Drop back freak out

Tags

drop backs, Monkey mind, panic attacks, teacher training, trust, Vinyasa, yoga

A bird sitting in a tree is not afraid of the branch breaking because her trust is not in the branch, but in her own wings.

-Anonymous

After years of contemplation, I am finally doing yoga teacher training. It’s training in hot Vinyasa, which I’ve been integrating into my Bikram practice for a while now.

While the training is really wonderful — it’s really freaking me out. That’s also how I know it’s good.

We did assisted drop backs the other day. A drop back is where you stand there and backbend so far that your hands hit the ground and you end up in wheel pose. It looks like this:

via Yoga Journal

It sucks.

It sucks not just because it’s physically hard, it sucks because it’s mentally hard. Really hard. As evidenced by the fact that I kinda had a panic attack and cried when faced with the prospect of doing it.

Now, I’m not one of those people who can cry with any subtlety. If I’m crying, everyone within a half-mile radius knows it. I am without a poker face.

So, I was in class, standing there and crying, with my teacher supporting my hips. I began to bend backwards and my monkey mind took over. And it totally trashed the joint.

All my trust issues and all my fears cozied up to me on that yoga mat. Every person who had ever let me fall came into exquisitely painful focus. I thought of everyone who I expected to be there, everyone I thought could hold me up when I most needed it, everyone who turned away when I needed support.

I remembered every time I felt like I was in free-fall, failing around, disoriented and not sure when I would hit the ground, but knowing that the crash landing would destroy every part of me. I thought of when my back was broken, when my heart was broken, when my soul was broken.

And I froze and cried some more.

I could not do this.

And then, Kelly, my teacher, did what all gifted yoga teachers do. She said the thing that I had no idea that I needed to hear.

“It’s all about trust. And it’s not about trusting me. It’s about trusting you.”

I took a breath. And then I did a drop back.

I decided to trust myself. Which is not easy, since there have been moments when even I didn’t hold myself up in the way that I most needed. But I decided to forgive myself for those past blunders, and trust that in this moment, I was going to support myself fully. I was going to be my own best ally and cheerleader and friend. I was going to trust that I’d be okay. Even if I fell.

But I didn’t fall. I caught myself.

As we moved on to the next postures, Kelly gave us corrections and had a question for me:

“Hey Lisa, do you know you have a giant grin on your face right now?”

I didn’t know. But I wasn’t surprised.

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Fly away: a Synergy partner yoga workshop

Tags

flying, partner yoga, synergy, thai massage, trust

My husband J and I, flying! (Many thanks to Lizzie Clark for the photos.)

Remember when you were a kid and you would play airplane? Remember when you’d soar through the air, arms flung wide and you’d giggle and squeal and feel like you could fly forever?

Yeah. Me, too.

But then I grew up. I learned to be anxious and I learned not to trust people and I worried about falling on my face, both figuratively and literally.

So, a few years ago, when my studio posted the information for a partner yoga workshop, my grown up (anxious, untrusting, worried) self said it wasn’t really my thing.

I can’t do that. I can’t fly anymore.

But somehow, when the partner yoga sign-up sheet appeared again, I got up the guts to do the thing I used to do when I was five years old and invincible.

J and I had so much fun. Can’t you tell??

The workshop was a Synergy class taught by Francisco Morales Bermudez and it was a combination of partner stretching, flying and Thai massage. Class was held in our Bikram studio but the heat was turned off. About 6 pairs of yogis attended, twisting and stretching and flying and getting one hell of an ab workout.

I tried to fly J, but our considerable height/weight differences posed something of an issue. So Francisco flew him. Look at J, rocking out bow pose!!

Later, Fransisco flew me and flipped me around so I didn’t even know which way was up! I’m laughing here because he had just shoved his toe in my ear. You get very…um…comfortable…with your flying partner!

So it all worked out well, even though right before class started I was feeling very nervous and shy. I was at my home-away-from-home yoga studio, but it all felt so different. This was no standard 26+2 posture class. What if I wasn’t strong enough? What if I looked silly? What if I fell and hurt myself?

All those things could have happened — but none of them did.

What happened is that I remembered that I am stronger and more capable that I thought I was. I remembered that through communication, balance, presence and breath, I can work with my partner in a new way. I remembered how to try stuff and roll around on the ground and giggle.

It was the most wonderful afternoon and it reminded me of the important wisdom of my five-year old self.

Let go. Have fun. Play. Fly.

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