Hugging Front to Back.

When my yoga instructor is on a roll, it’s not always easy to keep up. I get a pretty good start with my feet hip-width apart and heels wider than my toes, but then pretty soon I need to stick out my butt, scoop my tailbone, create an inner spiral in my thighs, pull my shoulders up and back so that I can then melt my heart in to the pose. Believe it or not, the shoulder and heart thing is what I actually am best at. Inner and outer spirals are still a long way off.

Where the hell am I going with this, you ask? Actions. As I continue with yoga practice, I am learning that there are actions that prepare your body as you move towards the final form or pose. Scooping your tailbone and pulling your shoulders back are actions that keep your body protected as you practice. Actions open your body to the mental components of yoga. My instructor stresses the actions over completing the form. Hey, don’t they always say that the journey is more important the destination?

In a recent class, my instructor decided to bring up the idea of injury; that a pulled hamstring or a sore neck are indications of a unbalance somewhere else and there are actions that can help correct for that. She talked about pulling in to your core and making muscles strong on the bone. We practiced several poses in which we practiced pulling in to the core. (If I’m starting to sound hopeless dippy, visualize this: while standing, take a step forward with your right foot. Keep you right foot forward so your feet remain apart. Now try dragging your right heel back as you push your left foot forward. Feel that resistance? THAT is pulling inward.) My instructor calls it “Hugging Back to Front.”

This idea of Hugging Back to Front has really hit home for me over the past week as I have been navigating a personal conflict from Hell. Working with PhD Smiley this morning, she asked me what it had felt like to stand up to this person for what I knew to be right. In thinking about it, I couldn’t help look back at past conflicts when my first impulse had always been to tuck tail; to identify how I could soothe that person and make everything better again. This past behavior seemed to be the sore neck and the bad knee; the unbalance in me. Going to meet this latest person on their own territory; holding my ground, and challenging their faulty assumptions was an action to correct that imbalance. I told PhD Smiley, “I don’t know how to describe it. It was like hugging back to front. Pulling in.” Securing my strength to my bones.

At this point the resolution to the ongoing conflict - still undecided! - feels secondary to the action I took to protect and defend myself mentally and emotionally. There were high fives in therapy this morning. I kid you not.

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