It Begins with Downward Dog

Here I am in Downward Dog. Going through the pre-launch checklist, again.
My hands are forward, shoulder width apart, fingers spread wide with the eyes of my elbows pointing towards each other. My feet are hip width apart, pointing forward with my heels moving toward the ground. My weight is even between front and back. I’m drawing energy in and up with my hands (hasta bandha) and feet (pada bandha). There’s a looseness and openness in my arms, with my scapula drawing towards each other and down my mid back. I breathe calmly and deeply with a closed mouth engaging Ujjayi breathing through a slight constriction of my throat while inhaling and exhaling. There’s a lot going on, but I’ve been here often and the rightness of it all just fits together.

The teacher’s words creep in from outside announcing that it’s time to move, to jump toward the top of my mat and land between my hands. My mind sees and feels the image of a piked handstand followed by a slow, controlled landing – the elusive and magical “float” from the back of the mat to the front.

I bring my feet together, root my hands more firmly into the earth and look forward. On an inhale I bend my knees and allow the breath to flow fully into my relaxed pelvic diaphragm. Exhaling, a wave of energy moves up from the floor, pulls my pelvis into Mula bandha and engages my psoas muscles while I kick my feet from the mat, hips rising higher. My mind grasps at the magical floating image while I land in what seems just a pathetic little hop with an all-too-audible thump, my feet well short of my hands.

Disappointment and frustration arise, coloured by an even deeper desire for external validation. I see my striving for my teacher’s adoration. I sigh. Let it go, maybe next time. Quit striving. It will happen. Someday.

And just as suddenly the realization arises that the thing holding me back is not my form, but my mind. I need to quit trying so hard. The magical and elusive float isn’t the yoga, rather it’s everything surrounding and leading up to the thumping non-float that’s the real yoga. Yoga is a process of self-inquiry and this downward dog inquiry has yielded a monstrous gem: my ego strives to define itself through external achievements and will send waves of disappointment as its messenger when I’m unable to deliver. And if I identify with the disappointment, I feed my ego even more. “Clearly I exist” says the ego. It is cunning and can win in many ways.

But this is really the end of the story, not the beginning. The practice of yoga is ever unfolding. Let me go back to the beginning, or at least an earlier point in time.

There are no downward dogs in Bikram's yoga.