Why I'm Scared of My Hips

I was lucky enough to be able to take Annie Carpenters last week- a hip opening session that, like all her classes, offered enough information to be considered a workshop.

Annie has this incredible creativity that disguises itself in simplicity and modesty. And we did a lizard lunge: instead of bringing the back knee down, we extended our hands right away.

Like always, I wish after class I had written down all the techniques we used, but as I recall, the main emphasis was on squaring the hips and rolling in the inner tight. This had the effect of engaging mula bandha and lifting the pelvic floor.

Then we went up against the wall, and, again much like Natasha's, that's when things got tight. We put our knee against the wall, top of the back foot on the wall, and began to move into a low lunge. In the words of an acquaintance, 'Oh My Science!'.

I was really scared. I had so much anger, resentment, annoyance stored in there. Although in the back of my mind, I know all emotions, all human possibility is accessible to everyone, there is a part of me that refuses to believe that I can be an angry, jealous, or resentful person. And like how I can. The moment I stepped into the lunge- I don't remember the thoughts, only their quality- they all jammed up into my head and attacked me. I was terrified.

And that type of radical self-knowledge and fear-facing is what I want to discover through yoga now.