Sage Galava And The Pose With Pitfalls

Dear Yogis.

Here is a story for you; the story of the Pose Dedicated to Sage Galava or Flying Pigeon Pose. It’s about Sage Galava who had made his life bewilderingly complicated by his own ego and insistence. As a result, he had a huge, unachievable debt to pay of 800 white horses with one black ear. With anxiety and remorse, Galava was reduced to a skeleton. A King promised to help but since the debt was an impossible one, he offered his daughter instead (who was successively married off to kings, produced sons and remained a virgin). Because of Galava’s initial misjudgement, his life changed out of all recognition.

The lesson of the story is about the pitfalls of stubbornness and not listening to the advice of well-wishers. A famous traveling Vedic, Sage Narada, related the story starting something like this: The word of friends ought to be listened to. Obstinacy ought to be avoided; for it is fraught with great evil. To illustrate this, I have an old story regarding Galava who is disgraced through obstinacy. You can read the tale here.     

Well, the lesson of the actual yoga pose is similar! The stubbornness of wanting to do a posture, friendly warnings of pitfalls, injury! I’m carrying exactly that injury! It’s from our friend Galava and his posture, flying pigeon pose. In this posture, the knee is folded but has a twist in order to put the foot on the opposite knee. The knee has a little left-to-right movement and some of us, with practice, can do lotus without going outside its range of movement. The problem is this; the posture adds weight to a twisted knee… and bang goes the knee! (By the way, knee problems are too common in yoga via lotus-type postures!)

“Asana is a healing thing. It's the mind that distorts it and turns it into something harmful”. But it can be hard to know if a posture is dangerous, especially if you’re flexible and strong and eager and if the posture looks like fun. Just make a note that an unstable joint with added weight is not a great idea!

Zoom Classes 

Come and have a nice safe practice for your knee… come today! The class today is at 4.30.

Yoga in the news 

The Bournemouth Echo has: Beach Yoga Fest to make its return to Bournemouth beach this summer. Beach Yoga Fest is to be held on the beach from Friday June 18 and Sunday June 20, the weekend before the International Day of Yoga on June 21.

The Stylist has: Yoga for runners: open your hips, glutes, hamstrings and quads. ‘Running… puts pressure on hips, quads, hamstrings, glutes and the spine. “Poses that strengthen glutes, open hips and increase ankle stability and range of motion are great for fixing common issues impacting runners”’.

The Webster Journal has: It's time to decolonize yoga. ‘When India was colonized, the British East India Company initially banned yoga practices. Thus, ancestral traditions were lost in the process. Hatha yogis were actually seen by both the British and other Western countries as practitioners of black magic’.

Have a nice weekend… perhaps planning your haircut!