Going down

I have always hated forward bends. I didn't like them when I was a yoga student going to class religiously every morning. The teachers always shoved me forward and I had perpetually strained hamstrings. And I never bothered to say stop. Only after I was injured.

Today I am doing forward bends. It was actually because I dislike them so much that I got interested last week. It interested me that I had such a vehemence toward them. There are the obvious reasons, which are that people often hunch worse than a humpback whale when doing them and jam their chin or forehead forward to do what I call a "pretend" stretch. Or they dump their bellies like bowls of jello. But it began to intrigue me, as most things do that I find that I dislike. What is unappealing to me, is often very appealing.

So I began to do them and explain how to do them properly. And they began to grow on me. A teeny bit. Then today, I decided to really go to town on them. I was sort of tired after riding my bike. I was quiet and reading, and it just felt right. I took up all the sitting poses that I thought I knew. I began to move forward and engage in reaching without overreaching. But I went much further than usual. And I hung out in myself. And I felt wonderfully anchored and supported. It was like I was in my own cave with the exact amount of pressure to make me feel safe and supported.

When I moved deeper in the pose, I noticed that there was an athleticism to the forward bend of which I was blindly unaware. There is a true strength to extending and releasing, and at the same time, contacting with strength and anchoring. It is a contradiction in form--my newly claimed forward bend. I love contrast. Like hot torso with blankets over me with cool legs poking out of the blanket in the cool of night. And there is wonderful contrast in the forward bend. Move forward and thrust back and earth yourself by sinking. Expand your ribcage like a glorious bird and let the breath course through you while you are bent over your leg. Bowing down but not collapsing. It feels victorious and surrendering at once. It gives me that funny feeling in my throat I get when I feel like I am going to cry.

I think what I liked the least about forward bends is now what I am liking the most. How far to go. This has always been my question--where do I stop? When you let someone push you, and you are the push-ee, it does not feel like your own action initiating from inside you but on the outside. This is what is so wonderful about making contact with our own bodies. You are moving from you, in you, on you. It is like making love to yourself. There is strength in yielding, in surrendering--when it is done with grace and the full sense of personal responsibility. In the forward bend, you are the determinant and the witness and the participant.

I am all over this forward bending like a happy pig in shit.