Downward-Facing Dog: Return Again

Downward-Facing Dog is the pose that we return to the most throughout a yoga practice. In the beginning of a yoga session (and certainly when you first start yoga), there is a challenging aspect to it.

For me, I feel it in the backs of my legs. As stretched out as my calved and hamstrings seem to be by the end of an hour of heated yoga, the next day they have sprung back into their less flexible, natural state. The transition into a yoga practice entails starting anew, again and again.

Quick story: I returned home from yoga in what is often my post-yoga mood: empowered and joyful. After a quick shower, I jumped in the car to head downtown for an appointment. The road was full of obstacles - construction, traffic, and other unhurried drivers impeding my way. Over the course of this drive, my mood changed from light to heavy. By the time I got to my appointment, I was snappish and irritable. It is truly amazing that I absorbed all of that external stress and let it shift my way of being. But it makes sense. I tend to be an absorber. I feel deeply, I empathize deeply, and it is a challenge for me to let the emotions of my friends and family not impact my own. But I never really realized how much I was absorbing EVERYTHING. If left unchecked, I have the capacity to let the world around me determine my self-expression.

So I come into downward-facing dog. My hands and feet are firmly planted on my mat. I can feel the ground beneath me. And I look at the back of my mat. With my head down, this pose does not allow me to see what’s around me. It’s just me on my mat, transitioning into my yoga practice and coming into my body. How can I have forgotten about it since yesterday’s practice? I actually know I can forget about it any minute.

That is really why I practice yoga. Because when I feel too much or there are big frequencies around me to absorb, there are the places I go by habit, and there are the places I am teaching myself to go instead. My head versus my body. Numbing out versus sensation. The fridge versus the mat.

I want downward-facing dog to feel like home for me. So I relish this opportunity to do the pose again, and again, and again.