A Yoga Pose Is Not an Achievement

“So how did it happen? Your hip replacement, I mean?” 

My friend cradled her tea cup in her palms and sat back in her chair.

“Well,” I began, “the first diagnosis was that fourteen years of ballet was the likely culprit, which caused so much wear and tear on the joint that the joint space had shrunk and that is why I was having hip pain.  

During that time, I was immersed in the yoga ethos of the era, which was ‘Deeper is better.’ The implication was that you couldn’t hurt yourself with yoga, because it was inherently healing.” 

She nodded gently.  

“That isn’t to say that during my teacher trainings there weren’t discussions about the potential for injury and how to avoid it, but the advanced classes I was taking were altogether different:. 

The idea was that if you could get into Ekapadarajakapotasana (King Pigeon pose), there was something inherently meaningful and valuable about it.  

It was not just a pose, it was an achievement on many levels, rarified, admirable, even enviable, though we weren’t supposed to admit to envy. So I overdid the stretching repeatedly.  

I probably only did King Pigeon pose about five or six times over the years, but each time I did the full pose (pulling my back foot in pigeon over the top of my head to touch my forehead from behind), two to three days later I would throw out my back.  And yet I kept doing it.   

In those days we did a lot of very deep stretching and “Yoga” was largely thought of as being about to bend yourself into a pretzel. That’s why people still say I can’t do yoga, I’m just not flexible.”

My student was nodding more vigorously now: it seemed I wasn’t the only one who falsely thought the deeper you pushed into a pose, the more effective it would be.

I continued: “What I did not understand at the time is that I needed to do strengthening and integration work to stabilize my joints and balance out all the stretching I was doing.  

Now, when I practice and teach I am constantly trying to create that balance between building strength in all the muscles surrounding the joints as well as stretching in a calibrated way to allow for both strength and length in the body as much as possible.  

Anne Teaching Yoga at her annual Tuscany Yoga Retreat

This work hinges on building a sense of where your muscles are in space and what they are doing, so that you can feel and modulate your intensity as you do yoga.”

This is why I’m so passionate about helping others calibrate the balance between strength and flexibility. 

The Yoga Within Tier II Membership offers a personalized route to your new yoga landscape: whether you’re recovering from an injury, heading toward surgery, or simply wanting to re-learn how to practice yoga in healthier ways, I love helping students find their way back into their bodies.

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