Why I Need Arm Balances

For years arm balances have been a guilty pleasure. I mean, there are no goals in yoga right? So why does it feel so triumphant to balance on your elbows? There is a feeling I get when I glide into Eka Pada Koundinyasana for example, that just changes my whole day. Until recently I thought it was some unseemly show of ego. But Saturday as we began the familiar sequence that leads to Eka Pada Koundinyasana II a kind of fierce determination came over me. I thought "that's it! Arm balances allow us to be fierce!"

By day I am a Unitarian Universalist minister, and the mother to a young boy. I constantly cultivate in myself patience and gentleness. Whenever any bit of fierceness or determination emerges in my kitchen or at a committee meeting I shake my head at myself inwardly. Patience. Active listening. Kindness. Letting go of outcomes.

But on the mat, this fierceness is okay.  In fact, our teacher has been encouraging us to move from Ashtavakrasana to crow and back. And each time I fall on my rear laughing I look over at that woman in the front row who is starting to get the hang of it, I see that fierceness in her. She is not giving up on that leg, quavering determinately in mid air,  until it is safely onto the other shoulder. 


Remember when we were little kids turning cartwheels in the backyard, or diving into the pool? "Look at me Mom! I did it!"  How often do we, as adults, get to experience that glee? This Saturday morning, as I rested in child's pose after an arm balance series I realized that perhaps I don't need to feel guilty when I focus my mind and will, and soar for a moment, balanced with legs outstretched. As long as I can continue to laugh and be patient when I fall on my face and try again.