I've always found with yoga that an interesting thing happens when you think too much. Often it means I 'can't' do what it is I want to do. I remember really first finding this out with bakasana, or crow pose. It looked like a crazy impossible pose requiring untold strength and balance. The fear of falling forward onto my face was palpable. I tried and tried, getting my knees as high up under my arms as possible, leaning forward, but never being able to lift more than one foot off the ground at a time. I was scared, frustrated, annoyed.. all sorts of emotions coming up, of failing, of 'can't', of 'should'. My head was all over the place and my body wouldn't cooperate.
It was once.. when I was just in my body, my mind switched off, my focus ahead, eyes fixed, that it happened. And easily too - I was in bakasana and I stayed there. And from there was able to jump back into chaturanga. I was amazed. And it realised that the difference was I hadn't been thinking. That without thought, that being purely in the body and through trust, I was able to come much further into the pose than I had ever thought possible.
It makes me think that so often our head gets in the way, tells us all sorts of things we can't or shouldn't do, and how restricting that can be in terms not only of our yoga, but of our daily lives. That if we listened only to the heart and the body, how much further we all might be able to go, how freeing it is to switch off, just be, be the body, not the mind. The freedom of quiet from the thoughts. That's yoga for me...
