Yoga strap

I just returned from a day long workshop on how to integrate yoga with traditional rehabilitation. It was excellent. I often think about the ways yoga and drawing connect, and thought I'd share one of those ways here.

I've noticed that my favorite drawings are ones that hit the marks but have a sense of breath. Meaning, they have correct proportion but the strokes retain a sense of life and freedom. Carol describes it as being loose but accurate. Drawings like that are very hard to do, but always look like they landed on the page easily. The problem is, in struggling to get accurate proportion you can lose the life of the mark, and in trying to retain a quick mark the correct measurements can be missed.

In yoga, there is action and resistance in every pose, meaning, that while one part is grounding into the earth, another part is rising toward the heavens. The feet are grounding, the arms are lifting upward. But even within the arms, the shoulders are grounding, the fingertips are rising, and even within the fingertips... And when you focus too much on the technical aspects of holding the pose you can forget to breathe, yet when you focus so much on your breath and forget your body it can be hard to come back down to earth.

I think it's the most satisfying thing, to the eye, to the body, to the spirit, to be simultaneously grounded and free. It's hard to get there, and then to maintain, but ah, those moments...