Slowly starting to learn to balance away from the wall, centimeter by centimeter.
I do have a head but my sweatshirt obscures it, ha.
I wasn’t going to post this image because I feel self-conscious, looking at it. I hear the voices of the world around me, discussing the size of my hips, my thighs.
But part of why I am choosing to teach is to eliminate the myth of the pretty young thing in yoga, especially in fierce and fiery yoga. The few times I see people as heavy or heavier than me in studio classes, they are often beginner or gentle classes. Or, even more likely in my community, classes that are very very badly taught, because that’s all we know and “deserve.”
And I hate that. If you go to those classes because it works for you, deeply, then that’s awesome. I have a feeling that this choice is not entirely a choice, though, and that it’s more about there being limited safe spaces for us to choose from. I have a feeling that many more of us would be rocking arm balances and backbends if we believed that we could. I know that seeing a girl larger than me in full vasisthasana, leg extended, was a life-changing moment.
So I am posting this picture, for myself, for those like me, who are learning to look at challenging poses and ask “why not me?”
