Extreme Yoga

August 1, 2011

On a recent Monday I awoke sore, with a cramped neck, bruised shins and knees, and a familiar twinge in my sacro-iliac. Was I in a minor accident of some kind? No, it was just the day after I went overboard in my yoga practice.

I love doing (or, often, just attempting) extreme yoga. One level of that is admittedly type-A nature and ego.

A second level, though, is reaching a state of self over body. Occasionally when I balance or bend my body into a challenging pose, the awesome realization hits that my body is not who I am – it is a mere container of bone and tissue, a powerful tool I can control. I imagine athletes often experience this sense of the limitlessness of the human spirit.

A third level is my quest to reach a state of “yoga” as defined in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjalim: namely, the cessation of the wanderings of the mind; a place where the mind is silent and one is completely present. Homo sapiens wander around most of the time with our minds either replaying the past or planning the future. As this breeds unhappiness, many people are chasing a state of “yoga” through various means. I believe it is why people bungee jump, mountain bike, free climb, etc. Those activities force us to become so focused and aware of what is immediately occurring that the rest of the world falls away, and, however briefly, we feel alive.

Some poses can get me to those dual senses of limitless possibility and “yoga.” The problem is the need to continually up the ante. Bakasana once did this for me, but, eight years into my practice, I can maintain bakasana while thinking about my grocery list. Ashtanga, a tradition in which there is a seemingly endless march of progressively more difficult poses awaiting the practitioner, feeds the beast. So it is that I found myself with neck and sacro-iliac pain because that particular Sunday was the day I decided I was going to channel enough energy through my left big toe to maintain my balance in dwi pada sirsasana. And the bruises? A classic karandavasana (if you don’t know it, entertaining hyperlink) injury: I managed to get my legs into lotus, then proceeded to try to lower them, only to hit the mat like a pile of bricks.

I acknowledge that extreme yoga is completely absurd and in some ways my doing may even be evidence that I am un-evolved. My wish for you is that you are able to tap into your own infinite, limitless nature and attain a state of full present awareness by meditating on the petals of a flower. Someday in my dotage (or when I finish second series), I hope I will meet you there. Until then, you will recognize me as the battered piece of apparent roadkill that you’re swerving past along the path to enlightenment.

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