this week’s “every day” pose: supta padangusthasana

30 Jul 2013 this week’s “every day” pose: supta padangusthasana

At the heart of a Purna Yoga practice is the willingness to accept growth and change, to live a life of aspiration. For me, that means sometimes setting goals, milestones or markers on my practice. While you have to keep the setting of asana goals in check (am I doing this for my ego? or does this serve a deeper purpose?), putting markers on your practice can be helpful in stoking one’s tapas (drive, discipline, passion – the third of the niyama) and help to give your aspiration a direction.

Lately, I’ve been focused on the task of holding my big toe in Supta Padangusthasana.  For years, I’ve been telling myself that I would never be able to do this and would always need a strap because there is a large disparity between my arm and leg length. This may actually be true, but now is the time to put this belief to the challenge.  Can I get my hamstrings long enough so that I can do Supta Padangusthasana without a strap, holding my big toe, while keeping my hips balanced, even and my shoulder grounded on the earth?

I don’t expect to meet this challenge in a week, but I’m giving it serious pursuit this week by making Supta Padangusthasana my “every day” pose.  This week, I’m going to work on the pose by exploring a variety of prop variations, to see if I can make headway in three areas: lengthening the psoas on the leg on the ground, balancing the hips so the raised leg’s hip doesn’t creep up in an effort to get deeper in the pose, and lastly just getting my hamstrings to lengthen even more.

I also picked this pose because I’ll be driving to Missouri this week for my in-laws’ 50th wedding anniversary soiree, so good ol’ Supta P will be my number one buddy for all the driving/sitting I’ll be doing.

Can’t wait to report my results!