I love backbending. Wasn’t born with one of those super flexi spines, but the exhilaration that rises when I’m in wheel is unmatched. Yoga has opened my tight right shoulder and chaturanga has given my back strength.
When I draw my shoulder blades down in a pose like salabhasana interlock my fingers behind me and glue my hands together I can lift my chest almost a foot higher.
I feel invincible. I feel strong.
Oddly enough this love of backbends and strength means nothing when I do ustrasana. To me, Camel is elusive and confounding.
Ustrasana amplifies my subconscious, stress that I work so hard to tamp rises hot and aware. The first time this happened I was caught off-guard and tears rolled down the sides of my eyes. In child’s pose I had to tell myself not to cry my eyes out on the mat. When the teacher mentioned that Camel Pose can bring up emotions I grumbled, now you tell me.
It was the first step to healing an emotional wound and I’ve been using it as medicine ever since.
There are plenty of times these days that opening up in Camel leaves me elated. When this happens I have to breathe in and out to prevent a spontaneous dance party in the middle of class.
Happy, sad, angry or glad – Camel pose will not leave you feeling neutral.
I’ve read that the opening of the heart chakra is what facilitates this opening of the emotional floodgates. But when I looked at the illustration below- it seems that when you do Camel properly aligned (hips forward, heart lifted) you can push on almost every chakra.
It seems that you get a chance to unblock or at least stir up anything that needs to come up.
Camel pose makes the body say- slow down mama and take it all in. I just want to make sure you don’t miss a thing.
And while I get a little annoyed when I am forced to deal with a feeling that I’ve been avoiding- it’s so nice to get it out of the way. This is part of the journey I guess.
This is yoga. And I embrace feeling all of it.
Namasté y’all.
