For the past week, my teacher has been saying that I am "close" to being able to stand up on my own after dropping back. While I believed her, I also felt like..getting the hands a bit off the floor didn't seem "close" to standing up, to me. Well, soon, once again meant much sooner than I thought-- as in, today. I managed to stand up from a backbend for the first time. It wasn't pretty - my feet scooted way back as my upper body came up..but standing is standing. I was quite dumbfounded. I wasn't expecting to make it all the way up. I was just playing with shifting weight forwards and making little lift offs with the hands after walking in and rocking. My teacher had already left for the morning as it was after the official end time of practice (we can do closing on our own afterwards). It was just me and the woman who is starting to assist us practicing in the main room. It felt like a version of..if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it..will it still make a sound?
I couldn't repeat the miracle..seriously weird feeling to come up..down makes much more sense..you can see the floor..up is a total leap of faith. The key right now is to not have any expectations of standing up. Also, really strong legs grounding into the floor. Will be interesting to see what happens on Sunday, when my teacher assists me.
I just started reading
image taken from
here
which I am enjoying greatly. I love anything that tells a moving story..philosophy and religion are just too dry for me without it.
Well done, you stand there thinking did that really just happen?
ReplyDeleteNow you know you can do it, it's just a matter of practice and refinement.
exactly!...it was so quick, and it took a lot less strength than i thought it would take (well, to get the feet to stay put..now that's another story :) )
Deletewonder if i will be able to do it sunday when the shala is full.
There's a realisation that its the strength of your legs, everyone does the stumble at the start,just getting up is huge leap of faith, once you get the confidence you will be flying. I know that now you need to be careful on your next practice that you don't spend all of it thinking about he backbends and performance anxiety, drishte is now even more important.
DeleteThere is a true story at our Shala that someone was doing dropbacks and on their first attempt one day to come up they didn't quite make it, instead of just crashing back their feet started to run backwards to catch up and they went through the door and ended up crash landing in the Finishing Room ( there is a doorway, but no actual door luckily for the guy who did it) wasn't me by the way LOL
omg! ouch! that sounds way more difficult to do than just standing up :) now i have to worry about landing on someone behind me too..
Deletethis is going to be like my former headstand plotting..placing myself so that i wouldn't fall on anyone! not that i did fall..but i was so afraid of hurting someone else.
You will be fine.
DeleteThe first led practice I did in Mysore with Sharath, I crashed out of headstand, I took out the girl next to me who took out the next one.
Love it! The fact that you sound so surprised is even better. Every day is different, right? Can you imagine how it would go if toddlers thought about how it was going to be the next time they tried to get up and sand? hahahaha! Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeletelol! thanks! love the toddler image..yeah, we would have a world full of people who couldn't walk yet. it's so true.
DeleteTry standing up using a step underneath your hands. It really helped me as I worked on gaining strength. I wrote about it here: http://musingsfromtheyogamat.blogspot.com/2013/03/this-week-in-practice.html, if you're interested. It's such a long process for most of us, so hang in there!
ReplyDeletethanks! i like the step idea..maybe if i ever have time to work on it at home....i could use my futon instead of the steps. enjoyed reading about your journey to standing up from a backbend
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