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ARROW TO THE HEART POSE: shift your perspective on what it means to open your heart. How do you touch your heart? The star of this week's Movement Portrait is @foundspaceyoga. Melanie prefers the pronouns they/them. They're hypermobile and can easily flop into janusirsasana A. Is that a “deeper" practice? Getting to your toes is only a marker of success if you're a baby or cat with adorable toe beans. .
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Bow-and-Arrow-to-the-Heart janusirsasana invites them to let the soft animal of their body love what it loves. They shift their flesh to be comfortable instead of pulling themselves into the pose. (Subtle difference!) They trace their fingers up the line of their forearm, touch the skin across their heart, and open their heart. As you try it, slow down and sense: what is it like to be touched by someone who truly cares about you? You never have to be touched in a way you don’t want to be. .
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They love this one after Pilates or a lot of spinal flexion (c-curve). With their kind self-touch, Melanie feels they a beautiful being worthy of loving touch. If you had a reaction to the word “fat”, consider that the place to start is to love your fat students.
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Touch is a hot topic in the world of movement right now. Appropriate physical contact has immense health benefits. Bad touch is Really Bad. In a touch-starved society, what do we do? Touch yourself. .
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Giggle-inducing, right? But every time I teach this students go somewhere special. They realize their body is not an apology. Sensory experiencing is the gateway to sensuality, the gateway to intimacy. Start somewhere profoundly simple: what is it like to reclaim your sense of touch and being touched? .
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Melanie is a proud fat, queer, non-binary femme and full-time yoga teacher and accessibility advocate. They love moving for movement’s sake and petting other people’s cats. Virgo sun, Taurus rising, Capricorn moon, and laughing about it. This is part of my ongoing Movement Portrait project to show the world what I get to see on a daily basis: movement belongs to everyone. Representation matters! Celebrate diversity and find joy in the way YOUR miracle
I recently heard myself say to someone, “Nothing ever turns out the way you expect it to anyway, so why hold rigid expectations?” I recognize that many people who have been in my life over the years might find that shocking and hilarious—so did I.
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I don’t think anyone has ever accused me of being too lax. If you can call it an accusation (since it’s based in truth), I’ve certainly been accused of having exceedingly high expectations, of being a profoundly rigid person.
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But my body has taught me something about rigidity. I’m naturally inclined towards physical flexibility, and when I started practicing #asana, I always wanted the deepest fold, the longest stretch. I’d wake up the next morning with stiff, immobile muscles. I’d overstretched them, and they were becoming rigid in the aftermath. It was a physical demonstration of self protection. It was an instinctual response.
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When I stopped seeing my emotional and relational rigidity as an innate flaw and started seeing it as a reaction to trauma, to emotional overextension, I became able to be more gentle with myself for it. I began to recognize it as something I could actually influence, but certainly not by continuing to overextend my psychological capacities with immutable expectations that kept getting dashed and doing more harm. I had to back off. Just like I had to back off my folds and twists on the mat in order to avoid the resulting stiffness.
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I am a softer person for letting ease be one of my guides. I am not a failure for having tried so hard for so long to protect myself by putting rigid, taxing expectations on myself and others, expectations that seemed at the time like they would serve me. But I’m also a more tender, supple being when I remind myself its okay to back off, account for my time and self care, prioritize my boundaries. And in the moments I’m able to be both boundaried and vulnerable, I start to remember what trust feels like. Trust feels like listening to your body when it says you’ve stretched it far enough, like finding refuge in that ease, like understanding that forcing a perception of progress is not the same as nurturing something towards growth. 🌱 #stillgrowing
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#yoga
