Ya know, of the yoga docs I’ve seen, all the old Indian men say the same thing about Westernized yoga.
Between the commercialization, the teachers traipsing in late – green drink in hand, and the mantras uttered in perfunctory fashion with nada background knowledge on what it actually means, we’ve lost the meaning of yoga. Lost it in transatlantic translation. The literal def, the big time spiritual OG’s will tell you, is “to yoke” (I think with god, or universal consciousness – see? I don’t even know that well). And, you know what happens when I yoke my own poses to this source of which they speak? I end up with a Western translation of my own. Something I can relate to in my own experiences here on earth. So, while a few of the poses here may be recycled pictures from earlier blogs, I’ve decided to reclaim their names (a long standing tradition with the people from whence I hail – sticking their thumb in naturally beautiful things for their own egoic benefit. See: the moon.) just like we’ve done when we implemented things like raver yoga – complete with dancing at the end and glow sticks.
And it’s definitely not because I was too lazy to look up the real names.
Definitely not.
First, I present to you: REVERSE MIRANDA ASANA
“Get on your knees! Hands behind your head!”
The poorly executed pose you see above is the Cheshire version of exactly what you hear right after streaking through the local town on a wintry eve with warm sake pumping through your veins – and right before you’re invited to stay in cozy concrete dwelling lodgings with a roommate who may or may not be sane but definitely sees it as an opportunity to share her menstruation cycle details with you. Ah, yes. I’ve fond memories everytime I strike this pose. Wait- maybe that’s the reason I can’t seem to get out of that hunched-over-my-lunch-tray-so-TreDogg-doesn’t-steal-it posture.
As your yoga instructor, I invite you to invite props into this pose.
Specifically, a shank to grip, a doo-rag under the dome to double for cranial support.
And -as ever – some toilet made white lightning.
(Ya know, for liquid courage.)
Next up: FIFTY SHADESTURBATION POSE
Like getting roughed up but having control too?
I, for one, can never decide if I want to be on top or bottom. It’s like the second I request affection in the form of a chokehold, I regret it slightly (though that may just be my oxygen stores depleting from my brain and disturbing my normal line of thinking). But then when I flip that shiz like an egg timer, I’m tired before the sand even half reaches the bottom. And sand’s the perf. analogy for how much of a non turn on the effort of reverse cowgirl is without the aid of alcohol. #toomucheffort The solution to all of that is found in the above pose. Sure, you’re going into an impossible bondage asana – but it’s self imposed, you’re breathing through it, you’re in control, and you can get out of it any time you like.
Actually that last bit may or may not be true.
And I may or may not be writing this article through the nook of my knee.
Moving onto… CENOBITE ASANA
You all seen Hellraiser?
I’m just going to pretend everyone’s issuing me a collective nod and eyeroll that telegraphs the message #obvi to me so that we can all remain friends and I don’t have to judge you silently. But, in the event that you’ve “forgotten” some of your favorite characters in the cast, this above pose is an homage to Mr. Torso. A character who, I assume, wise pre-cognition imbued yogi-betas thousands of years ago modeled the above pose after – as an homage to the poor creature whose amazing upper body strength was no match for the despair he must’ve felt wandering the underworld in search for his eternally cheesin’ master who’d sadly died (kinda like that episode of Futurama with the dog, amirite?).
(A beautiful reminder of the face we all make the first time we try this pose.)
Finally: TETANUS DEATH POSE
“Tetanus is ‘T” for tight muscles … and Botulism – ‘-lism’ like ‘loose’ muscles…”
I remember coming up with this as a device to remember the ways I’d die if I ever ate a can of bulging tomato soup (like the logistics of biology on a self awareness level is really the last thing going through your mind as your spinal muscles spasm and snap your backbone in half). Nonetheless, as I took to the internet to hunt down a good, jarring image with which to pair my new memory technique, I came across a wiki-pic depiction of death by tetanus.
And whattdya know. Doppelganger for my death asana if I ever saw one:
The irony is that I spend my life feeling like I’m in a perpetual stress-induced version of tetanus-lite – weak lower back muscles, arched spine, tight shoulders, clenched jaw grimace, shitty breathing… yet doing the tet-death pose kinda sorta helps stretch all’a that out. Funny, that. Guess it’s kinda like how if you take Adderall when you’re normal, it makes you hyper – but if you give it to someone hyperactive, it sorts them out.
Speaking strictly for me, the similarity to both, I suppose, is the headache you get from each after ya come down.
That’s all for today, lovers.
I feel my OG yogi homies would be proud.
Keep posted for more of Ashley’s Asanas.