Despite the date on the last post, the supta kurmasana incident was in late April.
the "incident" became a recurring event over a few weeks in april and may with a string of little overstretches that had me walking on yoga eggshells. it got me to wondering - am i ruining my back or just loosening it up??
the answer turned out to be somewhere in between. the muscles around my mid section certainly did need some kneading, but the truth was that my back was doing more of the pose than my legs. had i continued with this approach it may well have lead somewhere less pleasant.
As an iyengar teacher and practitioner, one basic tenet i followed was that asanas need to be moved out of the back and into the limbs.....somehow i had forgotten this during my fallow years.
Now in August I find myself in a very different yoga place. while i still have a few kurmasana loose ends to sort through, i'm happy with the progress i have made.
Ashtanga folk are always going on about the journey to improvement being 99% practice and 1% theory. I have to say i do not agree with this position. while practice is certainly wildly important, i'm sure i would have continued messing around with my back had i not had the strong theoretical background of years of iyengar work.
moving a posture out of the back and into the legs, for example, requires knowledge of exactly which muscles need to be targeted. it's true that i'm in no hurry to achieve the poses and certainly in yoga the journey is far more important than the destination. but i wonder what damage can be done in the short space of 5 breaths by an debutant ashtangi trying to get into position.
it was the analytical nature of an iyengar practice which attracted me to it in the first place, and conversely the need to stop overthinking that encourage me ultimately to walk away from iyengar and towards ashtanga. i am happy with what my ashtanga practice is teaching me, but i am also very happy i have the iyegar background to support it.
i shy away from adhering to any single method or philosophy. ultimately i can only find my own path for me. it's hard and it's long and it's bumpy. but it's mine.
