Where Is My Body? How Yoga Practice Answers That Question

This entry was posted on Aug 7, 2014 by Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg.
yoga practice

How to Use a Block in Triangle

Where is My Body? How Yoga Practice Answers That Question

When I started doing yoga, I was confused a lot. Always having a hard time remembering left and right, and also being somewhat disembodied after years of residing in my frontal lobe, I had trouble following direction. In Warrior II, when the teacher said to turn my back foot in one way, I would often turn it the other way. Sometimes I would bend forward instead of sideways. Even how, over 10 years of yoga practice, when my yoga teacher says to breathe into my back body, I have moments of not knowing how.

Teaching yoga, I see the same dislocation in some of my students, especially new ones. Leading people in Triangle at the wall, I saw one person lean forward and try to touch his toes instead. It might look odd, but I realized he was experiencing what I did when I began yoga. At times, when I looked out at the class and realized everyone else was doing something very different than I was, I felt embarrassed, so I wanted to take care not to point out someone’s vastly different interpretation of a pose. On the other hand, how could I help someone move toward a greater alignment for himself, one that would build strength, endurance, courage and flexibility?

I noticed the toe-toucher in Triangle was trying to lift up one arm and twist around a little to make himself look more like he was doing Triangle. Going around the room, I lightly moved a nearby chair closer to his toe-touching hand, and gently put that hand on the back of the chair, and prompted him to lift a little more from his side. It still didn’t look anything like Triangle, but at least the student was stretching from his side a little.

Sometimes when students do completely different things from what I’m saying, I try to give a verbal prompt to the class. When people are doing Warrior II as Triangle, it’s easy enough to talk about bending the front knee, or in a sitting twist, remind people of what they should see when look down. Yet since I don’t do a lot of hands-on prompting and rearranging of people’s bodies, I try not to repeatedly zip over to people who aren’t getting what the pose is, spotlighting a student who doesn’t have a clear sense of space and body.

I know from experience that this sense—and it is a sense, just like sight, smell, taste—is one we can cultivate over time. Before yoga, I routinely bumped into counter edges or doorframes; now I don’t. Yoga practice does that: It shows us where we live, literally, in each motion and breath. It gives us our bodies back by locating us in space and time so we can align our bodies with the life force.

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About Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg is the Poet Laureate of Kansas, and the author of 14 books, including a forthcoming novel, The Divorce Girl; The Sky Begins At Your Feet: A Memoir on Cancer, Community & Coming Home to the Body (Ice Cube Books); and four collections of poetry. Founder of Transformative Language Arts – a master's program in social and personal transformation through the written, spoken and sung word at Goddard College (Goddard College); where she teaches, Mirriam-Goldberg also leads writing workshops widely. With singer Kelley Hunt, she co-writes songs, offers collaborative performances, and leads writing and singing Brave Voice retreats (www.BraveVoice.com); and she blogs regularly at her website (www.CarynMirriamGoldberg.wordpress.com)

2 responses to “Where Is My Body? How Yoga Practice Answers That Question”

  1. Avatar Rogelio Nunez says:

    In my opinion this is a dis service to the students….they may not get embarrased by not adjusting them but how about the effects of doing poses with wrong alignment…maybe this may cause injury if not corrected…

  2. Avatar Caryn MIrriam-Goldberg says:

    Hi there — Thanks for your comment, and while I hear what you’re saying, for brand-new yoga students who are not able to easily move into alignment yet, I think it makes sense to model for them ways to do the pose, and do minor adjustments, step by step moving him/her to the pose. If someone is doing something in a way that might cause any kind of injury, I agree that it’s important to jump right in and prevent injury however we can. Thanks for noting this point.

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