Years ago, I found out about Scott Sonnon and tried his FlowFit program (loved it). I discovered Prasara "Yoga," and became fascinated by the idea of moving my body beyond the static yoga postures I was used to. Sonnon says that diminished complexity of physical movement means diminished capacity for imagination. I can definitely feel the truth in that. As the body, so the mind.
I just listened to this interview with Scott and found it quite fascinating. The topic of yoga came up and I thought the discussion around it was quite good. The internal resisting of postural distortion and how damaging that can be was mentioned. Oh yes, I've seen this so many times throughout my years practicing yoga (I've even done it to myself more than a few times). It's one of the reasons I'm a proponent of no one-size-fits-all yoga. I firmly believe there's too much forcing one's body into yoga postures that don't work for their body going on in the world of yoga.
The interviewer praised Scott's work, saying that it gave him permission to back off. Being able to move in a way that feels more natural to him took the pressure off. He specifically mentioned yoga class in which there's often performance anxiety despite yoga teachers coaching to go at your own pace. For sure there's a lot of ego in yoga. It's often about wanting to achieve this or that pose, keeping up with other students and/or the teacher, performing like a yogi "should." BLECH!
What happens if we took the pressure off of ourselves? Just yesterday I was talking to a friend of mine who was beating herself up for not performing as she "should" in yoga class. Her body wasn't up to yoga snuff and she was being quite unloving with herself about it. Has the yoga mat become yet another place that we push and judge ourselves? I'd like to declare my yoga mat a love zone. There's no frustration about what my body can't do and no ego high about what it can do -- there's only love and appreciation for my body and the way that it moves.
And speaking of turning the yoga mat into a love zone, here's a fabulous post about adding more love -- Rewilding the Yoga Body.
Let's get back to wild and to love, shall we?
Namaste!
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