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This morning, as I did my dutiful kapotasana, assisted by Volleyball Guy, I thought: “Yes, I have my toes, but getting to my heels is gonna be a looooong haul.” Of course, I didn’t actually think it in words — I just had the strong physical realization. The inches between my toes and my heels have never seemed like a big deal at all, but from the perspective of kapotasana, they are a long journey. A whole ‘nother island, to think of it in Second Life terms.

Volleyball Guy doled out some super-good adjustments today: hanumanasana (a rare, 50%-word-based adjustment), supta kurmasana, and an astonishingly good baddha konasana assist. And as per usual, he was right there for kapotasana, supta vajrasana and dropbacks. Great moral support.

I took a moment to help… gosh, I don’t know what to call her. “Noodle Girl” doesn’t do her justice, because she has a very elegant beauty. I guess I’ll go with “The Swan.” Anyhow, this gal has become a regular Mysorian, and she is a backbender by nature. Chakra bandhasana? No problem! She was setting up for laghu vajrasana and kind of puttering about, and made a laughing reference to performance anxiety. I had finished my regular poses and was taking a breath before urdhva dhanurasana, so asked if she wanted me to spot her, and she said, “sure.” I then witnessed an exquisitely delicate backbend that ended with her head on her feet and her hands on her knees. Very much a different laghu vajrasana than I do! It was as if there is no muscular tension in her body at all, or if there is it is so evenly dispersed that you don’t notice it. She can’t get out of laghu vajrasana — I’m assuming because there is no muscular tension and she just sinks into a kind of equilibrium. What kind of life (or lifetimes) brings you to a place where you have so little tension? I wondered. I often wonder about the karma that brings us to our physical realities. Hers was so remarkably different from my own.

Note to self: Still very taken with the laghu vajrasana/kapotasana combination. It’s genius.

Yes, there are natural forward benders and natural backward benders, and people who tend to be strong and people who tend to be flexible. It makes perfect sense to me that I am a forward bending strong person. It was astounding to so closely watch a backward bending flexible person. Almost as if we are different species. All of the energy in my body runs in habitual manners — and when I get into a pose, I am conscious of the energy in the affected muscles (whether contracting or stretching) and all the connection points (usually joints, but sometimes bandhas) where it seems like the energy turns into motion and/or strength. I’m sure this same thing must be going on with The Swan, but there isn’t the same… well, I can only describe it as “explosive” energy contractions and surges. At least nothing discernible. For her, it all seems to be very smooth. It must be cool to teach different students and see these things: we take it for granted that every person’s psychology is highly individualized, but tend to think that body mechanics are relatively similar. Very much not so, apparently.

Tova asked me about fear. Specifically, about why I feel fear in kapotasana. When I think about it even for a minute, I realize that I am not afraid of kapotasana as a particular asana. I do remember, though, that when I first started doing backbends, I was astonished by how hard my heart beat, how frantic it made me feel. It didn’t make sense. Why would a backbend kick off such strong physical reactions? It was like a huge unmoderated dose of adrenaline.

I am 105% forward-bend prone. My default mode is forward bend. It’s my physical (and, likely, psychological) preference. Ever since I was a kid, bending forward was more fun than bending backwards. Is it old karma? I don’t know. At the very least, it’s a habit of this lifetime — which I intend to reverse. So it’s not that I fear kapotasana, it’s that backbends kick off the physical responses that humans get when they feel fear. And, in the interest of just labelling things without closely examining them, I then identify it as a subset of fear.

Kapotasana is the most intense backbend I’ve ever confronted, so it is the current focus of my backbend-adrenalinized attention. It kicks off the racing heartbeat, the constricted breathing, etc., etc. Add onto that a few horror stories I’ve heard (and make note, they have all been rumors) of people being hurt in this pose, and now there is (or was) a sketchiness factor in my mind.

The interesting question, I think, is whether feeling the physical stuff means I am feeling fear. For some reason, I vote no. I imagine I am just feeling the energy of something I don’t do naturally or easily. Is feeling the energy the same as feeling the emotion? Is it all just semantics?