source:http://www.istockphoto.com
Because it’s moon day.
Said teacher.
Slow practice.
Holding poses for several breaths.
Urdhva Dhanurasana.
Ten breaths.
Counted five.
One, said teacher.
Counted ten.
Two, said teacher.
Wasn’t any easier than mysore.
I swear.
Google this phrase, which literally means ‘armpit power’, and a lot of people have been using it, although I am not sure if they are aware how it started. The Martial Law babies like me must have known how it came about. I remember hearing it first in a deodorant commercial (Veto was the brand name) aired on TV when I was still a kid. Lately, I often catch myself using this phrase…and that’s when my yogini-friend and I discuss yoga! We have been sharing our personal techniques on how to get into certain asanas.
In Utthita Parsvakonasana and Parivrtta Parsvakonasana, which are her strengths, for example, she suggested that in order to keep my torso away from the floor, I should turn my head towards the ceiling and try to smell my kilikili…or do the nose-to-kilikili pose.
As for me, in any pose that requires binding, I have to hook my kilikili to a body part–to my shin in Marichyasa A and B, to my knee in Marichyasana C and D, and to my thigh in our vinyasa version of Parivrtta Parsvakonasana (where we had to hook one arm under the bent leg to reach the other and bind our hands behind our back)–before I can rotate my arm.
And as YT often reminds us, kilikili has to be against the (imaginary or real) wall in Urdhva Dhanurasana and the mark where one has to snuggle the shins in Bakasana.
Ah, the power of kilikili…demystified in yoga.
Last Wednesday, as I was doing mysore with half of the class, I was listening to the other half. “If you cannot do the pose, you can at least visualize it,” said the YT conducting class on introduction to Ashtanga.
That night, I dreamt I was doing drop-back to get into Urdhva Dhanurasana. Yes, only in my dreams, as I get into the pose from supine position (click here for description of how mere mortals like me do the pose). I found this REM product so hilarious that I sent my yogamates a message saying, “This is beyond visualization…it is actually letting the pose get into your subconscious!”
During today’s session, I was in this pose (frame 1 below, Jon Cagas in photo) when I heard YT’s instruction “Don’t do anything, just let go.” What else could you do but to follow when your world is turned upside down? The next thing I knew, I was standing up already (frame 3). Whoa! What did just happen?! And I mean inside and out of me. An exhilarating feeling welled up inside me so much so that I had a fit of the giggles afterwards. How YT made me defy gravity, I had no idea. From standing position, YT let me move back to the original pose this time by giving in to gravity. Read: drop-back, free-fall. “Just let go,” YT said and so I did (frames 4 to 6). That was fun!
More than the fun part, what brings me joy and awe—and I guess this also is true to most if not all yoga practitioners—is the realization that I can actually do what I thought I couldn’t. Sometimes, to be able to go beyond what our minds can conceive, we just need an enabler. And trust.
So is with life in general.
The Journey of a Yogini 