words and images by mk swanson
 
Yoga Handicaps

Yoga Handicaps

Yoga Blocks Help You Modify Difficult Poses

I started a home yoga practice three or four months ago that has been thoroughly rewarding, but sometimes I get so obsessed with the careful pattern I’m creating (kitchen clean-up, tea, yoga mat, music, centering, salutations, standing poses, table poses, seated, prone, supine, savasana) that I get frustrated when something gets in my way.

Enter Oscar Wilde. (The cat.) Sometimes, he gets in my way so creatively that I find that every single pose must be modified in order to work. So, instead of supporting me during hard poses, he complicates all of my poses, making me think and do things differently.

It’s frustrating, but it stretches me in ways I can’t anticipate, and makes my practice fun and funny.

I’m thinking that this is the purpose of adversity and challenge in life. To make me step out farther and hold up longer… and make me laugh when everything hurts.