Diary of a yoga nobodhi

Saturday 18th June 2005

Triang Mukha Eka Pada Paschimottanasana
Kirsty and I practiced in the gallery together this morning. I’m giving her some guidance and a few pointers about how to work in the poses but it’s her spirit more than her body that’s being drawn to yoga. We talked about the breath, prana, moving energy, bandhas, chanting, and the power of the voice to express and align with the universal current.
It’s lovely to practice with her even though it borders on a semi-teaching session. I left the Gallery afterwards feeling vibrant, energetic, open hearted and elated, a feeling that used to occur after teaching a yoga class. I'd completely forgotten about this overwhelming Love that comes back to us when we give it out. Another reason to go back to teaching (I'll add it to my growing list of pros and cons).

But back to practice....
When we got to Triang Mukha Eka Pada Paschimottanasana (a ridiculously long name), Kirsty was having some difficulty with it so I suggested the folded blanket under the buttock prop which brought her hips level. She was feeling it mostly in the straight leg thigh which made me momentarily reflect on where I was feeling challenged in this pose. Physically nowhere. I can now ‘do’ this pose relatively well, without feeling intense physical sensations anywhere. But it always brings up a weird feeling of confusion. It’s a complex pose and for me the asymmetry is often strangely destabilising. I’d normally hold Triang patiently waiting for the five breaths on each side to be over so I can move on to the familiar Janu series.
I seem to ignore Triang while I’m in it, like it’s a temporary annoyance, something of no importance or consequence; funny…it kind of reminds me of being at parties (over 20 years ago!) and getting cornered by the most boring person there. You smile politely while they talk at you but you’re not really listening; instead you’re thinking of how you can make a getaway. I think Triang has been like this. I’ve not really been listening to it so now I feel guilty, like I’ve neglected to love someone who deserved my love.

So OK...it’s gonna change now. Each time I come to Triang, I’ll be on full alert to the subtle denial that's marked this pose as a nuisance. Triang will be like the annoying mosquito that wakes me up at night. No longer will I try to sleep through it but wake up and deal with it.

We pondered the reason for Triang to be inserted in the sequence where it is and came up with hip rotation. When you look at the previous pose in the Ashtanga sequence, Ardha Baddha Padma Paschimottanasana, the top of the femur of the bent leg must rotate externally in the hip joint quite a bit. In Triang, the femur of the bent leg rotates internally. Then in the next pose, Janu Sirsasana A, it rotates externally again. All this rotation one way then the other. I hadn’t realised this before. But what a difference it made to my experience of Triang when I focussed on the myriad of sensations occurring within both the hip joints.

I don’t think in asana practice we should be isolating our awareness to specific parts of the body to the exclusion of others. This usually happens when a part of our anatomy is being really challenged and stretched and it yells for attention (like the hamstrings in Uttanasana). It’s a reactive response to the threat of injury and it’s hard not to focus solely on that loud sensation. I think it’s different though when you consciously direct the mind inwards to calmly investigate, explore and observe. In Triang this morning, I directed my full awareness into the strange, unfamiliar territory of my hip joints, and I stayed. It was like deep-sea exploration, observing, recording, analysing. Close by I could hear my Ujjiya breathing resonating rhythmically in unison with the undercurrent of mulabandha. Surreal surround sound.

Every now and then a pose transports us to the other side.

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