Becoming Disoriented

It may be an opinion, but handstand seems to be a big deal in the yoga world. Like if you unlock handstand, maybe you're "good" at yoga or something...

This is why I think handstands are a revelation...

Handstand allows me first to be okay with being disoriented. Upon beginning handstand practice, I didn't know how to hold myself up, which was unsettling. Feeling incompetent, I was experiencing instability in a new dimension. In a yoga class, I can put my body in warrior poses and feel successful. Handstand isn't as straight forward (at first).

If I'm okay working in a place where I'm disoriented, I am trusting I will find my own true center: my core in balance. Also, by falling (a lot), my perceived failure won't distract me from becoming oriented. Falling doesn't affect me any differently than balancing; it just is. I can continue exploring in both situations.

In my life, sometimes the direction my studies/work/relationship/ is taking is entirely foreign. Sometimes the explanations around me don't compute or translate in my life or my body, but I can show up willing to be lost, and at the same time willing to be found.

The Power of Grounding

For a while I was looking for ways to deepen my practice and energize it. Where to turn... coffee? Nuts? Something? The answer was way more obvious and simple than I was admitting;

I always practiced on my mat, it seemed like the normal solution. After some reading, "Moola Bandha - The Master Key" by Swami Buddhananda, I began to recognize what I was really looking for: The energy of the Earth. We know it's simple to harness; it's transmitted through touch, dirt to skin. So here's what I learned...

The root Chakra is associated with the Earth and being grounded; stable. A balanced Mooladhara Chakra (located at the base of the spine, the root of the body) serves as the foundation for the rest of the body's energy. In practice, once I felt the mud, grass, and leaves beneath my feet, under the nails of my fingers, I felt something new in my body. I found new energies opening up and infusing my body. I went from feeling stagnant to adventurous...

Another awesome thing I learned being outside is that being under the sun heats the body, yes, but it also brings life and inspiration! The sun stimulates growth in all of nature, including us. It does the same to a yoga practice!

I started practicing outside based on a friend's suggestion, and after some reading on the Moola Bandha I was suddenly doing things I never thought I could! I was standing on my hands... I don't know how to do that... except I do? GET OUTSIDE, you might learn something new! DO IT! :)

INSIDE AND OUT

It's been said many times that beauty is on the inside and out; it exists in darkness and in light, pain and pleasure, imprisonment and emancipation. Why then practice, literally do yoga, only indoors or outdoors? To elaborate:

Why only practice yoga on the inside of your body (physically embodying posture) but not outside (embodying purpose in action)? So we use this as a metaphor for the literal: Why only practice indoors and not outdoors in the elements?

Our natural instinct is to seek balance in life.
When we fall in love, we find someone who balances our excesses and deficiencies.
When we practice, we look to create balance in ourselves; this is how we benefit every relationship in our lives when we take the conscious step, the sacred step (or "vinyasa" in sanskrit), onto our mat.

This idea was born of a vacation...

A friend from Yoga Teacher Training recently visited me on vacation in Rhode Island. Beach yoga! We began practicing in the sand; a first for me. Using a new foundation for understanding such as sand created the opportunity to approach the practice with a whole new perspective and consideration.

Instead of grounding into a yoga mat, I was now gripping the Earth's shores with my hands. The ground isn't so stable; flat stable surface was created by man. The Earth has a softness to it. So to use the sand required a deeper awareness and attention, which actually allowed me to explore a posture that's more difficult for me. The result?

Holding handstand longer!

Maggie's backbend variation, and my handstand on Bonnet Shores Beach, RI

But alas, vacation ended. It's so easy to want to practice constantly with someone like Maggie around! When the time comes to roll out the mat and no one's around, aka my home practice, it's way harder.

BUT HERE'S THE AWESOME PART...

Maggie taught me to bring my physical practice everywhere; inside and out, just as we both believe yoga is a physical practice that takes place inside the body, as well as a way to live life outside of the postures.

giving Maggie's wheel a beachy adjustment

so the journey continues...

Inside

 and out ;)

For your consideration...

When you step on your mat, do nothing but create more love - so that when you step off your mat, you do nothing but create more love. <3 Namaste