We have a new teacher at BYSJ who can only be described as "cross between a fire breathing dragon and a horse whisperer!"
In my third or fourth class with him, he jumps down from the teachers podium all concerned and in a flash he is standing next to me.
Fire breathing horse whispering dragon (lets abbeviate to Fire for short) : "Boss, something wrong with you?"
Me: blank stare that suggests "why would something be wrong with me? I am in the freaking first row busting my ass giving it a 110%" but I am unable to open my mouth and say anything because of the surprise factor.
Fire : "do you have a back injury or hip injury or something?"
Me : worried look on my face and thinking "do I have a back or hip injury that I am not aware of? maybe he knows something I don't.. these yoga teachers always seem to know more about my body and mind than I do myself" .. then I mutter a feeble "No"
Fire : Then why are you not kicking your leg out? I see you are never kicking your leg out. (His drill sergeant tone actually suggested "why the hell are you not kicking your leg out? what is wrong with you boy?")
Me : (my head was going.. now come on.. "never" is a strong statement. you are saying never based on just one week of observation.. again all this is in my head) and I say out loud "That is because I am not sure if I am locking my leg!
Fire : How long have you been standing like this?
Me : little over 4 years.
I was thinking the dude was actually going to be proud of me, for staying in stage 1 of standing head to knee pose for four years, patiently trying to lock my legs for all of 60 seconds, before graduating to stage 2. The next stage was to kick the leg out. After all, this is a life long practice and some folks apparently take months or years to lock their leg! Turns out, I was off on that logic, by a wide margin.
Fire : Your legs seem locked enough for me! Try it. I am going to stand here till you kick it forward a little bit.
So he stayed next to me, literally pushed my hip to one side and pushed my knees back and breathed fire, till I kicked forward.
Then he tells the class "If you keep doing the same thing to the same extent every day and come back and say, nothing is improving, you are not being fair to yourselves and the yoga. You have to take a chance and try the next step every now and then"
He brought out the bad bengal tiger in me.. I started getting flashbacks.
There is a back story to my love hate relationship with this pose. There was a time, when I actually managed to do this pose.. nine months after starting to do Bikram Yoga.
Guess I spoke too soon, while writing that post!
In early 2012, every time I would kick out, my teachers would look at me and go "lock the knee.. your knee is not locked yet".. and they would all say it with concern in their voice like a parent tells a kid "dont touch the stove"!
Somewhere, I became so unsure of my knee's "lockedness", if there is such a word, that I stopped at stage 1. It was okay in my head. After all, I was perfecting standing on one leg and distributing the weight evenly on one foot. It came in handy to occupy the kids and their friends in "who can stand on one foot the longest without bending the knee" contests. (note the profound lack of the word "locked"!)
It would be nice to have a lockometer strapped to the knee, that rings a bell and goes "Locking confirmed. Please proceed to stage 2"! Maybe I should come up with such a meter, because there is always the question in my head of "how locked is locked?" and Fire is not going to be there in every class for a confirmation.
The last few days have seen me go from stage 1 to stage 1 1/2 with some consistency. At this rate, I might even get to stage 2 and beyond very soon!
At the end of the day, he was right. Every now and then the T-rex in me should test the fences. Who knows what might happen?
Worse case, you get a sequel to "standing head to knee" post!
A side note: It is great to see teachers walk around and fix poses during the class.
In one class, Fire handed the microphone to another teacher in the room and was walking around fixing everyones pose. It was surreal to have that kind of attention in a class.
It is also funny, when a teacher comes to you and says "can I adjust your pose?" It is like they are asking permission to touch you, be it male or female teacher, asking a male or female student. See it happen so many times in class and I really don't get it.
This is a physical class. It is like your doctor or physiotherapist asking for permission to touch you, before doing a treatment! If the teacher is not going to adjust your pose, who do you expect to adjust it? Shaquille O'Neil?