The Upside Down Student.

The Upside Down is a four-part workshop series that creates foundational yoga practices for inversions (in yoga, an inversion is any posture or position where the head is lower than the heart). Mary Waugh is going to be leading the series and I’m going to be taking the workshops purely as a student– and a very beginning student at that.

I am afraid of being upside down, especially if I have my hands on the floor. I’ve had serious wrist injuries throughout the years, have broken my elbow, and have ripped both rotator cuffs at different times of my life. I suffer from severe migraines, vertigo, motion sickness, and tinnitus. I’ve gotten too dizzy just by looking down in the past. The things that I am able to do now come from a lot of hard work to make myself a not very impressive looking yogi.  I did not come into a yoga practice because I had any physical aspirations because I thought that I was THAT broken. I started to practice yoga as a way to settle my mind. Being able to do a handstand was something that I never aspired to do– I didn’t even get to the place where I felt it was unattainable. I simply never wanted a life where I had to do it. Ever. 

This year, I’ve decided to work on it. Not because I want to do a headstand, but because I want to have a well-rounded yoga practice and this is an area that I’ve been purposely leaving out. Mary gave me a little deep cut of her philosophy of inversions and as a person of the mind, I am interested in being able to expand my mind and my perspectives. I am not really an adventurous person. I like doing the same thing a lot. And I avoid things that I’m not good at. That said, I’m justifying this because expanding my mind and looking at things from a different perspective is in my wheelhouse. 

Earlier today, I did a little pre workshop work with Mary to create some videos for the series. We did some drills for the workshop on camera. As expected, I was humbled. But thankfully, at the same time, I was a little less scared about it than I was going in. Everything was doable and it made me see what homework I needed to do faithfully. 

If you wanna have a homework date with me for four straight months, come do this with me!