POW! (Pose of the Week)

Pose of the Week: Utkatasana - because I hate this pose. Okay, okay, you're right. Hate has no place on a yoga blog. But I intensely dislike this pose, and we're going to work through this together.

Hi everyone (and I say *everyone* with confidence, because I've had a few friends stop by and I've even gained two new followers! WELCOME, Read on, invite your friends to stop by! Often!) I'm back with a new Pose of the Week, and with this pose, there is an interesting conflict. There are multiple benefits to the "Powerful Chair" pose: opening your chest, building focus and reducing stress, stimulating circulatory and digestive systems, as well as lengthening the spine and strengthening the feet, calves, ankles, and thighs. Wow! This pose almost does it all. The conflict is that it's such a shame that I hate intensely dislike this pose...

I haven't quite pinpointed my intense dislike for this pose...but I do know that whenever an instructor gets us into Powerful Chair, I am less than joyful to be there. I never quite feel like I have nailed it. The internal conversation begins: I don't know if my thighs are parallel enough to the ground. Are my arms high enough? Aligned enough with my ears? How much longer am I going to be in this pose? Is my lower spine curving too much? Is my tailbone pointing towards the ground? Are we done yet?

Maybe I'm not being patient enough in this pose...but at the same time, I don't feel like I have anywhere to "go" with this pose, and my presence in this pose is far from ideal. I know there are some poses that I feel like I am really making progress with, and some that I have a good mastery of. Don't get me wrong: there's always room for improvement in yoga. There's always another step to take to deepen a pose, and I know that there's somewhere to go. I'm just not anywhere close to feeling that with my Utkatasana. I'm stuck there, in awkward limbo, not quite in the pose, and definitely NOT comfortable, and the worst part is that I know my body has no clue how to get past this. There's no where TO go for me. At least it feels that way.

So for now, I'm not quite ready to give up on my Powerful Chair...but I'll be brutally honest: I'm not going to let it ruin my practice and I'm not going to stop groaning (internally) whenever my instructor brings us to this pose. I'll breathe deeply and dutifully follow along, but I'll tell you now, I'm not going to like it. Are there any poses that you're not "loving"?

Conflict may happen in your practice, but yoga's little conversations can help you work through it!