Karandavasana

...so a pose post for a change...

I've been working on karandavasana for a couple years now and I'm really coming to love this pose, not of course because I do it with any special amount of grace. I definitely don't. I'm learning to love it because of the kind of work that it asks for.

The more days that go by as I practice this pose, the more aware I am of where my work is and where it is not. The physical strength to do the pose is building slowly and is becoming a little more accessible each day, but really I've been content to wait for it. I'm not one for a lot of extracurricular preps in order to "get" a pose. I'm more apt to just make a couple attempts in each practice and then move on....a sign of laziness perhaps, but that is where my practice sits at the moment.

The work that has me especially intrigued with karandavasana at the moment is not the physical work. The longer I do this pose, the more I see how much of this is in my mind. It fascinates me to step back and watch the mental processes change and evolve each day as I approach this pose. If I am going to take the pose as far as I can physically on my own without any assist from a teacher, I absolutely can't let the mind leave the present moment. As soon as I think one step ahead of where I am physically, the pose is gone. If I think about making the lotus while jumping into Pincha position, I go right over into a backbend. If I think about landing the lotus while I'm trying to move the legs into lotus, I fall out with no lotus.

It fascinates me and amuses me to watch the mind get bored and try to rush the process each time. I can almost hear it: "Are we still doing this pose? Why is this taking so long? This is too slow; let's move on to something more exciting."

When I finish karandavasana, I can almost feel the mental strength building...like chaturangas for the mind