What happened the first time you tried vrksasana?  I’ll bet you fell out of the pose didn’t you?  That’s great!  All trees fall eventually.  Did you, however, stop practicing vrksasana?  Failure is a great teacher and it is no different in Yoga.  In fact, I would say that there is no such thing as failure when one is truly practicing Yoga; rather, there are only different levels of success.  Even my failing to listen to my body yesterday might well be a success depending upon what I do with that.  I’ve already found that counter poses to paschimottanasana such as purvottanasana help to gently stretch those muscles and allow them to relax.  If you’ve ever had a back strain, you know that the muscle spasms and attendent fear of falling are the worst parts about it.  Purvottanasana helps calm those spams and allows me to actually sit at my desk for more than five minutes.  Unfortunately, sitting at my desk or driving to work, for that matter, hammers my back.  The muscles tighten and making standing up a literal pain in the butt.

While I wait for some software to arrive, I am slowly working on my review of Maran Illustrated Yoga.  The review should be online sometime this afternoon or evening.  Just a quick preview:  This is a great book!  It does a marvelous job of describing a wide range of poses that are very accessible to the beginning yogi and it goes much further than any book I’ve read in describing how to modify those poses both to make them even more accessible to those of us with stiff joints and muscles.  It also gives modifications for those of us who are ready to take these beginning postures one step further.  Just remember to learn from my mistake of yesterday and go into every pose gently!

Namasté