VISMAMITRASANA

This was the apex pose in Noah Maze's class on Friday and I did it for the first time. The key was in the preparation. I had the similar experience with Noah that I had the first time I took a workshop with Steve Emmerman and Talya Ring from Turbodog and they talked me into Eka Pada Koundinyasana, which was successful. I wasn't even that strong in Bakasana and here I am in a harder arm balance.

It made me believe that anyone that can do Bakasana can learn any arm balance based on their level of practice and flexibility but Vismamitrasana was really fooling me.
So breaking it down it basically is a side plank, a deep hamstring openener, and a deep spiraling of the spine. Add in some shoulder flexibility. All of those things are really strong points in my practice.

So the key from Noah's class is the set up. He had us a do an exercise in the sequencing class on poses to build into a balance pose and then he incorporated it later in his class. Sneaky of him. I like. While I was brainstorming to figure out the poses that warm up to the standing balance poses I was pretty spot on with what he did in his class, but didn't realize that was a pose that also built into Visma. Genius! It worked for me.

So I tried in my Saturday am class and a lot of students were successful or very close to it. Most important I hope they were closer than they thought they would get. That is key. It isn't important to get in the pose, but to find the point of struggle in the practice, whatever it is, where everything stops. Then you have to stop and look at what your mind and heart are sayng. Of course if you say I CAN'T, YOU WON'T. You figure out what you CAN do RIGHT now, then you proceed. That is the success of yoga. Finding the moment of success, struggle, epiphany, anguish and stop and LOOK at it. It just is. Then ask where do I go from here. What are my choices.

Today I am practicing at home and working on deep hip openers for the theme NEXT week. I will continue to work on Visma and other stuff this coming week.

I have to go can my beans now. Happy Sunday!