Dear Listeners,
I’d like to share a recent experience which (to me) demonstrates how the mind and body connect in inexplicable ways.
Recently I attended an online yoga class taught live in India. I woke up at 1:45am to practice at 2:00. Though I have some 30 odd years of practice behind me, I’d like to say I am likely an intermediate practitioner of yoga on a “good day” (keeping in mind the existence of advanced teachers in this world).
A hybrid yoga studio I’d been attending for three years suddenly changed their format, so in the wake of this shift I began to explore new teachers/new studios and found this woman Usha Devi who is a student of BKS Iyengar. My exposure to Iyengar yoga started 10 or 15+ years ago. I started taking classes here and there, then I stuck to one person in 2015, and found a teacher in an online (west coast) class in 2020. I find this style appealing as it seems to offer a path to direct the mind (in the body) more deeply. As an informal student I’d say it is a very precise method of positioning the body (and mind/breath), which practices less asanas (in a class) compared to other styles, using repetition and longer hold times. An Iyengar teacher may offer a better description. Props generously accommodate the body’s limitations and encourage the focus, which in my opinion this makes it gentle for an aging body or one with injuries.
The final of this 4 class series was a surprisingly deep. Practicing in the middle of the night might have had an added element of surprise since that is a radical departure my usual habit. The consciousness bending effect seemed to be led by the ‘near impossible’ back bend I did. I’m calling it that because if you said to me ‘you're going to do this in an hour’ I would have told you to ‘get outta here, no way.’ That doesn't mean I did it very well or gracefully… it is more a comment on how I noticed:
The brain creates scenarios and/or limitations before an event unfolds, yet with proper preparation (of the mind and body) anything is possible.
The pose I’m speaking about is wheel pose which admittedly I don’t practice very often (urdva dhanurasana). The class practiced many back bends before arriving at the wheel (Usha Devi seemed to favor backbends, my lord!). By the time the class arrived at this asana we were well warmed up and ready. After the 4th or so wheel (an estimation) she added an arm variation I’ve never done before in this pose. This involved placing the head on the floor (while in the back bend) and placing the arms in sirsasana I (hands clasped behind the head, elbows on the floor forming a tripod… remember it’s 3am!) The moment my mind started to think ‘oh my god, what is happening’, I began to lose the pose and (to not get injured) I focused on quieting my mind by tending to where I was in space and time. We finished the pose, then wound down, to a lovely ending in which a chilled out cat (practicing yoga with us) said goodbye.
The next day I felt a little out of it, as if I was on the 3rd day of a detox and something was cleared out. Have you ever shaken a rug and were surprised by the dust released? It was something like that. That pose was following me around that day, and the next day…’did that really happen?’ Something similar occurred when I first learned headstand years ago, an asana which seems to change people. Urdva dhanurasana seemed to speak to
Opening the heart and quieting the mind allows an unfolding of life’s possibilities.
Some clarity arose that week regarding work, certain projects cooking, personal practice, this substack and lit a fire under me to take a (revitalized, refined) course of action (currently in it’s seedling stages). The point of all of this is- try to expose yourself to something new, which might guide or coax you to draw your senses inward, breaking through barriers within can aid softening personal limitations and habits.
If any aspect of this story engages you, you may wish to explore yoga or another mind-body discipline (which you are curious about) to help your overall effort towards:
calming the emotions
quieting the mind
and relaxing the body
When an effect is experienced in the above regions, it becomes a little easier to perceive which action (or non-action) to take, helpful skills to have in this unpredictable world. The meditation accompanying today’s entry speaks to some of the points above.
Feel free to share this with anyone you think this might help.
I’m still trying to identify this plant, a curious process getting there.
infinite mind, soft open heart