"Any perception can connect us to reality properly and fully. What we see doesn’t have to be pretty, particularly; we can appreciate anything that exists. There is some principle of magic in everything, some living quality. Something living, something real, is taking place in everything."
~ “Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior” Chogyam Trungpa
Today's class brought me into the reality of my practice... I am not very good. As we moved from Warrior I and then to Warrior II I felt myself sway and crumple. My knees today seemed to protest my every move. It was a fight between the three of us, they wanting to quit after only a few seconds in each pose that required them to bend, that is until we came to Utthita Trikonasana (Extended Triangle Pose). I am not sure what I look like in this pose, the instructor seemed to think I was doing it right since she did not correct my form or posture and it fact said it looked good, but all I know is today this posture felt right. My knees were not complaining, my normally tight hamstrings felt just a little looser and I was experiencing a fantastic stretch in my right and then left side body. As I held Utthita Trikonasana I began to think about my practice over the last few months and how I have come to appreciate my forms just for what they are and slowly stopped kicking myself when I could not quite get there with a pose. When I first began doing yoga I would laugh self-consciously at myself often and now I still laugh often but this time it is more joyous. I have learned to find humor in my practice and it is that humor that has led me to feel the reality of my practice... I do what I can and what I can do sometimes feels magical. As I continue my weekly yoga practice I look forward to looking back over my early days of reflection on my poses, well it may not seem very pretty right now I am sure later on down the road it will be a fantastic progression of skill that just exists as a part of my yoga history.
How to do Utthita Trikonasana (Extended
Triangle):
You will want to start off in Tadasana
then either toe heal your feet out into a wide straddle or you can
jump your feet out (you should have them about 3 ½ to 4 feet apart).
Raise your arms so the are parallel to the floor with your shoulder
blades wide and your palms down. Next you will turn your left foot
in slightly to the right and your right foot out about 90 degrees.
Align the heals and turn your right thigh outward so the the right
knee cap is in line with the right ankle. You will next exhale and
extend your torso to the right then bend at the hip joint. Rest your
right hand on your shin, ankle or the foot (whatever feels right to
you). Stretch your left arm toward the ceiling, make sure it is in
line with your shoulder. You can keep your head in the neutral
position or gaze up at your thumb. Switch and do the same on the
other side. If you want to see a video of it check out YogaJournal's Extended Triangle Pose video.
Check out more great yoga blogs on:
yet. If you have any Yoga book recommendations please feel free to send them to me via email at 
and she opened my eyes, “Lotus is a dangerous pose, because it's the perfect yoga pose. It's the pose that people who don't do yoga imagine when they think of yoga. When we try to fit our bodies into an idea it's dangerous. We stop feeling from the inside and take cues from the outside about what we should be doing. This can lead to injury and even worse, to dissatisfaction” (49). This really stuck with me and all the ego that I was carrying around in my Lotus pose slowly began to dissipate. Yes I can do Lotus and it would really be great if the whole class was all about Lotus but the truth is that I will never learn to do the things that I cannot now do if I kept obsessing on my perfect Lotus pose. So instead of looking at myself and then at others while in poses in class I started taking my glasses off. Now that I cannot see the others I am able to focus on how the poses feel with my whole mind instead of how I looked compared to others. And I remind myself that eventually when the poses feel right they will start to look right. All that said I still have to say that regardless of the potential cliche of
Claire Dederer in her memoir 
