7 Clickbait Points for a More Mindful Yoga Experience
This is a bonus post because it’s day # 81 and this is still only item # 80 of the arbitrary 100 posts in 100 days project.
Today we road test the camatkarasana (or ‘wild thing’*) pose, as taught in your average Australian gymTM.
*Apologies to The Wild Ones (who did it first) The Troggs (who somehow recorded the definitive version) and Jimi Hendrix (who did it better).
Step 1: Squeeze into your lulu lemon candy print leggings.
Step 2: On entering the studio, listen for your teacher’s instruction to “come into/enter downward facing dog”. This is a preparatory pose, also known as adho mukha shvanasana “अधोमुखश्वानासन” or, for the less flexible amongst us, the CrossFit bear crawl.
Step 3: Pray to the gods of twisted tendons, cervical aneurysms and dislocated shoulders.
Step 4: When instructed to do so, flip so that one hand is now off the floor and you have mysteriously rotated your belly button to face the sky.
Step 5: Feel the burn in your quads as you strain to compensate for your flabby core which is composed almost entirely of yesterday’s burrito and your meagre triceps which disappeared in 1992.
Step 6: Fall backwards. Regret your choice of that $100 ultra-lite organic lulu lemon mat as you feel the floor boards pass through the natural rubber and connect with the base of your spine. Contemplate the nature of ego and its relationship to impossibly thin yoga mats.
Step 7: Catch yourself cursing whoever invented the word ‘yogini’. Remember your “अहिंसा” meaning non-violence or non-judgement. (Well, actually non-judgement might be from another part of the Upanishads. Don’t ask your teacher. She just works here.) Smile like you’re high on life. Namaste.
