Finding My Groove, and A Revelation
The only thing worse than being late or rushed for a yoga class is missing it all together. Today an hour before class I ran out to pick up some Japanese pastry to share with my co-workers. This should have been plenty of time as it is a relatively short mission - no more than 12 miles round trip. When I arrived at the pastry shop I was feeling pretty good and thinking to myself “I am making great time”. In typical fashion, I had jinxed myself because as I was getting ready to pay I realized that I didn’t have my wallet on me. To make matters worse, I wasn’t even sure where I had left it. 
Remembering that I had gone out to dinner the night before and didn’t have my wallet then either, I headed home assuming it must be there. Sure enough it was in my backpack from my Monday trip to the gym, so I headed back to pay for the pastry, get back to the office, change and then head out to my noon yoga class. I ended up arriving to class with only a couple of minutes to spare. And despite the fact that I wasn’t late, it was apparently enough to throw me off because I found it impossible to get into a rhythm. I literally felt as though it was my first ever yoga class, as every movement and pose felt foreign to my body.
The focus of class was the upper body, more specifically, Shoulder Principles. Considering this was a topic of discussion weeks earlier in my Anusara Immersion I was already familiar. As I thought back to that introduction, I remembered thinking that for the first time I knew what it felt like to actually engage my shoulders (properly). With the lower shoulder blades engaging and hugging my back it was as if they were cradling my heart, allowing me to go deeper, particularly in my backbends. I believe I went deeper into Bhujangasana (Cobra Pose) that day than ever before, and did so with zero low back pain or cramping. It was freeing. This, however, was not the case today.
All was not lost, however. Just as I was feeling that class had been a waste there was that hit, a revelation. And it came in the sweetest pose of them all, Savasana (Corpse Pose), so I guess it was worth waiting for. Savasana is not a passive pose to just lay on the ground and let your body just flop open. Now, that’s not say that one wouldn’t enjoy the pose if all they did was ‘lay there’, but a little engagement does go a long way, particularly where the shoulders are concerned. Chances are you have received an adjustment in Savasana that involved the rooting of our shoulders to the floor. This is an action that you can create for yourself by simply engaging the Shoulder Principles: inner body bright (i.e. lengthen side bodies), shoulders back, shoulders blades engaged on the back and inner shoulder blades hugging in.
Today when I received this adjustment (just as I had many times before) and although it did not even feel particularly good it did provide with a revelation, nonetheless. Looking back on it, I realize that the reason it did not feel good was because I wasn’t ready to receive it. Like every other posture today, it felt forced. Even more ironic is the fact that I have had this revelation previously and, as many times is the case, I just needed to be reminded. More importantly my body needed to be reminded. Where this particular revelation is concerned, I think I can say with confidence that my body will now remember.
Tags: Anusara principles, shoulders
