Perception

 

Not quite what I thought I looked like

I seriously thought my arms were straight in that photo. When I have play time, my focus in my practice is on an arm balance. They're a place of challenge physically and mentally. It takes a focused mind to arm balance. Trust me, you can't do your grocery list and hold yourself in crow for very long. 

Crow Pose circa July 2019

Currently I am working on moving out of crow pose into crane. I almost didn't want to continue writing this post when my research uncovered controversy! Maybe controversy is too strong a word - let's call it a difference in terms - for the two poses.

The first arm balance I ever learned, I learned as crow pose, "bakasana". But in looking for the sanskrit word for crane pose I found that in sanskrit crane is actually crow and crow is actually crane. Kakasana means crow, bakasana means crane. I also thought the arm position was key - but there's more to it than that. The knees are almost in the armpit as well. File that one in the "you learn something new every day" column.

Anyway, it matters not what one calls it. What matters is the shape of the body. And to know that, one needs body awareness. Photos help too.

My crow progress

I'm going to go out on a limb in support of taking photos of your yoga practice to help you improve, advance in a posture, if that's your goal. 

We can digress into the prevalence of gorgeous yoga photos online and how that can muddy the lens of what yoga truly is. Or contribute to an improper focus on the body itself. Or set unrealistic expectations. Or whatever... but that's not the point of this post or why I'm in support of collecting photographic evidence - documenting yourself in pictures as you practice.

It is because of perception and how unreliable it is, or can be. A while back I wrote about a warped perception with which I didn't agree on this very blog. That story was prickly, I'll admit, so stay with me here for the rest of this post and then go look at that previous one. 

Perception is a name for "how we see things". The how, depends on the individual. Their experiences, wisdom, ignorance, all of it. When something challenges your perception of things, how do you react? How do you respond? 

Our own body awareness - another name for perception - can be slightly off from reality - we KNOW this, right?

In the first photo, I SWORE I had straightened my arms. YAY! Oh my goodness, I got a great shot, it felt as if they were straight - couldn't wait to see the video. And then... realized the picture told a different story, didn't it? I saw that then and I see that now. Not gonna lie, I'm a little bummed that my perception/awareness was off... but hey, now I know. So now, we can say my perception is adjusted, realigned with reality and I have the body memory of how that felt. I have the insight to know that next time I need to push down, hug in, so I can straighten my arms a little more. 

I'm glad I took a photo. I am also glad I'm open to having my perception altered.