Fly away little crow!

 

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Fear as we know it, is an unpleasant emotion caused by the threat of danger, pain or harm and I know this emotion very well whenever I attempted kakasana by myself. I would nurse my wrists and give up easily because I was threatened by the lack of strength I have with my upper body and all I could think about was my face!! Fortunately I had my first bakasana breakthrough back in 2013 when I attended Shape’s Yoga By The Sea event with Tara Stiles as she guided me in my first successful kakasana (whilst fangirling all over her! Hehe). All she did was to give me hope; “be easy on yourself and look ahead, you can fly when you want to”, she said… it was the weirdest yet longest 3 seconds of my life trying to save my dignity not to fall flat in front of the media and conquered my fear. That 3 seconds was heavenly. Little did I know, I found that inner strength again to fly, this time it was equipped with better physical strength…I gradually flew higher and stronger with ease now! 🙂
To date, Tara’s words still lingers in my memories whenever I attempt new challenging asana or returning back to an old asana to improve. Who knew techniques as simple as (1) pressing down into the earth to strengthen and stabilise my shoulders and my triceps (2) lifting my hips higher so that my triceps could carry my weight (3) squeezing in my abs and engaging in my uddiyana bandha by pointing my tippy toes as far as I can and (4) simply being steady and light in my breath that I learnt throughout my YTT holds the key to such contentment and diminishing every fear I have in bakasana?
As guru Pattabhi would say, yoga is 99% practice and 1% theory, let’s keep practicing and all is coming! This i guarantee, with my whole heart <3
In light and love,
Nura Ahmad