POW! (pose of the week)

Pose of the Week: Vrksasana - because sometimes you need to feel like you can do something impressive!



Tree pose is actually the counterpose to last week's POW, Standing forward bend! It allows your spine to lengthen, obviously improves your balance, but also improves circulation while opening your shoulders, chest, thighs, and hips. Sounds like a recipe for feeling good! I also learned something new: Vrksasana actually remedies flat feet! This is because it helps to strengthen the arches, ankles, calves and thighs. Hey, maybe this is a magic "do it all" kind of pose. Then again, as I learn more and more about the deeper purposes of my poses, so many of them are magic "do it all" kind of poses.



Anyway, I really like tree pose for lots of reasons. It is one of those poses where you first feel kind of bad-ass...like you really know what you're doing with all this yoga stuff. There you are, one leg folded way up on your thigh, while balancing on the other leg. Pretty powerful. Pretty impressive! And your hands are doing whatever they want. It's totally flexible, in both senses of the word.



First of all, you have to be pretty flexible to get your leg hitched up that far, but this pose is also flexible in that there are no rules as to what you need to do with your hands while you're balancing on that leg. You can hold your hands in prayer position in front of your sternum. You can hold your hands on your hips. You can clasp your hands and point your index finger to the sky. You can hold your arms aloft like the branches of a giant oak tree. This last version is my favorite way to practice tree pose. Maybe it's the teacher in me, but I love the idea of my arms as branches, extending out (you know, all "tree of knowledge" and stuff). I feel so graceful. I love any pose that is full of grace. It's also pretty cool that I can balance like that.



By the way, the flexibility also extends down to those feet, too. If you can't hitch your foot all the way into your inner thigh, you can place it on your lower thigh. You can place it on your calf. You can even place it on your ankle. That Linden tree in my backyard didn't sprout overnight, and neither did my efforts in Tree Pose. It took many, many practices to get where I am....and the instructor of any class I'm in will certainly tell you there's room for improvement in my Tree.



Naturally, that's one of the things I love about yoga: there's always somewhere to go. Feel free to come to my tree for knowledge, enlightenment, or even just a bit of shade!



This week, share some shade!