Archive for the ‘Yoga’ Category
Utkatasana
I tried a variant of Utkatasana after a long time. Yes, it seems a really easy asana. But I can take a challenge – 8 out of 10 people can’t get to this posture. Even if they can, I bet they can’t stay in the asana for more than a few seconds. Even a simpler variant of this where you can completely rest on your foot rather than just the toes is tough to hold. But this asana is also an excellent indicator of our body condition. It can be used as a measure of how much our body (the mind, actually) listens to us. It is a balancing asana.
I tried a few variations from this starting posture and realized that the extent to which we can command our body to do postures is far far less than what our body can actually manage. We probably have only 20-30% control over how we can manoeuvre our body. Of course, we can only imagine what it will be when it comes to our mind!
Like Shameem Akhtar mentions, the ability to do a particular asana seems more of a mental thing. The variations of Utkatasana seemed so much more easier once I started telling myself that it was possible to get into the posture. One more thing I have realized is that in every asana, there are certain points on the body which takes the pressure of the asana. The ankles are where the pressure is when you do Utkatasana. If you visualize your body’s stress getting accumulated at the pressure point and visualize that the asana is actually destroying the stress leading to the pain/heat, you get an amazing sense of relief once you get out of the asana.
Alright, enough gyan. Now try the asana and let me know how many seconds you managed to stay in the posture 
