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So there I am, doing urdhva dhanurasana with my hands in the corner of the wall/floor. Need to press my chest forward. Which would suggest walking the feet in. But wait, I’ve made a point of how important it is to walk the HANDS in. At 6 AM, upside down, this seems like an impossible dilemma. I am frozen with indecision.

It’s also a good measure of how far I’ve come. When I first started doing urdhva dhanurasana, my heart would beat wildly and I would feel panicked. Then for a while, I would get nauseated. Then it was stiff, cement-block asana: dense and opaque. Now I can at least be upside down suffering an inability to reason and testing the limits of my lack of coordination. Lame though my situation might be, I’ve come a long way. Finally my full consciousness is present in the pose.

This morning’s upside-down, “Oh my God! What am I going to do?!” drama is hilarious. Once I am righted, it is clear that I need to walk my feet in to push my pits to the wall AND I need to practice walking my hands in. I need to do both. I need to avoid being dogmatic and setting rules.

Such a challenge.

Oh, also wanted to mention that I tried Tova‘s Prasarita C tip this morning. Instead of pushing down with my hands, I pushed out through the shoulders. (She explained this better than I am…) MUCH better results, and feels better than cranking the arms. Prasarita C is a pose I’ve never stressed about: it’s easy for VBG to push my hands the last little bit to touch the ground, so I’ve never had any drive to perfect the pose or make sure I could get my hands to the ground on my own. Figured it’d happen eventually — once my shoulders opened up. BUt Tova’s tip is one of those ones where you try it and go, “Oh! So this is what I’ve been supposed to do all along!”