My Favorite Yoga Pose

Every yogi has a few poses that really make them feel great and others in which they struggle to maintain calm focus.  The longer I maintain my practice, the more that I realize that the beauty really is in the balance!

As a new yogi, I really enjoyed backbends and hip openers.  They came easily to me, and I could stop worrying about if I looked like a "real yogi", because I was sure mine looked better than at least half the class.  While that is clearly NOT THE POINT, I was able to stop worrying about the way I looked, and actually feel the pose.  Maybe that is why I enjoyed backbending and hip opening for so many years.  

With each new asana that I learned, I began to gain confidence.  Arm balances became accessable, and I felt like I was getting stronger physically.  I was very type A, and enjoyed having a physical measure of my progress.  At the time, the hotter and sweatier the class, the better (also a measure of success).  

I heard David Swenson speaking about the 8 limbs of yoga, and I began to connect to yoga on a deeper level.  I began to study the Yoga Sutras.  Yoga became something that I thought about off the mat, and it became a lifestyle.

Slowly, I began to embrace the slow movements and developed more awarness of fine movements and energy shifts in the body.  I honestly developed a journey inward during my practice.  This internal study is what makes asana practice so powerful, and it is available in any pose at any moment.

Slowly, my favorite pose is becoming almost every pose.  I am learning to love the difficult poses more than those that come easy to me, because that is where I see the inner workings in a more profound way.  I am learning to slow down and see the beauty of the transitions.  I'm still not crazy about pyramid pose (parsvottanasana) and I  love a good inverson, but a few moments of stillness at the end of practice beats them all!