The pose that to me seems to be so near and yet so far. I see people around me doing it with ease all the time. Everytime I go to a so called “advanced” class, everyone will have no problem doing THE HEADSTAND.
I admit again and again. It is the fear. Weird fear that I cant seem to catch hold of and stare at it in its face and shout “go away”. So I have taken a easy way out by telling myself to work at it bit by bit. So I decided to do a halfway headstand with the knees bent in instead. And AWAY from the wall.
It seems to be working.
Now I can do a half headstand away from the wall. It was 2 seconds at first. Now I can stay there for like 8 seconds. Ok not much. But a vast improvement. I think I am getting used to it. I think my body is the type that “eat soft and not eat hard” as in Chinese proverb to say that my body prefers to be cajoled with much love and good words and not be forced and keep on attempting hard at a pose. The next step is to hold even longer until I feel that in that position I will not fall unless I want to.
Another of my challenging pose is the revolved side angled pose. Oooo… I could feel my body go “oh not again” “crap” “what in this class too? arrggh” “do i have to?” yeah, that much complaints. The main problem i have with the pose is my back feet. I can’t seem to be able to put it down flat. Is it the ankle? or is it something else? Maybe it is just the twist in my body that is not enough to help me into the pose.
Anyway, I think the important thing is to change my mindset on this pose. I think that is extremely important. Must learn to relish the challenge that the pose gives. Like in today’s ashtanga class, the teacher says you must take the more challenging pose so that your body will learn to grow.
So I must not fear any challenge! 
ANd never ever give up!
om~
September 26th, 2006 at 8:58 pm
Wow. The way you describe the yoga poses brings to my mind this Channel News Asia yoga practitioner. (I think her name is Aisah) She is sooo flexible. When I look at her, I go “er… I am not sure if I can do that”. I haven’t practised yoga before, but it sounds like yoga can be used for character building too!
September 28th, 2006 at 6:46 pm
oh yes, Aisah… she is one of the more famous yoga practitioner in SG. I think she is heading the Kryoga style of yoga in Singapore.
When I first started, I did it more for losing weight mentality rather than anything else. But as one progress, I realised that the learning process in yoga helps you learn alot about yourself, not only physically but mentally as well. This is specially so for people who were previously very stressed out in their daily life ( like moi ). Not only that yoga has proved many times ( I have real life accounts ) of how it helps people with real physical problems, like helping a man regain his mobility after an accident. It is just amazing!
You should try out a class too! It will instantly help if you have back problems or stressed out neck and shoulders. My friend who constantly complains of neck and shoulder pains, was cured after he took yoga up.