Happy in Hanumanasana

For the past month or so I've been taking yoga classes on Thursday evenings with Mike, a student of Dharma Mittra. The flow is very different from the vinyasa style I'm used to, but I love it. I feel that I am making more progress in certain poses than I have before, which definitely gives credence to the old "practice and all is coming" adage.

And like certain ashtangis I know, I am becoming obsessed with poses. Two in particular: handstand and hanumanasana.

I very much want to rise up into handstand in the middle of the room and stay up. No flailing. No falling over backwards onto my head and breaking yet another one of those plastic claw hair clip thingies. I have broken it down for myself into a few components. I need to strengthen my abs to better be able to engage uddiyana bandha and lift my legs more gracefully. I need to do a better job of getting my hips over my shoulders. Once up, I need to find that center of gravity. As r&d for this, I have been practicing pushing up from tripod headstand into handstand, but although I could stay in tripod all day I lose my balance once I'm up on my hands.

I'm not bad at kicking up against the wall, slowly removing one leg, then the other, and balancing for a while. Like, 10 seconds. Another fun version of this is to use the head as a tripod, as I was instructed to do by an Iyengar teacher whose class I took while visiting my sister in NJ. That is, kick up (or ideally rise up) into handstand against the wall, rest the top of your head gently on the wall and remove your feet. As he said, then all that stands between you and an unsupported handstand is a few inches, and it's all in your head. I can do that and stay up for a while too. But I want to be able to do this in the middle of the room, for all to gaze upon and admire. Oops. Scratch that last part.


Then there's Hanumanasana. I am not from the Gumby tribe. I have never, not even as a kid, been able to do front splits. All flexibility is hard-earned. But Mike does hanumanasana in every class, instructing us to place a block under our front hamstring as support. Lo and behold, I am getting better at this. I have gone from barely touching the block, kind of leaning over sideways and trying hard not to grimace to my current incarnation, in which I can rest upright on the block, legs extended out straight front and back. Last night I felt so happy doing this. Ah, the small things.

Oddly, I feel no need for extracurricular development in this pose. Just getting as far as I have is a bonus. Probably because it's flexibility-based, not strength based. But whatever. One to work on, one to allow.