas. If I hadn't let go, I do not think I would have been able to get there. Yet another counter-intuitive principle that has swept me off my feet.