If you didn’t already know, ATRO stands for Awesome Things Rip-Off because I totally ripped off the idea from this guy.
I love yoga. I love the strengthening, stretching, and getting blood to my head. And I love my yoga teacher. I love her even more after getting a taste of a bad yoga teacher (bored monotone voice plus non-stop yammering about herself through our poses). But sometimes I have no idea what my teacher is talking about.
Like “knit my ribs in” – what does that mean? I can’t move my ribs. And “widen my collarbones”? Those don’t move either. And “turn the crooks of my elbows to the top of the mat”? What are the crooks? The inside, or the outside?
Okay, okay. I do kind of know what she means. Kind of. I move that part of my body in a shoddy imitation of her instruction. And it does make a difference. The muscles under my ribs actually feel sore after I’ve been concentrating on “knitting” them together. But while I’m doing it, I’m struggling. I’m pretending.
But once in a while, my body seems to position itself where it’s supposed to be, I move each part the way she says, and. . .VOILA! So that’s why rolling my weight to the outside of my foot in the warrior pose is so effective. It’s supposed to lengthen that whole side of my body, not just make me feel like I’m – well, rolling my foot. That’s what she means by saying relax the shoulders as I stretch up through my fingertips.
It’s like suddenly I’m not just concentrating on that one body part. Suddenly, that one position connects to other parts, one by one, till my whole body is engaged.
Yoga is like striving for moments of perfection, but also knowing whatever you do, as long as you try, is okay.
That’s sort of what keeps me going back. Trying for that perfect pose.
And also rad biceps.