It’s nearly four months now since I started my regular, six-mornings-a-week Ashtanga yoga practice routine and it’s amazing what I’ve noticed and learned in this time about my habits, my behavioural patterns, my body and so on….   On a purely physical level though, something I’ve noticed over the months is the potential wear and tear of a regular practice on your body and in particular the joints, if it’s being done incorrectly.

When I started my practice there was something I was doing in each session that my body was quick to take offense to.  My delightfully arrogant ego had me throwing my legs into full-lotus while doing Baddha Padmasana in the finishing three poses, right from day one.   Now I have unusually flexible hips (which I’ve always put down to the years of horse riding I did as a kid) so I can actually pop into lotus any time, with or without warming up these joints.  But just because you can do something, doesn’t necessarily mean you should.  And I definitely should not have been wrapping my legs up in knots while going through the last three poses so early on.

See, for the first nearly two months of my practice, I was barely getting as far as Prasarita D each day (approx. 25minutes of various standing poses); in fact, the first couple weeks it wasn’t unusual for me to not progress beyond Trikonasana (only 15 minutes of practice).  As a result, there were practically zero hip-openers in my brief practices prior to heading full-power into an intricate and risky pose that requires hips as soft as butter… Let me tell you right now – doing this repeatedly will most certainly wreak havoc on your knees!  Despite noticing some discomfort in them whilst doing the poses, I carried on in the same manner for a while.  Thankfully I’m not a total idiot/egotistical maniac and as soon as I started feeling twinges in my knees outside of practice, it dawned on me that unless I wanted knee surgery at some point in the near future, something needed to change…

It was time to relinquish the pride of completing those last three poses like some sort of “master-yogi” and to allow myself to merely cross my legs on the floor, one in front of the other.  And just like that, the pain in my knees vanished.  I listened to my body and responded when I heard her protests and she in turn, duly responded to my gentler modifications and allowed me to carry on my morning routine, pain-free.

It took a large helping of common sense and humility to stop charging ahead in the wrong direction, trying to do something I clearly wasn’t ready for.  It required honesty with myself that I wasn’t ready for Padmasana yet.  And it required a healthy reminder that I didn’t need to be ready for it.  A “master-yogi” isn’t necessarily someone who can twist their body into contorted shapes like a clown tying a balloon in knots to look like an animal….  A genuine, wise and humble yogi knows that they simply need to accept whatever level they’re at and work from there.  Because it’s never about “getting a pose” – it’s about showing up on your mat.  Day after day.  Whether happy or sad, sore and stiff or bouncing with energy…. just get on your mat.

The great Pattabhi Jois always said, “Practice and all is coming!”

And you know what?  Since my practice has evolved recently to regularly completing all the standing poses, I’ve noticed an expansive, delightfully satisfying, opening sensation in my hips now when I do Baddha Padmasana (still modified).  I’m quietly confident that the day will come when I can safely do the full version of this pose with melting hips and happy knees…  But whether or not that day ever does arrive, I’ll keep practicing because the deeply grounding, nourishing anchor it has become in my life, is worth more than any fancy pose!  Om Shanti!

Love,

Ellie