Red Flags, Funny Hips and Peace

I was brought to yoga firstly out need for change, and secondly out of curiosity about a trend, a.k.a. vanity! I was curious about what all the rage was about; what was this funny sounding, barefooted exercise and why were the folks chatting about it always the ones sipping lattes in the trendy parts of town? I liked the looks of the people practicing it, lean and well groomed; they had an air of quiet confidence to them and great style to boot!

Pregnant with my second child, my virgin flight of yoga (pardon the pun) was on my own, in my living room, guided by a saintly voice delivered via a cassette tape, lent to me from my neighbor Georgia. Nervous about what my second experience would be like, if I carried forward the stressful and traumatic fears from my first birth, the Yoga cassette provided me with tools to let go of my past pains, so I could prepare for a peaceful and natural birth. These first experiences of Yoga were personal, quiet and sacred.

However, the path went pretty well much downhill from there, after I became well acquainted with my ego when attending my first ever group yoga class...

Living in a fashionable city, in a hot climate, Melbourne, Australia was the perfect location to attend my first ever Yoga class. My hip neighbours, Bec and Janet, invited me to tagged along to a Hot Yoga class their friend Sara was teaching. My first impressions of the studio were that it was smelly and stifling, as well as exclusive and bijoux. Practiced in a room that reached a top of 41C, it reeked of clammy B.O. and definitely should not have passed health and safety specs having carpet as their flooring of choice! Quiety, I was repulsed. However, no one else seemed phased, and, without a doubt, I thought they were cooler and more in the know then I. I sucked it up, not literally, and tuned out my sense of smell. I partook in the class putting on the brave face of calm, cool and collected mirrored throughout. Hinting at problems to come, the only pose I really struggled with, but did nonetheless, was Child's Pose, Balasana. However, the discomfort was new and not YET loud, and so although I came out of the class light headed, drenched, and thirsty, I was also invigorated and hooked. When could I attend my next smelly class?

The Hot Yoga studio was located too far away to be sustainable for a regular practice, so from one extreme Yoga end to another, I started attending 2 classes a week at my local Ladies Only Gym. Clean, convenient and non-carpeted, the gym offered Yoga instruction that was physically challenging, but not quite as sacred or soulfully satiating as the Hot one taught by Sara. Though I did not have to turn down my sense of smell at the gym, I still tuned out of my sense of discomfort in certain poses. As there wasn't much talk of modifications, or respecting our own limits, it went unquestioned that we all should be able to do what the instructor was modeling for us.

Of course with hind-sight being 20/20, I can now clearly see the red flags that went up for me during my budding encounters with Yoga. I chose to dumb down my own senses during my practice: my sense of smell, thirst, and physical discomfort; as well as believed that others knew better about my yoga than I did. These attitudes laid the foundation for discomfort, struggle and dis-union for my mind and body. However, sometimes a hard way is still a good way, or the only way for some.

As is were, I had the good fortune to stumble across a real Yoga gem while continuing on my merry Yoga way in Melbourne. A friend of my mother-in-law's suggested I try a class out at an Iyengar Studio in the bike-ably close suburb of Yarraville. The studio offered everything I could have ever dreamed of, and still do, for a Yoga Studio. Up a flight of stairs, tucked just off the main road, you enter a bright, clean, and high-ceilinged studio. It is well stocked not only with appropriate props for everybody, but also the highest quality of yoga teaching staff around (in my opinion of course). The studio hums a quiet air of reflection, peace and dedication. The classes were regular and reliable, with no pause for holidays. Yoga was taught as a consistant discipline: a science, an art form, a tradition and a therapy. There was structure, freedom and flow.

Nonetheless, even with yogic universal energy in perfect alignment for me, I still could not achieve what was I deemed normal and desirable in certain poses. Echoing the flag of discomfort in my hips during Balasana in early classes, many of Yoga's cornerstone poses, such as Trikonasana (Triangle Pose), Virabhadrasana II (Warrior II), and Parsvakonasana (Side-Angle Pose), were still a real struggle. Even during what felt like my peak strength, flexibility and fitness, with a daily and disciplined practice, and some of the best yoga teachers in Melbourne (which felt like the world) I felt severely limited and somewhat dumbfounded. Something was getting in my way, I SHOULD have been able to do MORE in those poses.

Curiosity and confusion drove me to seek out more information, to pick certain poses to death. I wanted to understand more about bio-mechanics: What was it that physically limited these poses? What did one need to honor, strengthened and stretch to move more deeply into them? I chatted with Physiotherapists, Chiropractors, Massage Therapists and other Yoga Teachers. I consulted anatomy and yoga texts alike. I paid closer attention to how others practiced these poses. I experimented with new ideas in my own practice. Still, these poses were such a struggle, or at least what I wanted from them felt impossible to achieve. To get deeper I would sometimes disassociate or tune out of my the pain. At times I toyed with the concept that the pain was only in my head, not actually in my hips. In order to get where I wanted to go with my asana practice I either had to ignore what my body was telling me OR surrender whatever it was my ego was holding onto: to do less than what seemed expected of an accomplished yogi.

Proving that pushing through the pain was nothing more than the path to even more pain my hips did not shut up. As Neil Pearson put it, my body simply turned up the volume on the pain until my hips were screaming at me and there was nothing more I could do but finally listen to them!!

Attending Neil Pearson's workshop on Chronic Pain was life-changing for my practice, and my attitude towards teaching Yoga. It helped bring me back in line with the sacred, private and peaceful path. The one I first encountered when following the yoga cassette in my living room to prepare for my second birth.

And making concrete the abstract, a few weeks ago a Chiropractor finally ordered X-rays of my hips. And what did he find? It appears that I was born with some funny shaped hips, which limit my range of motion compared to whatever is considered normal. Practicing Yoga poses such as Triangle, Warrior II and Side-Angle, amongst others, are a different sort of challenge for me, maybe one that has more to do with my ego than how deep I can go in them. I guess this is what many Teachers mean whey they say, tune in and listen to your body and make the pose your own. Because obviously, we are all not all made the same.

Different is of course a normal and wonderful thing. At times, however, a rather confusing one for a yoga community. As we stumble along this path together, we are not only attempting to guide one another, but at times also getting caught up in comparing notes and bodies. Hungry to have consistency and form, sometimes we lose sight of the unique and spontaneous joy that freedom and creativity provide in our practice. Yoga is crafted by the practice of it's traditional form, but it is brought to life by those who creatively express it.

Touched on early in my experience of Yoga, and returned to after years of pain and struggle, is the concept of Peace and Union. For me, in order to achieve peace physically, mentally and spiritually, I needed to learn to listen to and trust my feelings (on and off the mat). Undoubtedly Peace can take work and effort, trust and love, but never pain.

Slightly frustrating that it took 8 years of practice to REALLY learn this, but hey, such is life. Peace is thankfully back at the heart of my Yoga practice.