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Okay, so all of this backbending has been focusing me on my shoulders. Like any normal person who works on a computer day after day, year after year, my shoulders hunch in. I will qualify that by pointing out that people at work often comment on my fine workstation posture, but be that as it may, I still bear the mark of the computer-enslaved. And let’s be honest, it isn’t just the computer-related career. I remember my brother, who was a personal trainer, getting on me about my shoulders before I ever worked in an office. He didn’t understand why the fashion is for women to kind of hunch their shoulders forward. Look at models — they slouch all the time. He suggested it was a way for women to distance themselves from their own strength and uprightness, which I think is a really interesting idea.

So anyhow, I hunch. A teeny bit, but a bit nevertheless. With the new focus on backbending, though, I’ve been opening up through the shoulders. And where the shoulders go, so goes the upper back. I’ve been doing my passive stretching, and it seems to be loosening up the shoulders and upper back. I feel a little conflicted about it, I must admit. The flexibility: good. The diminished strength: waaaaah! Today in led class, I was a weakling in urdhva dhanurasana. It’s like all of the internal structure of my upper back and shoulders is coming loose, and my abiliity to coordinate and apply strength is totally shot.

I kind of put it all together and realized I’m probably going to have to reapportion the strength in my urdhva dhanurasanas. I used to always have the arms and legs doing equal duty on the lift into space. Maybe work for more lightness and flexibility in the upper body and more grounding and strength in the legs? My logic may be off, but it seems like when I get that squared away — voila, the scene will be set for proper dropbacks and standing from UD. Okay, now translate that from mind to body. Huh? That particular software isn’t working?

Okay, so it still felt like there was a missing link in the whole deal, and I don’t just mean in backbends. Over the whole primary experience, I’ve been at a bit of an advantage, given the forward bend/strength/endurance focus of the practice. Now with second, I hit the brick wall of flexibility and upper body coordination. Did I ever mention I was a goalie on the field hockey team? Used to run? Considered squats my all time favorite weightlifting exercise? Yep, all lower body coordination. Upper body? Yeah, um, not so much.

Which explains why I am such a dolt, really, with the upper body stuff. So I’m sitting here, feeling like something is missing, strength and coordination-wise, between the highly stable core of uddiyana bandha (shout out to “cave of the sacrum”!) and the as-yet-to-be-accomplished-but-starting-to-be-apparent coordination of the shoulders/upper back. Hmmm. The strength of uddiyana bandha and the flexibility/articulation of the shoulders… What can possibly mediate between and integrate them?

Yes! Duh! The kidney wings. That’s the place where I’m “leaking energy”–yeah, I hate to use a phrase like that, but I do have the sense that uddiyana bandha is a-okay and my shoulders starting to come clear a bit, but that there is a no man’s land in between that is just a big hazy expanse of… well, of nothing. But you know, if I do kind of bring my consciousness to the space between my lower ribs and my sacrum, I find that I kind of “hunch” there, too. Not in any distinct way — it’s more a subtle habit. A kind of closing forward versus opening out. A place I don’t activate or open.

Okay, note to self: Use the opening/stabilizing of the kidney wings to coordinate/mediate between core and upper back/shoulders. Sigh. Is there no end to the places that I’ve managed to forget about or just miss entirely?

My shala. Well, my soon-to-be new shala (as of July 1). If you’re ever in Scottsdale, come practice with us!